Cooking Mode

Cooking mode lets you step through a recipe one instruction at a time — keeping your screen on and your place while your hands are busy.

Starting cooking mode

Open a recipe.
Tap Start Cooking at the bottom of the screen.
Marinaid switches to a full-screen view showing the first step.

Navigating steps

Swipe left or tap Next to advance to the next step.
Swipe right or tap Back to revisit a previous step.
The progress bar at the top shows how far through the recipe you are.

The prep step

If a recipe has advance prep worth doing, Marinaid puts a Prep Step page in front of step one — the chopping, soaking, marinating, and thawing that is easier to get out of the way before you start cooking. Swipe past it to reach the first instruction.

Prep is worked out once and reused every time you cook that recipe, so it does not regenerate on every cook. When Apple Intelligence wrote it, the page says so — it is worth a read before you rely on it.

Regenerating the prep step

If the prep step is wrong, incomplete, or just not useful, press and hold anywhere on the prep page and choose Regenerate Prep Step. Marinaid works it out again from scratch and replaces what was there.

The result can differ from one run to the next, so if you do not like what you get, regenerating again is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Two other things clear the prep step, both rebuilding it the next time you cook:

Editing the recipe. Changing the title, ingredients, steps, or serving count drops the old prep, since it was written against the previous version.
A better result becoming available. When we improve how prep is written, or an iOS update brings a newer on-device model, Marinaid rebuilds prep rather than serving you the older version forever.

Using VoiceOver? The same action is on the prep page in the actions rotor — swipe up or down to reach Regenerate prep step, then double-tap.

Live Activities

When you start cooking mode, Marinaid starts a Live Activity on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island (iPhone 14 Pro and later). This shows:

The current step number and total steps
A brief preview of the current instruction

You can glance at your Lock Screen without unlocking your phone while your hands are messy.

On your Apple Watch

When cooking mode is running on your iPhone, your Apple Watch mirrors it — so you can keep your place with a glance at your wrist and leave your phone out of the splash zone.

Steps on your wrist. Swipe through the same steps you see on your phone, including the prep page if the recipe has one.
The ingredient list. Check quantities without picking your phone back up.
A complication. Put the recipe you’re cooking one tap away from your watch face.
Rate and note when you finish. Complete the last step on the Watch and you can leave a rating and a note right there — it saves to the recipe just as it would on the phone.

Steps stay in sync both ways: advance on the Watch and your phone follows, advance on the phone and your Watch follows.

There’s no way to start a cook from the Watch — it mirrors a session that’s already running. Open the recipe on your iPhone, tap Start Cooking, and the Watch picks it up.

Cooking on iPad

An Apple Watch pairs with an iPhone only — Apple doesn’t support pairing a Watch to an iPad. So a cook you start on your iPad won’t reach your Watch, and the Watch app will keep showing “Start cooking on your iPhone.”

This isn’t something we can work around. If you want the cook on your wrist, start it on your iPhone. Your recipes, ratings, and notes sync across all your devices either way, so it’s only the live cooking session that’s iPhone-only.

If the Watch isn’t showing your cook

Make sure a cook is actually running on your iPhone, not your iPad.
Check that the Marinaid Watch app is installed — open the Watch app on your iPhone and look under Available Apps.
Open the Marinaid app on your Watch once. The first launch after installing has to connect before it can receive anything.
If it’s still blank, keep your iPhone and Watch near each other for a few seconds — the session catches up on the next connection.

Timers

If a step includes a time (“simmer for 10 minutes”), tap the timer chip to start a countdown. The timer runs in the background and sends a notification when it finishes.

Ending cooking mode

Tap Done in the top right, or swipe down, to exit cooking mode. You’ll be prompted to rate the recipe.

Tips

Lock screen brightness stays on during cooking mode — plug in your device if you’re cooking a long recipe.
You can switch apps without losing your place; cooking mode resumes where you left off.