watchOS 10: Everything Changed

25 Comments

1. You could access the control centre before within apps, you had to hold at the bottom of the screen then swipe up. This also works with the Notification Centre. Though it clearly is hard to discover

2. Good review, thanks. Like seemingly many, many, others I regard watchOS 10 as a significant step backwards. I find the Dock very useful – I launch my favourite Apps multiple times each day using the Dock, and to have this functionality removed makes watchOS 10 a no-go for me. watchOS 10 seems to be large 'change for the sake of change'. I won't be installing watchOS 10 for as long as the Dock functionality is missing.

3. Thank you so much for this video! This morning I had the very rude and unwelcomed introduction to watchOS 10 on my Series 6; these new changes are not toddler friendly at all, ugh!!! waterlock to the rescue!

4. The UI of watchOS 10 is a mess honestly. There’s a lot of unrefined ui elements like cards and buttons with weird radius. And the UX is also pretty broken. Like now when you’re in app view, you can swipe up and go from app view to widget to watch face and lastly to the Notification Center, and the animations between transitioning through all these pages is not conveying a message of how the concept of the UX works, it just does not make any sense at all. As a product designer it’s hard for me to believe that this is what came out of apple’s talented design team.

5. Yeah that's a Train wreck. It would be better if you could choose different options for what button did, because some of that is 💩. It really might be time for Tim to go.

6. I've depended on the swipe up to ping my phone, as I lose it multiple times a day. the muscle memory is completely unavoidable at this point. I will always swipe up before i remember to tap that button. It's weird to buy a product and then over night it's like a completely different watch… Why change this much? And who asked lol.

7. Given that there are lots of changes, is it worth upgrading the OS as it takes a long time to learn?

8. i used shortcuts to do all the "widgets" stuff. defintely a regression with more clicks. i want less. except for snoopy. nothing new, just painful.

9. Been using watch OS 10 since the first beta and it feels completely natural. Not a fan of the colorful backgrounds everywhere but they are slowly growing on me. I still prefer the old weather app.

10. Make my AW7 battery drain fast.. on watchOS 9.. i’ve got 30H (100%-20%) .. but now watchOS 10: just 16H (100%-20%)with the same Battery Health: 95%

11. Just a few notes:

    1:20 – prior watchOS 10, you can access Control Center inside apps. You just have to long press on the bottom of the display, wait for a visual and haptic confirmation that your long press was identified, then swipe up.
    1:34 – double clicking the digital crown prior watchOS 10 was a quick way to get back to your last switched app

    Overall, watchOS 10 feels like one step forward and two steps back. The only step forward being the widgets view on the Watch face because I can finally use watch faces that don't have complications, yet still have access to relevant data. Still, this widgets view is only accessible on the Watch face, unlike Control Center which it took the spot on the bottom of the screen.

    I'm also not happy with the number of steps involved to access some of my commonly used tools in the Watch. For example in Now Playing, I now have to tap additional screens to get into my Up Next queue, or to stream my media through another speaker via AirPlay.

    Losing the summary screen you are greeted with when launching apps such as Heart Rate, Activity, and Weather also feels a step back. I get that the watch is maturing, and the redesigned apps look good. I'd even argue that Apple has redesigned watchOS for the inevitable future that Apple Watch will be independent from the iPhone, but at the end of the day, it's a device attached to my wrist. I want to interact with it with a few steps as much as possible. I need information and quick actions at a glance, not buried under multiple sub-menus for the sake of change.

12. This is very helpful. I was having some trouble trying to delete my recent open apps. You are my go to guy for Apple when I need to learn something that I don't know.

13. I always keep swapping accidentally between faces. For me at least it’s not a bad change 👍

14. Using my watch every day in public safety, I've had to resort to a single watch face because all to often it would get bumped and change faces away to one without a second hand. Now I can have multiple watch faces and switch between them for when I'm on duty and off and not loose what I need when I really need it there.

15. So far, watch OS 10 has been 90% in the right direction for me. I do kind of miss being able to swipe watch faces, but that’s only because I utilized the 4 different faces to have more access to complications. Probably won’t need this as much though now, since they revamped the icon view, and it works how I always wanted it to 😉

    I also really like that the side button brings you straight to Settings now—I always wanted this since day 1, and I feel like Apple was reading my mind on that one 😂 this is going to be especially useful for me, since I’m often changing Bluetooth settings, pairing the watch up to speakers, etc.

    Also, is it just me, or does the Maps app work better now too? I wish I could do an A/B comparison now, but I swear it’s easier to search for things on there and cycle through options with the Digital Crown (I searched for Starbucks locations the other day, and the Digital Crown highlighted different “pins” on the map as I scrolled, while also cycling through the different “info cards” for each location…maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t remember it doing this before…either way, I love it! 😁).

16. Thanks Chris, I have not been able to change my watchface since monday. i agree, this redesign is a step back in many aspects.

17. Feels strange to turn off automatic updates because I’m usually anxious to try all the new OSes, but there’s no way I’m risking getting this on my watch 😬

18. why is the shortcut widget not showing up for me?

19. To me, the long press to change the faces is THE BEST thing ever, i use to have just one face because of unintended face-swap, it was awful.

20. Yeah I’m not liking the changes so far. I know with IT stuff that resistance to change is common and people need to give things a chance, but taking away the pinned apps entirely seems like a regressive design decision to me. 

    The widgets not being a dedicated watch face but something you have to swipe up to access is crazy to me too, especially as it doesn’t work on the Siri watch face (which is my preferred watch face). They haven’t even tried to add the widgets to the Siri face either, and given that face shows two cards at once it’s much more usable than the widget screen where only one widget is fully visible. Hopefully Apple with change things back like they did with the Safari changes.

21. Thanks for the information and tips. Blessings on your day!

22. The double-clicking on the watch was being used before, it was for quick switching between your last two used apps (I used it fairly frequently).

    I found the lack of swipe to change watch faces and I agree that feels like a regression, but I’m guessing more people triggered it by mistake than used it like we did.

23. I wish they would add an option to allow swipe up for Control Center instead of Widgets (you can still access widgets with the crown scroll).

24. 1. I want compass view in maps while navigating so that it rotates the map automatically in the direction I’m facing

    2. Get the time and date out of the widget view and replace it with some pin-able app icons. I’m on a watch! I don’t need to see the time again!

    3. Messages is perfect, but for those struggling – they updated the touch radius for the buttons in the corners. You now have to tap a bit more “inside” the screen instead of closer to the edge like you’re used to.

    4. I can’t figure out how to consistently tap the active app icon at the top of the watch face when there’s an app running in the background. I always seem to miss and launch one of my complications

25. Some changes I love such as cycling update but others not so much. Biggest annoyance for me I live in the UK and the always on goes into night mode set by the ambient sensor. It's always grey here. Im also not a fan of losing favourite apps from the button. I guess I just got to get used to it. Thank you for your content again. You sir are always there to get into the detail which I like.