The latest version ofwatchOSsees some of the biggest changes we’ve seen in any version of watchOS for many years. you’re able to run watchOS 10 onolder models of Apple Watchas far back as the Apple Watch Series 4, so unless you’re rocking a really oldApple Watch, you’ll be able to make the upgrade. A lot has been added to watchOS 10, including a brand-new Smart Stack of widgets, new mental health features, and even a whole new gesture if you have anApple Watch Series 9orApple Watch Ultra 2.
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However, so much has been added to the operating system that compromises were made. Some of the decisions are less than ideal, and there are some major gripes with the watchOS 10 that are still causing frustration after months of use. The good news is that Apple is fixing one of these annoying problems. Several still remain, but here are three watchOS 10 disasters and one former problem that’s getting its fix.
The three gripes we have
1. Some Apple Watch gestures have changed
Muscle memory is a wonderful thing. Perform an action enough times, and it soon becomes second nature. Navigating your Apple Watch was a perfect example; if you’d lost youriPhone, a quick swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open the Control Centre and a tap of theFind iPhone button, and your iPhone started making a noise. Before long, you could do it without even looking. Then watchOS 10 came along and ruined it all.
Theaddition of widgetsto the Apple Watch admittedly is a very useful feature, but accessing them uses the same swipe-up gesture that is used to open the Control Centre. I’ve been using watchOS 10 for months, and I still find myself swiping up to open the Control Centre, only to find I’ve opened the Smart Stack instead.
The Control Centre is now opened with a press of the side button. But that gesture used to be the way to open the dock. Now, to open the dock, you have to double-press the digital crown. This means that there are three gestures that no longer do what they used to, and you have a lot of muscle memory to overcome. Eventually, all of these gestures will become second nature, but in the meantime, it’s a whole world of pain.
2. Grid View is now just List View with icons
There are some questions that you may quickly use to determine what sort of person you’re dealing with. Coke or Pepsi?Marioor Sonic? Grid View or List View?
That final question is now pretty much useless because Grid View is now just List View with icons. Instead of the beehive of icons that you could zoom in and out of using the digital crown, you now get a stack of app icons that you may scroll up and down through. It’s a list by any other name, and if you were on team Grid View, you’d be understandably miffed that you only get to choose between two forms of List View now.
Currently, there’s no way to go back to the old-style Grid View, so zooming in and out of your grid may be gone forever.
3. The Stopwatch app is now white
OK, this may be a personal preference, but the new Stopwatch app is just not my favourite. Every other native app on the Apple Watch uses a black background, and the Stopwatch app used to as well. In watchOS 10, however, the Stopwatch app now has a white background, which shouldn’t make a huge difference, but somehow just looks wrong.
Good luck trying to time something in low light subtly; your Apple Watch face will glow like a beacon at night. It doesn’t seem like a hugely demanding task to give people the option to change back to a black background if they wish, but currently, white is all there is.
To make matters worse, the Graph view for the stopwatch has now also gone, too. In watchOS 9, you had a choice of Analog, Digital, Graph, or Hybrid views. In watchOS 10, you can choose Analog, Digital, or Hybrid, but the Graph view is nowhere to be seen. You can still see a graph of your lap times in the Hybrid view, but you don’t get the same full-screen graph that you did with Graph View. Bring back the watchOS 9 Stopwatch app, please.
The gripe that’s being fixed
Swiping to a new face
Another major gripe we had when watchOS 10 was released was that swiping between Watch Faces was no longer possible. In watchOS 9 and earlier, you could quickly change to a new watch face by swiping left or right on the current face. This was really useful for creating different faces for different purposes, such as a workout face, a work face, a home face, etc. You could then quickly switch from face to face with a swipe.
When watchOS 10 launched, the ability to swipe between faces was gone. Some Apple Watch users didn’t like the feature anyway, complaining that they were accidentally switching to a different watch face without intending to, but there were plenty of people who used this feature on a regular basis, and weren’t too impressed that it was gone. Switching faces in watchOS 10 is still possible, but you need to press the screen long before swiping to another option, adding another gesture to an otherwise seamless process.
With the release of watchOS 10.2 (currently in beta), you’re able to choose to bring back the old swipe to switch faces gesture if you wish, meaning both sides of the argument can have what they want. This is a refreshing change from being locked into something whether you like it or not. Hopefully, Apple will see sense and give meaningful alternative options for some of the other issues listed above.
How to turn on Swipe to Switch Watch Face on Apple Watch
Turning on the Swipe to Switch Watch Face feature is easy to do, although the setting is hidden away where you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find it. You’ll need to be running watchOS 10.2 in order to use this feature.
How to get watchOS 10.2 right now
This feature is only available in watchOS 10.2, and this version of watchOS 10 is currently in beta, so you can either wait until the official release ortry the beta versionat your own risk. However, it shouldn’t be a huge amount of time before the official version is released, so if you don’t want to risk bricking your Apple Watch, you might prefer to wait a little longer.
What’s good about watchOS 10?
If all of the above makes it sound like watchOS 10 is a pile of rubbish, this definitely isn’t the case. There may be some frustrating issues with the new version of watchOS, but there are alsoplenty of great features, too.
The new widgets are genuinely useful, allowing you to quickly access your favourite apps or shortcuts from any Watch Face. It means you aren’t forced to use a Watch Face that can fit in a lot of complications; you can hide all of these in the Smart Stack.
NameDrop is another useful feature that allows you to quickly share your contact details with other Apple users just bybringing your devices close together. There are some newmental health options, including the ability to log your current mood and your mood for the entire day so you can keep an eye on your mental health trends.
Apple Watch Series 9
The watchOS 10.1 update also introduced theDouble Tap gestureforApple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2users. It allows you to interact with your Apple Watch just by tapping your fingers together, which can be really useful if you don’t have both of your hands-free. If you don’t have one of the latest Apple Watch models, you canmimic the Double Tap featureeven on older models of Apple Watch. And, of course, watchOS 10 allows you to haveSnoopy and Woodstock on your watch face.
It’s unlikely that Apple will change the gestures in watchOS 10, but hopefully, the Stopwatch and Grid View are things that Apple can address with updates so that watchOS 10 really becomes the excellent watchOS that it very almost is.
