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The biggest change for watchOS this year is probably the introduction of widgets. Viewable data is now not limited to hourly customization. The addition of widgets comes with a shake-up in how watchOS 10 moves around, and some watch faces are affected as well.

watchOS UX

watchOS 10 has relearned a few things about what buttons and swipes call for, and an updated tutorial guides you in the right direction during setup. Here’s what’s new:

  • Swiping up from the bottom on the watch face pulls up widgets (usually).
  • Clicking the side button in the control center
  • Double-clicking the Digital Crown will take you to the dock (if we still call it that).

In watchOS 9, swiping up opened Control Center, the side button opened Dock, and double-clicking the crown let you go to the last used app and back.

All this wobble is mainly on calling widgets, which can be brought down by rolling the digital crown clockwise.

watchOS no longer features a Dock, however, and it doesn’t appear to be customizable anymore. You can dismiss apps from this multitasking interface by swiping from right to left to reveal the X button.

Also no longer available in watchOS 10 Beta 1 is the ability to switch between watch faces by swiping from edge to edge. This means long-press swipe or scroll to move forward.

Not related to these changes is a refresh of the grid app’s layout. If you prefer the list view for a better editing experience, you may want to revisit the grid. Honeycomb is now a stream of app icons instead.

See frontal collisions

Back to the impact of widgets on user experience. While you can swipe up on (almost) any watch face to reveal your collection of gadgets, a more mechanical mechanism is hovering over the digital crown. This shows a conflict with one face on some watches.

Apple Watch Ultra includes a hardware-specific face called WiFinder. One of its unique features is the night mode. This watch face color replaces it with a red and black theme that is easy on the eyes in the dark. It also requires less eye adjustment when moving from the clock display to the stars in the sky.

How do you call night mode? Scroll to the Digital Crown! This feature only lasts for one year. Night mode is still there, but long-press the watch face, tap Edit, slide to the third customization option, and rotate the crown to switch between modes.

That’s definitely not as simple as the original design. The bright side? The chance of accidentally entering or exiting night mode is now basically zero.

While Night Mode is buried in widgets, watchOS 10 includes a third option, “Self.” After a quick test in a dark room, it’s clear that this is based on ambient light sensing. In fact, this is more useful than the spine-crown-to-arms method.

Then there’s the Siri watch face. The new widget system is similar to the Siri watch face design. You have control over data sources and can cycle through tiles by scrolling up and down.

So will the new widgets in watchOS 10 fill the Siri watch face with more expansion? Not in beta 1. The Siri watch face doesn’t have access to widgets.

More

A few other tips you should know about watchOS 10 and gadgets:

  • You can tap and hold to pin, add, or remove widgets directly on the watch.
  • Digital clock watch faces include a digital clock widget at the top of the widget stack. Analog watch faces use analog watches.
  • Unlike watch faces and apps, widgets don’t yet have an always-on display mode. Lowering your wrist will call up the always-on version of your watch face.

watchOS 10 is currently in developer beta. Future beta releases may change any of these features before the final release. We will post!

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