Apple unveils watchOS 10, bringing full app redesigns, new Health features, Workout app improvements, and more

Apple has unveiled watchOS 10, one of Apple’s most significant updates to the Apple Watch, bringing users a fresh approach to view information with redesigned apps, a new Smart Stack to show relevant widgets, and new watch faces.

Available later in the year for Apple Watch Series 4 or later paired with iPhone Xs or later, running iOS 17, watchOS 10 features a full set of redesigned apps to provide more information at a glance, and there are new ways to navigate and quickly access content.

Apple Watch apps, including Weather, Stocks, Home, Maps, Messages, World Clock, and others, now utilise more of the Apple Watch display for more glanceable information. The Activity app on Apple Watch and the Fitness app on iPhone make tracking daily movement even easier with more details, improvements to sharing, a redesigned trophy case, and Apple Fitness+ trainer tips.

A new Smart Stack contains widgets that display timely information that adapts to the user’s context and can be revealed with a turn of the Digital Crown from any watch face. For example, at the beginning of the day, Weather will show the forecast, or, when traveling, the Smart Stack will show boarding passes from Wallet.

Image: Apple

Control Center is now accessible using the side button, making it easy to quickly open it at any time, over any app. A double-click of the Digital Crown reverts back to any apps used recently.

watchOS 10 introduces two new awatch faces: Palette and Snoopy. The Palette face depicts time in a wide variety of colours using three distinct overlapping layers, and as the time changes, the colours on the display also shift.

Additionally, the comic strip Peanuts comes to Apple Watch with a new watch face featuring Snoopy and Woodstock. The characters interact and play with the watch hands, react to the weather conditions in the area, and even get active when the user does a workout.

When a cycling workout is started from Apple Watch in watchOS 10, it will automatically show up as a Live Activity on iPhone and, when tapped, will utilise the full screen. Workout Views, such as Heart Rate Zones, Elevation, Race Route, Custom Workouts, and a new Cycling Speed view, have been optimised for the display size of iPhone, which can be mounted to a bike for convenient viewing during a ride.

With the Mindfulness app in watchOS 10, users can log their momentary emotions and daily moods. Users can turn the Digital Crown to scroll through engaging, multidimensional shapes to choose how they are feeling, select what is having the biggest impact on them, and describe their feelings.

Image: Apple

NameDrop allows users to share contact information by bringing Apple Watch close to someone else’s iPhone. Apple Watch users can also use NameDrop by tapping the Share button in My Card in the Contacts app, or by tapping the My Card watch face complication, and then bringing Apple Watch face to face with someone else’s Apple Watch.

The developer beta of watchOS 10 is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today. A public beta will be available to watchOS users next month at beta.apple.com.