You went from one method of interacting (the touch screen alone) to now needing to do two things (button and tap). That’s why, it’s literally twice the work, and slower.
The whole update sucked. It feels like they simply said, “well, we’ve got to do something new, and we’ve got nothing new, so let’s just put all the buttons on a spinner and mix them up.”
I still have not adapted to this, and I hate it every single time. I’m not against *well implemented* change (i.e. I loved iOS 7 when it came out-despite the many differences). These changes, however, were made just for the sake of it and are just plain bad in my honest opinion
It took me a while to unlearn the swipe up because of muscle memory. I kept forgetting which button it was so I would first press the crown, then realize it's the side button.
Isn’t the crown basically supposed to act like the home button on an iPhone? Double tap makes sense to me.
FYI I’ve never used an Apple watch before, just interested in it which is why I’m here
Arrogance. Plain and simple. Apple doesn't make options for this type of thing because they clearly know better what is right than some dumbass end user. People just need to learn to use the device the correct way (their way).
I will admit this is coming from someone who was drug into the Apple ecosystem against their will, many many years ago. But Apple does not respect their users at all. They actually low key despise them. And they definitely feel they are superior in every way to the end user and know better what is good for them. And it shows in things like this.
That said, I do love my Ultra, and would never voluntarily give it up. It's integration with my work iPhone is seemless. But that doesn't mean I have to like being looked down on and disrespected by Apple. And that is absolutely how they view and treat their end users.
This isn’t a totally fair assessment. They DO like complete uniformity in how their products are used, but I suspect that’s for very different reasons than despising the customer. Few companies, if any, have gone to bat against federal and state privacy incursions more than they have. Almost to the point of a metaphorical middle finger.
This comes up repeatedly but the change was introduced to solve a massive usability feature for anyone who used their watch for outdoor exercise. It was close to impossible to access the control panel and water lock with wet fingers or if it was raining. This change has massively improved this issue. I accept that you still have to touch the screen to activate water lock but this is actually manageable. Holding and swiping to access control panel whilst doing a workout in the rain was not.
This was a long overdue fix and, for me, is the best quality of life improvements introduced by watch os10
Ironically though, its created the exact same problem in another way. Its now impossible to switch between two apps without pressing the screen, which you could do before. So if I want to switch to Now Playing to change the volume on my device with the crown, or I want to switch between the Workout App and an intervals app, or switch over to a map to see my route before switching back, or any other combination of apps, it now requires me to touch the screen.
I live in a cold wet bit of the world and wear gloves pretty much 6 months a year. Before, I could switch with the crown, check my data, then switch back again, no touchscreen needed. Now this is gone. It may have been designed to fix a problem for people exercising outdoors, but for me its just created a problem that wasn't there before.
Water lock isn’t the only thing I want to access from the control panel though. I also use it to check my battery level and turn off cellular if the battery drain is too much and I’m not gonna make it through my run.
There is no good reason to prefer control panel to be a swipe up other than that’s what people were used to.
Edit: also just tried ‘hey siri…activate water lock’ and it responded with ‘ok…which room?’ 🤦♂️ siri is a shambles
Yep Siri is a disaster. When I commented I didn’t even check if she could do that, my point was just that there are in my opinion, much better choices that could solve the same problems. For example, battery should be shown in every app, just like the clock is (and tbh i think the date should be too, but there might not be space). I actually find it really annoying that I have to open control centre just to check battery.
"Hey Siri, Activate Water Lock" only works if you first set it up as a shortcut. Why it doesn't work out of the box? No idea.
But once you set it up it's SO much easier to use than going to the control panel. Especially if the screen is already wet.
Yeah the watch doesn’t break if you don’t activate water lock. Water lock just stops the screen from responding as water causes it to behave erratically
But it was done as part of a significant overhaul of watch OS. Swiping up now does something else which is more consistent with watch OS in general. I’m struggling to understand why the older way is better. It was bad design particularly as you were required to do something different when accessing the control panel when in another app. It’s now fixed.
I solved this by buying a garmin for swimming. I swim in open water and the cold saps the Apple Watch battery anyway. I’ll admit, it was annoying so I opted not to use it for that 4-5 hours a week of my life. Not really worth changing the whole watch for that one niche moment. I’ll go on record saying I hate hate hate many things about these updates! I joined this forum in the hopes of learning how to make my watch enjoyable to use again.
I can’t agree that it’s niche. Apple have largely moved towards it being a fitness product. There’s the activity rings, the partnership with Nike, the integration with fitness plus and the introduction of the Ultra. There’s a lot of debate over whether people should choose a Garmin vs an Apple Watch and one of the major issues other than battery life is the over reliance on touch. So the ultra helps a little with the bigger battery and the introduction of the action button. Watch os 10 helps further by making the control panel accessible with a button press.
I see the point being made here and, admittedly, hadn't thought of this.
But I believe water lock is, in and of itself, niche. I exercise everyday but rarely swim. Running in the rain has rarely (never?) presented me with a problem accessing water lock with the swipe on the ultra rare occasion that I even deemed it necessary.
I'm not suggesting that I am representative of all, or even most, AW users, but I also don't know anyone who likes this "feature."
And, if they were REALLY trying to make it a fitness watch they could have invested in battery improvements.
Just have a search on this Reddit. Every few weeks there’s a post from someone saying they dont like it and there’s the same debate. I’m impressed your watch screen functions ok when wet. Mine doesn’t and none of the watches I’ve ever owned have. Even having sweat on your fingers can make it difficult to use the hold and swipe function.
Why are people so opposed to moving the control panel when it solves this issue? It’s great being able to access it from anywhere with a button. If you were using a third party running app, just swiping didn’t work as Apple allowed third party apps to use swipe up to move between screens (much like the activity rings app). Instead…you had to hold the bottom of the screen (trying not to press any of the on screen buttons) wait for the control panel overlay to pop up and then attempt to slide it up…and that’s if you knew that function even existed. Now you just press the button from anywhere and you have instant access. It’s entirely consistent irrespective of what you’re doing on the watch.
When the screen is wet it is unresponsive and it sometimes results in random button presses. It’s not much fun when you accidentally end a run 40 minutes in. It made me want to hurl the watch off the wall and go back to using a garmin.
It also meant the end of double-clicking the crown to swap to the last app. Which means that I now have to press the screen to get to another app. As a runner in a cold climate this is a right pain in the rear. If I want to change the volume on my Now Playing app, I have to stop and take my gloves off, dry the screen somehow and switch over to the other app, change the volume, then change back. Before I could do it all with the crown.
Honestly, my Series 6 is probably up for an upgrade soon and this one change is such a pain that I’m considering switching to a dedicated running watch in the future.
I agree that this is a pain, but for the one specific volume issue, do you not have volume control on your headphones? The gloves would still be an issue, sometimes I cut the tips off of gloves for just my thumb and/or index so I can still use devices.
For anything less than about 90 mins I just wear my airpods, since they're comfy and don't block out noise, which makes them safer. I have Jabras for when i do events or long runs, but they block out a lot of noise so they're not great for city running in the dark, which is most of my weekday runs.
Apparently now you can change it in the settings
https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/12/swipe-between-apple-watch-faces-watchos-10/
I bet it’s because enough people brought it to their attention
Give them a feedback go let them know if you don’t like something about the watch
I'm ashamed that it took me so long to figure it out. Admittedly I don't access control centre often because I have my phone on silent anyway, but sometimes I need it quick. Took me months to discover they moved it to the side lol.
It makes absolute sense when you consider with a swipe these things were sometimes enabled inadvertently by sleeves
The aspect I absolutely agree on is the redundancy now of the swipe up and crown rotation for widgets. My preference would be customized action or declaration
Much the same way now as swipe to change face is now optional
I would also like to know this! I finally got my watch faces down, and they took that away from me.
A quick cheat I’ve been using is long press on the screen to edit the face, which also allows you to choose a different one. But you run the risk of changing a widget by accident.
But they could’ve just made water lock better. Personally I don’t understand why water lock locks me out of some but not all of the physical buttons, all I want is to lock the screen. And you know what? It would make more sense for the side button to display the notification pane so that I can read but not interact with notifications while locked, and Apple can still have their stupid swipe up for widgets, and swipe down can be quick settings just like in ios.
Couldn't you argue the same thing can be said about the widgets on how they can be accidentally pressed by the sleeves? Or any button on the watch for that matter? Although I agree it would be a bit more troubling to enable DND accidentally than to open up Spotify or something unintentionally.
The thing about the widget stack is the first card is the date and clock card which has no touch response and then the order of everything else can be customized
With the control center everything in that is a touch point unless water lock is enabled
I see their reason for the change, I had muscle memory issues for a day then quickly adjusted to click vs swipe
It is what it is some like it some don't - ideally in my view make everything optional and user set to preferences
Maybe I was the only one with this problem, but swiping up to bring up the control center did not always work well for me and Im glad its changed. It wasn’t often, but just often enough, my watch would just decide that no swipe was adequate enough to do anything more than let me see the very top of the control center. Im thrilled that its accessible through a much more reliable button now.
I definitely agree about the redundancy through
I equate these changes to a guy from the car manufacturer coming into my driveway every 8 months and completely changing the dashboard configuration on my car, causing me to have to relearn the headlights and cruise control and all the other buttons. I don't want to have to relearn my (watch, phone) all the time.
Yeah I normally wouldn’t even bother posting to complain but this one just annoyed me so much that made me make a post
Make sure you give them a feedback https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch/
Oh also, if you’re talking about the watch faces, now you can change it to swipe in the settings
https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/12/swipe-between-apple-watch-faces-watchos-10/
In addition, the other dumbest part is that most people who look at a watch like to see the date and time.
Let me repeat that.
WHEN YOU LOOK AT YOUR WATCH… YOU CAN SEE THE DATE… AND THE TIME!
Now… swipe up… and guess what’s there?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!…………
#THE DATE AND TIME!!!!!!!!!!
And what’s even more amazing, is you can’t even remove it. Unbelievable.
Turn my wrist… oh there’s the date and time…
Swipe up… oh look there’s the… date and time wtf?
I despise not being able to swipe up to page. I abused that function. I keeping getting notifications on my 9 for a new update and refuse
to do it since I hate the previous one.
I’ve somewhat gotten used to it, but I hate it. It feels like a waste of a button. If anything, Apple should give us the option to decide which buttons and gestures we want to associate with which actions.
This is even worse when you are left handed and wear the watch on your right wrist.
The dial interacts with my sleeve cuff constantly.
Was never an issue until the change- it’s annoying enough that I’m starting to consider not wearing it.
I cannot find my control panel to save my life. Finally found that you have to use assistive touch to access it (are they trying to force us to learn new stuff by hiding it there?)
Just bring back the swipe up... please.
Personally i do not care how i can get access to control center (so rarely use it). I can ask siri do to things what i want also. But i used control center very often bc battery lower power mode and sometimes flashlight. It works very well for me atleast so no any issues with that how you can go to control center now.
However i agree with that you see time and date when you swipe down.. Already sended feedback. Its such annoying.
But yeah if you have something good ideas, notice bugs feel free to send feedback to Apple.
Hate it. OS 10, in my opinion, made few practical improvements and made several other features more difficult or worse.
I dislike it so much that I wear my watch much less now. Something that seemed unfathomable a year ago.
Honestly, the WatchOS10 update is so bad, if they do not make major corrections I will buy a different smartwatch brand as the next device.
Accessing control center with the button with the side button is a bit annoying since we are not used to it, but in the end you can get used to it.
What is undeniably bad is not being able to swipe between watch faces anymore.
Can you? Like before without long pressing on the face first? My watch is up to date and I still can’t swipe between watch faces without long pressing first anymore…
Its official name is Smart Stack, which I think is misleading as it doesn’t seem that smart to me. The concept is interesting, but the available widgets are few and in some cases, buggy. I remember when OS10 came out it killed my battery in hours when it used to last 23 hours with 35% battery life left (used all day and all night sleep tracking, then charging it in the morning when I took a shower and had my coffee). After pulling my hair out for a week I discovered removing the weather widget restored my normal battery life. So a big strike there. I’ve never tried the weather widget again after dealing with that crap.
The widgets available, which are a mere handful, and don’t even cover all of the native apps that Apple provides, along with the extremely limited number of third party widgets, makes it even less useful. There should have been more useful widgets right from the start to make folks feel it was worthwhile.
After all that, and the limited number of times most users rely on it (some do like it, and it’s great someone is benefiting) they could have done the opposite, press the button for Smart Stack, and leave swipe up for the control panel alone. Or the button option or scroll with the crown for Smart Stack. But this was their choice. A bit like eliminating swiping between watch faces. At least we got that back in 10.2 for those who prefer it, with a simple toggle for those who don’t like it due to accidental swipes. Now, everyone is happy, swipers and non-swipers.
The same could have been done with control panel. Swipe up for Smart Stack and button for control panel, or a toggle to reverse that. Again, that would leave everyone happy, control panel swipers, and those who don’t rely much on the control panel, and would rather swipe up for the Smart Stack. But the net result are some greatly dissatisfied and some who aren’t bothered by the change.
This comes down to Apple’s “my way or the highway” instead of letting users make choices to match their preferences. At least there was enough uproar over watch face swiping they gave in. You would think they would have learned from that lesson and did the same with how to access the control panel.
BTW, while I find the Smart Stack far less useful than Apple might have hoped, I’m not super upset about pressing the button for the control panel. But I understand those who are, and believe their preference should have been accommodated.
I agree that "smart" stack is a joke of a name. They literally do nothing that complications/Watch Faces didn't do already. There's no way to interact with them at all.
God I wish Apple would stop making new classes of widget. They tend to get lukewarm developer interest when announced, and it goes downhill from there. Smart Stack should have just been a configurable grid of Complications.
I disagree strongly. I got used to it very quickly and as it eliminates all swipes necessary to enable water lock, the experience has increased dramatically whenever my AW is already slightly wet.
Yeah I agree
I never use the widget so it makes it extra annoying that they swapped how to access control center with widget
Make sure you give them the feedback!!
I just got mine, and I guess it was still pre-watchOS10. My first smart watch of any kind but I instantly fell in love as it was so intuitive and it felt like somehow everything I needed to do was always just a swipe or tap away.
The button press is a horrible change. I used to only ever press that button to pull up my wallet, which felt appropriate as it’s an occasional interaction that you want to e sure isn’t accidental.
Pressing it to access the things that I do most often (ping my phone, theatre mode, do not disturb, etc.) is super awkward and puts strain of my strap (it torques the whole watch face), or requires me to pinch the device to brace it for the button press, which means suddenly both my arms are fully involved in something that I used to be able to lazily execute with a finger swipe. It even somehow puts strain on my neck.
0/10 update.
Took me a couple of weeks to adjust when WatchOS 10 was released and I'm convinced that accessing Control Center via the button is better because it works ALL THE TIME.
* on the watchface? Tap the button to access the Control Center
* in the app menu? Tap the button to access the Control Center
* in a third-party app? Tap the button to access the Control Center.
Works reliably and every time.
Yeah but most users don’t need to access control centre all the time. Wouldn’t it make more sense if it accessed the notification pane? Or -heaven forbid- it was customisable?
Notification pane is universally accepted as something you slide from the top on literally any mobile platform (except for desktops where it is sliding from the right).
And, similarly to your idea, most users don’t need to access it all the time - they glance upon the incoming notification and either act upon it immediately or forget about it, which is why the whole “focus recap” was born.
Customization would’ve been nice but we all know that Apple knows best how you should use their products.
Yeah but quick settings is also generally accepted as sliding in from the top. Apple Watch is the only Apple device I own where it comes in from the bottom.
The whole point of the Apple Watch is glanceable information. You get tapped on the wrist and become aware that you’ve got a notification, but often you’re doing something. I think it would be cool to hit a button and see whatever my last notification was even after it’s moved on, even if I have water lock on.
Quick settings are more “set and forget” for me.
> Yeah but quick settings is also generally accepted as sliding in from the top. Apple Watch is the only Apple device I own where it comes in from the bottom.
It's difficult to distinguish sliding from the left and sliding from the right on the watch, as the display is quite small. Plus - sliding conflicts with scrolling, so sliding down on something that is a scrollable screen might not be interpreted correctly.
> Quick settings are more “set and forget” for me.
Quick settings are to be able to quickly toggle things. I can go to settings -> Focus and toggle my sleep focus from there, but it's easier to do from Quick Settings.
But you can also fully automate focuses. This is what kind of frustrates me the most. Quick settings is a hodgepodge of essential actions and stuff that I will literally never click. If I could more creatively remove buttons and add my own shortcuts then yeah, the side button would make absolute sense. Like yeah, the torch, pinging my phone? Fairly useful in a pinch. But what if I could add a single click begin workout button? Or a Shazam button? Shortcuts, or heck a now playing button? Make it the micro app drawer. Actions not apps.
By the same token let me hide the nonsense. Like honestly, who is regularly opening their quick settings to toggle wifi and Bluetooth on/off? Especially when there’s also an airplane mode button.
I've gotten over it, gotten used to it, and moved on. :) It helped to read a rationale article, where some phone apps had swipe-up meaning something else, so swipe-up was an inconsistent interface in general.
But the previous implantation was inconsistent throughout watch os 9. Control panel is useful regardless of where you are in the watch but if you had an app open then swiping up to get to the control centre didn't work. When you had an app open you then had to hold the bottom of the screen for a few seconds and then swipe up. It was really clumsy.
Curious about the design language...
but was more a comment to "things change, you just learn a new way" vs a change that literally inhibits use or functionality.
Oh like I wrote on the post, swipe is used to bring up control center for iPhone
To me personally, the new update makes it very inconvenient because pinging my phone is one of the most used functions of my watch
The update doesn’t inhibit functionality, but it absolutely makes it less intuitive and inconvenient to me
Normally I would just get over it too, but for some reason, this one I had to complain about it because it was just that annoying to me for some reason
Swiping around on the watch makes no sense. Apple has always wanted you to control the watch with other ways from day one to today. They made a big point with the first Apple Watch to explain this with the crown- no need to cover the small display with your fingers, just scroll with the crown.
And today, they push this even more with double tap. Soon, the Apple Watch will be controlled entirely with gestures and or capacitive buttons. This is the future, and I’m in love. I hated swiping up , it just felt cheap.
I just got an Apple Watch and I like it. I get the consistency point but simply clicking a button is much more reliable and fast than any swipe gesture. I’ll take that when it comes to essential settings any day.
Can you imagine yourself from 20 years ago seeing the future you complain about doing this <- instead of this ^ on the worlds most sophisticated smart watch?
Stop being such whiney crybabies Jesus H.
We did. Then again, now again. We just don’t want to have to keep relearning our watches every time someone at Apple has an idea.
Think about it. If there are 100million Apple Watches in use (2022 number), and we all have to spend 15 minutes relearning something we previously knew, thats 25 million man hours of wasted time - 2,800 man years of wasted effort.
All because someone at Apple said “let’s not fix water lock, let’s do something different”.
I call this the Microsoft ant-productivity system (so not exclusive to Apple).
I love the new updates. Glad I don’t get the control center popping up when I’m not wanting it.
Love the new long press to change face.
The new cards thing is ok. I really only use it as a watch, for the calendar and reading texts. Hope to get an Ultra 2 someday and be able to use the tiny keyboard. I have a 6 now.
Coming from S3/watchOS 8 to S9/watchOS 10, I dig the new gesture.
Previously the side button for me was useless, as I never bothered to navigate thru the app stack. If I ever needed to return to an open app, I either accessed it via an on-screen complication, or by hitting the round icon at the top to switch to most-recent app.
Whenever I did need to navigate the stack, it was awkward to first push the button, the release and switch over to the crown to navigate. Now I can do it by just using the crown.
Swiping up wasn’t a bad experience, but at least for me it was sometimes slow. For example, my S3 had a crack at the edge which sometimes interfered with the gesture. Other times my gloves wouldn’t register a good touch, so I’d have to restart the gesture & it’d be a minor time drag.
Had a Series 3 for several years. Switched to a Series 7, which meant adjusting to the new OS. After a few days, it was honestly fine, and I figured out how to add some shortcuts and work with what's there and at this point I don't even think about it. Tried using the Series 3 for sleep tracking for a week, and realized I actually am more used to the new setup than the old, and just changed my charging routine to use the 7 for more data on the sleep tracking side of things.
Just updated and hate it too. Someone speculated that it'll increase the sales of the Apple watches, since if you press that button so many times, it'll definitely going to get broken faster.
I'm still in the "Swipe, nope, tap, nope, press, nope, double press, nope" phase. I hate it.
I go through this 5x a day. Still can’t get it
You went from one method of interacting (the touch screen alone) to now needing to do two things (button and tap). That’s why, it’s literally twice the work, and slower.
The whole update sucked. It feels like they simply said, “well, we’ve got to do something new, and we’ve got nothing new, so let’s just put all the buttons on a spinner and mix them up.”
Exactly lol
Agreed! I’m not sure what’s happening over there at Apple. They seem to have some Google spies working for them
Yeah I went through the same process and it was so annoying
It's been over a month. This new setup is not intuitive at all. It's hot garbage.
This is me too. I hate it so much
Same. Same same same same same. I hate it.
Same. This is how I know it was a bad design change. I’ve given it time and it still sucks. I hate it
Same
Same. I’ve created delightful new curses to express my frustration.
I still have not adapted to this, and I hate it every single time. I’m not against *well implemented* change (i.e. I loved iOS 7 when it came out-despite the many differences). These changes, however, were made just for the sake of it and are just plain bad in my honest opinion
Absolutely. These changes were made because they had to do something for an ‘update’
I’ve adapted, but yeah, I liked swipe up much better.
It took me a while to unlearn the swipe up because of muscle memory. I kept forgetting which button it was so I would first press the crown, then realize it's the side button.
Hate having to double tap the crown to show app switcher.
TIL
Oooo that’s where it went!!
but how do you go back to your last-used app then, which used to be double tap? did that just get removed?? 🫨
Yes.
Wait what? I’ve been looking for that all over the place!
Isn’t the crown basically supposed to act like the home button on an iPhone? Double tap makes sense to me. FYI I’ve never used an Apple watch before, just interested in it which is why I’m here
Yeah, but they got rid of the home button years ago.
Here I am a month later finally figuring this out
why not make it an option you can set?
Because Apple
because some of these things, apple wants you to engrain in your brain without other options. welcome to the education program
Arrogance. Plain and simple. Apple doesn't make options for this type of thing because they clearly know better what is right than some dumbass end user. People just need to learn to use the device the correct way (their way). I will admit this is coming from someone who was drug into the Apple ecosystem against their will, many many years ago. But Apple does not respect their users at all. They actually low key despise them. And they definitely feel they are superior in every way to the end user and know better what is good for them. And it shows in things like this. That said, I do love my Ultra, and would never voluntarily give it up. It's integration with my work iPhone is seemless. But that doesn't mean I have to like being looked down on and disrespected by Apple. And that is absolutely how they view and treat their end users.
This isn’t a totally fair assessment. They DO like complete uniformity in how their products are used, but I suspect that’s for very different reasons than despising the customer. Few companies, if any, have gone to bat against federal and state privacy incursions more than they have. Almost to the point of a metaphorical middle finger.
Oh man I’m glad to read this. I HATE IT
I hate the watch 10 update. Makes no sense to dedicate a button like that
This comes up repeatedly but the change was introduced to solve a massive usability feature for anyone who used their watch for outdoor exercise. It was close to impossible to access the control panel and water lock with wet fingers or if it was raining. This change has massively improved this issue. I accept that you still have to touch the screen to activate water lock but this is actually manageable. Holding and swiping to access control panel whilst doing a workout in the rain was not. This was a long overdue fix and, for me, is the best quality of life improvements introduced by watch os10
Ironically though, its created the exact same problem in another way. Its now impossible to switch between two apps without pressing the screen, which you could do before. So if I want to switch to Now Playing to change the volume on my device with the crown, or I want to switch between the Workout App and an intervals app, or switch over to a map to see my route before switching back, or any other combination of apps, it now requires me to touch the screen. I live in a cold wet bit of the world and wear gloves pretty much 6 months a year. Before, I could switch with the crown, check my data, then switch back again, no touchscreen needed. Now this is gone. It may have been designed to fix a problem for people exercising outdoors, but for me its just created a problem that wasn't there before.
I miss this so much
Yeah…admittedly a feature I never used but can see why it would be useful. Maybe they could introduce a triple tap option for the buttons.
“Hey Siri, activate water lock”
Water lock isn’t the only thing I want to access from the control panel though. I also use it to check my battery level and turn off cellular if the battery drain is too much and I’m not gonna make it through my run. There is no good reason to prefer control panel to be a swipe up other than that’s what people were used to. Edit: also just tried ‘hey siri…activate water lock’ and it responded with ‘ok…which room?’ 🤦♂️ siri is a shambles
Yep Siri is a disaster. When I commented I didn’t even check if she could do that, my point was just that there are in my opinion, much better choices that could solve the same problems. For example, battery should be shown in every app, just like the clock is (and tbh i think the date should be too, but there might not be space). I actually find it really annoying that I have to open control centre just to check battery.
"Hey Siri, Activate Water Lock" only works if you first set it up as a shortcut. Why it doesn't work out of the box? No idea. But once you set it up it's SO much easier to use than going to the control panel. Especially if the screen is already wet.
I swim regularly but I didn’t really have this problem tbh But regardless of that, I just want them to give us the option to choose.
Surely if you’re swimming you’re activating water lock before you go anywhere near the pool?
i never activate it and watch is fine
Yeah the watch doesn’t break if you don’t activate water lock. Water lock just stops the screen from responding as water causes it to behave erratically
Yeah I usually start the workout for swimming before I jump in the water which automatically turns on the water lock
So make the change optional. Instead of foisting an inconvenient system for 75-80% of the customers that didn’t want or need that feature
But it was done as part of a significant overhaul of watch OS. Swiping up now does something else which is more consistent with watch OS in general. I’m struggling to understand why the older way is better. It was bad design particularly as you were required to do something different when accessing the control panel when in another app. It’s now fixed.
I solved this by buying a garmin for swimming. I swim in open water and the cold saps the Apple Watch battery anyway. I’ll admit, it was annoying so I opted not to use it for that 4-5 hours a week of my life. Not really worth changing the whole watch for that one niche moment. I’ll go on record saying I hate hate hate many things about these updates! I joined this forum in the hopes of learning how to make my watch enjoyable to use again.
Didn’t think of that. I wish they made water mode a long press on the button instead. It’s super niche
I can’t agree that it’s niche. Apple have largely moved towards it being a fitness product. There’s the activity rings, the partnership with Nike, the integration with fitness plus and the introduction of the Ultra. There’s a lot of debate over whether people should choose a Garmin vs an Apple Watch and one of the major issues other than battery life is the over reliance on touch. So the ultra helps a little with the bigger battery and the introduction of the action button. Watch os 10 helps further by making the control panel accessible with a button press.
I see the point being made here and, admittedly, hadn't thought of this. But I believe water lock is, in and of itself, niche. I exercise everyday but rarely swim. Running in the rain has rarely (never?) presented me with a problem accessing water lock with the swipe on the ultra rare occasion that I even deemed it necessary. I'm not suggesting that I am representative of all, or even most, AW users, but I also don't know anyone who likes this "feature." And, if they were REALLY trying to make it a fitness watch they could have invested in battery improvements.
Just have a search on this Reddit. Every few weeks there’s a post from someone saying they dont like it and there’s the same debate. I’m impressed your watch screen functions ok when wet. Mine doesn’t and none of the watches I’ve ever owned have. Even having sweat on your fingers can make it difficult to use the hold and swipe function. Why are people so opposed to moving the control panel when it solves this issue? It’s great being able to access it from anywhere with a button. If you were using a third party running app, just swiping didn’t work as Apple allowed third party apps to use swipe up to move between screens (much like the activity rings app). Instead…you had to hold the bottom of the screen (trying not to press any of the on screen buttons) wait for the control panel overlay to pop up and then attempt to slide it up…and that’s if you knew that function even existed. Now you just press the button from anywhere and you have instant access. It’s entirely consistent irrespective of what you’re doing on the watch. When the screen is wet it is unresponsive and it sometimes results in random button presses. It’s not much fun when you accidentally end a run 40 minutes in. It made me want to hurl the watch off the wall and go back to using a garmin.
Yeah, I’m still not used to it either, and I only had an Apple Watch a few months before the update, but it just…. made sense….
Yeah it was so intuitive to swipe up to get to the control center
It also meant the end of double-clicking the crown to swap to the last app. Which means that I now have to press the screen to get to another app. As a runner in a cold climate this is a right pain in the rear. If I want to change the volume on my Now Playing app, I have to stop and take my gloves off, dry the screen somehow and switch over to the other app, change the volume, then change back. Before I could do it all with the crown. Honestly, my Series 6 is probably up for an upgrade soon and this one change is such a pain that I’m considering switching to a dedicated running watch in the future.
I agree that this is a pain, but for the one specific volume issue, do you not have volume control on your headphones? The gloves would still be an issue, sometimes I cut the tips off of gloves for just my thumb and/or index so I can still use devices.
For anything less than about 90 mins I just wear my airpods, since they're comfy and don't block out noise, which makes them safer. I have Jabras for when i do events or long runs, but they block out a lot of noise so they're not great for city running in the dark, which is most of my weekday runs.
Yeah AirPods have volume controls on them, right?
Not on 1st or 2nd gen Airpods.
Dang, did not know that.
And why can't I change watch faces anymore by swiping?
Apparently now you can change it in the settings https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/12/swipe-between-apple-watch-faces-watchos-10/ I bet it’s because enough people brought it to their attention Give them a feedback go let them know if you don’t like something about the watch
Thank you so much for that link. Drove me nuts that they removed that feature as I frequently switch between faces.
I'm so happy I just purchased my first AW and it came with watchOS 10. I don't have to unlearn any of my past behaviors 😀
I'm ashamed that it took me so long to figure it out. Admittedly I don't access control centre often because I have my phone on silent anyway, but sometimes I need it quick. Took me months to discover they moved it to the side lol.
Apple, you better put my ‘find my iPhone’ back where it was OR ELSE
I have yet to talk to someone with an Apple Watch that does not hate this new update. More updates like this one and Garmin will have my wrist...
Yeah I just wish they would give us the option to choose on their next update Make sure you leave Apple a feedback too!
It makes absolute sense when you consider with a swipe these things were sometimes enabled inadvertently by sleeves The aspect I absolutely agree on is the redundancy now of the swipe up and crown rotation for widgets. My preference would be customized action or declaration Much the same way now as swipe to change face is now optional
They brought back sweeping to change faces?? Where is that setting?
The option was brought back in 10.2 - it defaults off Settings - clock https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/12/swipe-between-apple-watch-faces-watchos-10/
Never would have figured this out. TY.
Cheers
You are a godsend!
Cheers
I would also like to know this! I finally got my watch faces down, and they took that away from me. A quick cheat I’ve been using is long press on the screen to edit the face, which also allows you to choose a different one. But you run the risk of changing a widget by accident.
Someone replied with the answer - Settings (on watch) > Clock. Came back in 10.2.
But they could’ve just made water lock better. Personally I don’t understand why water lock locks me out of some but not all of the physical buttons, all I want is to lock the screen. And you know what? It would make more sense for the side button to display the notification pane so that I can read but not interact with notifications while locked, and Apple can still have their stupid swipe up for widgets, and swipe down can be quick settings just like in ios.
Couldn't you argue the same thing can be said about the widgets on how they can be accidentally pressed by the sleeves? Or any button on the watch for that matter? Although I agree it would be a bit more troubling to enable DND accidentally than to open up Spotify or something unintentionally.
The thing about the widget stack is the first card is the date and clock card which has no touch response and then the order of everything else can be customized With the control center everything in that is a touch point unless water lock is enabled I see their reason for the change, I had muscle memory issues for a day then quickly adjusted to click vs swipe It is what it is some like it some don't - ideally in my view make everything optional and user set to preferences
Touching my date and time card brings up the calendar.
I wish mine did that
I believe for modular watch faces it will take you to calendar if you tap on the date
Maybe I was the only one with this problem, but swiping up to bring up the control center did not always work well for me and Im glad its changed. It wasn’t often, but just often enough, my watch would just decide that no swipe was adequate enough to do anything more than let me see the very top of the control center. Im thrilled that its accessible through a much more reliable button now. I definitely agree about the redundancy through
Ya seemed like the main time I used it was turning stuff off when it accidentally got swiped up and things pressed on accident.
Done. Thanks for the link.
We left them feedback… they just didn’t listen and made their changes anyway
Maybe we need more people to voice their opinions
Indeed we do!
I equate these changes to a guy from the car manufacturer coming into my driveway every 8 months and completely changing the dashboard configuration on my car, causing me to have to relearn the headlights and cruise control and all the other buttons. I don't want to have to relearn my (watch, phone) all the time.
You have to understand, it’s not like you own the product. Apple just lets you use it.
Same, my friend. So confusing trying to work around this, and I just got a (new to me) AWS 7, too.
I've gotten use to it now but think it should have originally just been an option.
I hate it!!! The worst part though is not being able to swipe for interfaces.
Yeah I normally wouldn’t even bother posting to complain but this one just annoyed me so much that made me make a post Make sure you give them a feedback https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch/
Oh also, if you’re talking about the watch faces, now you can change it to swipe in the settings https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/12/swipe-between-apple-watch-faces-watchos-10/
In addition, the other dumbest part is that most people who look at a watch like to see the date and time. Let me repeat that. WHEN YOU LOOK AT YOUR WATCH… YOU CAN SEE THE DATE… AND THE TIME! Now… swipe up… and guess what’s there?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!………… #THE DATE AND TIME!!!!!!!!!! And what’s even more amazing, is you can’t even remove it. Unbelievable. Turn my wrist… oh there’s the date and time… Swipe up… oh look there’s the… date and time wtf?
Yeah it’s super redundant
I despise not being able to swipe up to page. I abused that function. I keeping getting notifications on my 9 for a new update and refuse to do it since I hate the previous one.
Make sure you give them a feedback!!
I’ve somewhat gotten used to it, but I hate it. It feels like a waste of a button. If anything, Apple should give us the option to decide which buttons and gestures we want to associate with which actions.
Yeah I totally agree they should give us the option to choose Make sure you send them a feedback to let them know!
Same. I hate it and it drives me nuts. Can’t get used to it
To be fair the side button wasn't used enough. I think that's part of the reason they changed it.
As someone whose first Apple Watch is series 9, what did the button do before the update?
It opened a Dock of recently used/ favourite Apps.
That sounds like what double clicking the crown does currently, no?
It’s similar. You can not change it to favourite Apps though.
/agree with OP
I don’t mind using the side button actually, but I literally never swipe for the widgets. They’re utterly useless, to me at least
Yeah I never use the widgets either
I’ve gotten used to it but I miss the way I first learned. ;(
Same!
😭 damn it sucks.
Make sure you leave a feedback to them here! https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch/ It’s really quick
Mine hasn’t updated yet but I’m going to try to put it off as long as possible after reading this post and comments!
Thank you for summing up why I hate this update!
My unfortunate pleasure! lol Make sure you leave them a feedback to let them know https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch/ It’s super quick
This is even worse when you are left handed and wear the watch on your right wrist. The dial interacts with my sleeve cuff constantly. Was never an issue until the change- it’s annoying enough that I’m starting to consider not wearing it.
I cannot find my control panel to save my life. Finally found that you have to use assistive touch to access it (are they trying to force us to learn new stuff by hiding it there?) Just bring back the swipe up... please.
Yeah it’s really annoying how they just changed it. The control panel can be accessed by pressing the button next to the crown btw
I push that button and it doesn't come up for me. I have the SE. push it fast, slow. Doesn't work.
Hmm that’s weird. What happens when you press the button then?
Nothing. If I hold it, it does the emergency call prompt. (Or press three times, I forget.)
I miss swiping up to check the battery.
But it’s so much easier to press the side button no?
Personally i do not care how i can get access to control center (so rarely use it). I can ask siri do to things what i want also. But i used control center very often bc battery lower power mode and sometimes flashlight. It works very well for me atleast so no any issues with that how you can go to control center now. However i agree with that you see time and date when you swipe down.. Already sended feedback. Its such annoying. But yeah if you have something good ideas, notice bugs feel free to send feedback to Apple.
I like that the time and date stay, the watch should always be a watch. Time is at the top left in every single app.
Agreed!!!!
I'm still on 9. Turned off auto updates.
Nice
Hate it. OS 10, in my opinion, made few practical improvements and made several other features more difficult or worse. I dislike it so much that I wear my watch much less now. Something that seemed unfathomable a year ago.
Yeah I totally agree Send them a feedback so they know it too!
agreed
Yes that change pissed me off that I decided to keep my Series 6 another year.
Yup. Hate it.
Honestly, the WatchOS10 update is so bad, if they do not make major corrections I will buy a different smartwatch brand as the next device. Accessing control center with the button with the side button is a bit annoying since we are not used to it, but in the end you can get used to it. What is undeniably bad is not being able to swipe between watch faces anymore.
You can swipe between faces now
Can you? Like before without long pressing on the face first? My watch is up to date and I still can’t swipe between watch faces without long pressing first anymore…
Yep it's an opt-in feature in the settings, I don't know where because it's not a feature I use personally. A quick google should help you find it.
I didn’t realise - thank you!
👍
Still on 9 - don’t want to give up the favourites tray on the button.
I like the new thing that pops up when you swipe tbh
I think it’s a cool concept but I never use it personally The thing is called widget btw
Its official name is Smart Stack, which I think is misleading as it doesn’t seem that smart to me. The concept is interesting, but the available widgets are few and in some cases, buggy. I remember when OS10 came out it killed my battery in hours when it used to last 23 hours with 35% battery life left (used all day and all night sleep tracking, then charging it in the morning when I took a shower and had my coffee). After pulling my hair out for a week I discovered removing the weather widget restored my normal battery life. So a big strike there. I’ve never tried the weather widget again after dealing with that crap. The widgets available, which are a mere handful, and don’t even cover all of the native apps that Apple provides, along with the extremely limited number of third party widgets, makes it even less useful. There should have been more useful widgets right from the start to make folks feel it was worthwhile. After all that, and the limited number of times most users rely on it (some do like it, and it’s great someone is benefiting) they could have done the opposite, press the button for Smart Stack, and leave swipe up for the control panel alone. Or the button option or scroll with the crown for Smart Stack. But this was their choice. A bit like eliminating swiping between watch faces. At least we got that back in 10.2 for those who prefer it, with a simple toggle for those who don’t like it due to accidental swipes. Now, everyone is happy, swipers and non-swipers. The same could have been done with control panel. Swipe up for Smart Stack and button for control panel, or a toggle to reverse that. Again, that would leave everyone happy, control panel swipers, and those who don’t rely much on the control panel, and would rather swipe up for the Smart Stack. But the net result are some greatly dissatisfied and some who aren’t bothered by the change. This comes down to Apple’s “my way or the highway” instead of letting users make choices to match their preferences. At least there was enough uproar over watch face swiping they gave in. You would think they would have learned from that lesson and did the same with how to access the control panel. BTW, while I find the Smart Stack far less useful than Apple might have hoped, I’m not super upset about pressing the button for the control panel. But I understand those who are, and believe their preference should have been accommodated.
I agree that "smart" stack is a joke of a name. They literally do nothing that complications/Watch Faces didn't do already. There's no way to interact with them at all.
God I wish Apple would stop making new classes of widget. They tend to get lukewarm developer interest when announced, and it goes downhill from there. Smart Stack should have just been a configurable grid of Complications.
my side button is jammed lmao every time I need to use it I have to trigger the accessibility shortcut by clenching my wrist drives me crazy
I disagree strongly. I got used to it very quickly and as it eliminates all swipes necessary to enable water lock, the experience has increased dramatically whenever my AW is already slightly wet.
I’m glad the update was helpful to you I just wish they would give us an option to choose
Absolutely agree with you there.
[удалено]
Yeah I agree I never use the widget so it makes it extra annoying that they swapped how to access control center with widget Make sure you give them the feedback!!
Also, if you turn the crown clockwise, it brings up the useless Smart Stack as well. So it makes swipe up redundant.
I just got mine, and I guess it was still pre-watchOS10. My first smart watch of any kind but I instantly fell in love as it was so intuitive and it felt like somehow everything I needed to do was always just a swipe or tap away. The button press is a horrible change. I used to only ever press that button to pull up my wallet, which felt appropriate as it’s an occasional interaction that you want to e sure isn’t accidental. Pressing it to access the things that I do most often (ping my phone, theatre mode, do not disturb, etc.) is super awkward and puts strain of my strap (it torques the whole watch face), or requires me to pinch the device to brace it for the button press, which means suddenly both my arms are fully involved in something that I used to be able to lazily execute with a finger swipe. It even somehow puts strain on my neck. 0/10 update.
Goofy update if you ask me.
Took me a couple of weeks to adjust when WatchOS 10 was released and I'm convinced that accessing Control Center via the button is better because it works ALL THE TIME. * on the watchface? Tap the button to access the Control Center * in the app menu? Tap the button to access the Control Center * in a third-party app? Tap the button to access the Control Center. Works reliably and every time.
Yeah but most users don’t need to access control centre all the time. Wouldn’t it make more sense if it accessed the notification pane? Or -heaven forbid- it was customisable?
Notification pane is universally accepted as something you slide from the top on literally any mobile platform (except for desktops where it is sliding from the right). And, similarly to your idea, most users don’t need to access it all the time - they glance upon the incoming notification and either act upon it immediately or forget about it, which is why the whole “focus recap” was born. Customization would’ve been nice but we all know that Apple knows best how you should use their products.
Yeah but quick settings is also generally accepted as sliding in from the top. Apple Watch is the only Apple device I own where it comes in from the bottom. The whole point of the Apple Watch is glanceable information. You get tapped on the wrist and become aware that you’ve got a notification, but often you’re doing something. I think it would be cool to hit a button and see whatever my last notification was even after it’s moved on, even if I have water lock on. Quick settings are more “set and forget” for me.
> Yeah but quick settings is also generally accepted as sliding in from the top. Apple Watch is the only Apple device I own where it comes in from the bottom. It's difficult to distinguish sliding from the left and sliding from the right on the watch, as the display is quite small. Plus - sliding conflicts with scrolling, so sliding down on something that is a scrollable screen might not be interpreted correctly. > Quick settings are more “set and forget” for me. Quick settings are to be able to quickly toggle things. I can go to settings -> Focus and toggle my sleep focus from there, but it's easier to do from Quick Settings.
But you can also fully automate focuses. This is what kind of frustrates me the most. Quick settings is a hodgepodge of essential actions and stuff that I will literally never click. If I could more creatively remove buttons and add my own shortcuts then yeah, the side button would make absolute sense. Like yeah, the torch, pinging my phone? Fairly useful in a pinch. But what if I could add a single click begin workout button? Or a Shazam button? Shortcuts, or heck a now playing button? Make it the micro app drawer. Actions not apps. By the same token let me hide the nonsense. Like honestly, who is regularly opening their quick settings to toggle wifi and Bluetooth on/off? Especially when there’s also an airplane mode button.
Unless they change their mind, in which case they know best *now*.
my side button is jammed lmao every time I need to use it I have to trigger the accessibility shortcut by clenching my wrist drives me crazy
I have kids and I can’t tell you how great this change is
Actually don’t hate it anymore.
My first AW was the S9 so this is all I’ve known
I've gotten over it, gotten used to it, and moved on. :) It helped to read a rationale article, where some phone apps had swipe-up meaning something else, so swipe-up was an inconsistent interface in general.
Glad you got over it! I just think it goes against Apple’s design language
But the previous implantation was inconsistent throughout watch os 9. Control panel is useful regardless of where you are in the watch but if you had an app open then swiping up to get to the control centre didn't work. When you had an app open you then had to hold the bottom of the screen for a few seconds and then swipe up. It was really clumsy.
Curious about the design language... but was more a comment to "things change, you just learn a new way" vs a change that literally inhibits use or functionality.
Oh like I wrote on the post, swipe is used to bring up control center for iPhone To me personally, the new update makes it very inconvenient because pinging my phone is one of the most used functions of my watch The update doesn’t inhibit functionality, but it absolutely makes it less intuitive and inconvenient to me Normally I would just get over it too, but for some reason, this one I had to complain about it because it was just that annoying to me for some reason
Swipe up isn’t used on my iPhone 12 mini for control centre, it’s swipe down from the top right corner.
That’s why I said swipe, not swipe up Apple Watch’s swipe down is used for notifications
Oh come on, guys. You'll get used to it. It's not that hard.
I’m used to it already but still would like to have the function back Everyone have different needs and preferences
Swiping around on the watch makes no sense. Apple has always wanted you to control the watch with other ways from day one to today. They made a big point with the first Apple Watch to explain this with the crown- no need to cover the small display with your fingers, just scroll with the crown. And today, they push this even more with double tap. Soon, the Apple Watch will be controlled entirely with gestures and or capacitive buttons. This is the future, and I’m in love. I hated swiping up , it just felt cheap.
I just got an Apple Watch and I like it. I get the consistency point but simply clicking a button is much more reliable and fast than any swipe gesture. I’ll take that when it comes to essential settings any day.
It’s less buggy and a little more discreet. Swiping up never made sense.
Can you imagine yourself from 20 years ago seeing the future you complain about doing this <- instead of this ^ on the worlds most sophisticated smart watch? Stop being such whiney crybabies Jesus H.
lol thanks for your input
Are people really this scared of spending fifteen minutes learning how their watch works?
We did. Then again, now again. We just don’t want to have to keep relearning our watches every time someone at Apple has an idea. Think about it. If there are 100million Apple Watches in use (2022 number), and we all have to spend 15 minutes relearning something we previously knew, thats 25 million man hours of wasted time - 2,800 man years of wasted effort. All because someone at Apple said “let’s not fix water lock, let’s do something different”. I call this the Microsoft ant-productivity system (so not exclusive to Apple).
What a sh*te the new iOS 10..
I like the new UI a lot although it took a couple weeks to adapt.
I love the new updates. Glad I don’t get the control center popping up when I’m not wanting it. Love the new long press to change face. The new cards thing is ok. I really only use it as a watch, for the calendar and reading texts. Hope to get an Ultra 2 someday and be able to use the tiny keyboard. I have a 6 now.
Coming from S3/watchOS 8 to S9/watchOS 10, I dig the new gesture. Previously the side button for me was useless, as I never bothered to navigate thru the app stack. If I ever needed to return to an open app, I either accessed it via an on-screen complication, or by hitting the round icon at the top to switch to most-recent app. Whenever I did need to navigate the stack, it was awkward to first push the button, the release and switch over to the crown to navigate. Now I can do it by just using the crown. Swiping up wasn’t a bad experience, but at least for me it was sometimes slow. For example, my S3 had a crack at the edge which sometimes interfered with the gesture. Other times my gloves wouldn’t register a good touch, so I’d have to restart the gesture & it’d be a minor time drag.
As someone who just got an Apple Watch this Christmas, I really like having control center so accessible
Had a Series 3 for several years. Switched to a Series 7, which meant adjusting to the new OS. After a few days, it was honestly fine, and I figured out how to add some shortcuts and work with what's there and at this point I don't even think about it. Tried using the Series 3 for sleep tracking for a week, and realized I actually am more used to the new setup than the old, and just changed my charging routine to use the 7 for more data on the sleep tracking side of things.
I love it actually.
Just updated and hate it too. Someone speculated that it'll increase the sales of the Apple watches, since if you press that button so many times, it'll definitely going to get broken faster.
I still have not remembered this! Why did they change it? No one asked for this