- watchOS 12 – or as it’s henceforth to be known, watchOS 26 – has been revealed at this year’s WWDC conference
- New features include an AI Workout Buddy, an improved Smart Stack and the new Liquid Glass visual language
- It also gets a Notes app!
We made it! watchOS 26 – formerly and never-again referred to as watchOS 12 – has been revealed at this year’s WWDC 2025 developer’s conference at Apple Park.
You can catch all the action live as Tim Cook‘s keynote speech wraps up and the post-game unfolds, and you can check out what’s new with iOS 26 and macOS 26 Tahoe too.
However, this is the Apple Watch‘s time to shine, and the presentation didn’t disappoint when it came to features for the best Apple watches. Without gilding the lily and with no more ado, here’s everything announced so far for the current crop of Apple Watches.
1. Liquid Glass
Liquid Glass is the new cross-hardware operating system design from Apple. Essentially, Apple has changed the way all its operating systems look, from watches and phones to tablets and computers, to ensure they’re unified in design and pleasant to navigate.
With material that ‘dynamically morphs’ to ensure your experience becomes more intuitive, elements that were solid-color rectangles in the old design become transparent, and change shape as you move through them.
The Liquid Glass design is across all Apple’s ecosystem. In watchOS 26, it ensures widgets expand and contract almost automatically to make use of the small screen space, and elements like the music playback widget share the transparent look of its bigger siblings, instead of being a solid white block. Apple also emphasizes that you’ll be able to see more of your photos on-watch.
2. Redesigned workout app
The workout app has been redesigned with Liquid Glass in mind, and it’s got in-built media playback from Apple Music automatically recommended based on your listening history. Four new customizable buttons allow you to front-load your most-used features.
3. Workout buddy
We were wondering how Apple Intelligence was going to manifest on the watch in a meaningful way, and here we are. Described as a “first-of-its-kind” fitness experience by Apple which accesses the user’s fitness, health and workout history, a little like the AI-powered training insights from Strava and Garmin Connect+. It’s designed to “motivate you in a new and unique way” taking into account Training Load, Elevation, Heart Rate… anything in your fitness history.
Some of it seems not all that useful, such as telling us “so far this year, you’ve run 200 miles”, but the short-term stuff, such as telling us “you’re 18 minutes away from closing your Activity Ring” will likely get some use. It can also summarize your recent workouts, telling you how you’ve fared when it comes to pace and distance against your recent milestones.
The feature mimics the vocal tones of Apple Fitness+ trainers, so the voice is designed to be energetic and uplifting, and you can choose multiple voices. I hope the feature will get more sophisticated and be able to automatically detect, assign and adjust heart rate zones as your fitness improves, but I don’t think Workout Buddy is that intuitive. Yet.
4. Live translation
The iPhone presentation made much of Apple Intelligence’s Live Translation feature, and Apple Watch gets in on the action with Apple Intelligence translation for Messages, translating into a user’s preferred language on-wrist.
Apple Intelligence also suggests relevant actions on-wrist, like opening CashApp when a friend asks for a contribution to a gift or dinner.
4. Notes on wrist
Requested by many on forums in the run-up to this year’s WWDC, the Notes app is coming to the Apple Watch in an almost blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mention.
5. Wrist flick
Along with the Double Tap gesture, Apple Watch can now make use of a simple Wrist Flick to dismiss a notification, silence a timer or alarm, or close the Smart Stack.
6. A better Smart Stack
Speaking of the Smart Stack, some changes are coming to the popular widget stacking overlay. The Smart Stack gets hints, which are actionable prompts appearing as an unobtrusive notification at the bottom of your Apple Watch’s display.
Tapping on the hint provides contextual information and actions. The example provided was when you arrive at your favorite pilates studio at your usual time, a hint will appear to start a pilates workout. This is the kind of small Apple Intelligence addition that really offers personal assistant capability.
Smart Stack has also received an updated algorithm, reordering itself based on contextual data.
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matt.evans@futurenet.com (Matt Evans)
