Full transcript of “watchOS 26 - 30+ New Features & Changes!”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 Apple just released watch OS 26 beta 1. And while it's not as exciting as iOS, iPad OS, or Mac OS 26, it still has some solid new features that you'll want to use on your Apple Watch. So, in this video, we're going to cover more than 30 new features and changes found in Watch OS 26 beta 1. So, first off, we have the same glass-like redesign for Watch OS 26, just like we have across the board with all of Apple's other operating systems. And that starts right here with the photos watch face. You can see what it looks like in the always on display mode. And when you tap on it, you get that really cool glass-like look for the clock right there. And you'll really see that redesign in the notification center. So, you can see what the notification center bubbles look like
0:46 right there for your notifications. Also, if you go up to the smart stack, we get that glass-like look for the time up in the top right. And also, the smart stacks themselves have a slightly different look to match that glass theme. And same goes with the control center. So, if you invoke the control center, you'll see that we have a more translucent look right here for the control center compared to previous versions. And here's a small detail that you might not notice at first, but we now have that subtle animation with button presses. So, if you press the digital crown right here, or if you press on the action button or the button right here to pull up the control center, you will see that we get that little animation right there. Take a look at that. Every time I press it, does that little push out animation from the side of the screen, which just
1:33 really makes you feel more immersed in the operating system. So, we saw that with iOS 18. Now, it's made its way over here to watch OOS 26 a year later. And it does it for the action button there as well along with that new animation when you go into the action button. Now check this out. There's a new feature where you can just flick your wrist to invoke an action. So if I want to get out of the control center, I just kind of flick my wrist like that. And there it goes. It takes me back to my home screen. Same with a timer. So let's just go ahead and set a quick timer. Okay, so my timer is going off right now. Take a look at that UI bug right there. But if I want to dismiss this, I could do a double tap, but I could also now do a flick of my wrist. So, I'll just flick my wrist up like that. And there we go. It dismisses that timer. Now, you could also do that to dismiss notifications, to mute incoming calls, and more. Like,
2:20 here's an example. When I'm inside of a message, if I want to get out of that message without having to touch on my screen, I could just do a little flick like that, and it takes me back out of that message. And if you head into settings and scroll down until you get to gestures right here, we do have some settings for that. So, we just have an on and off switch right there for wrist flick. So, it says, "Quickly turn your wrist over and back to dismiss anything and return to your watch face." Oh, and you'll also notice up top that we have an overall kill switch for gestures that was not there before. Now, if you are somebody who is not in silent mode 24/7, you will like this next change because we now have auto volume adjustments for notifications, Siri, and incoming calls.
3:05 And the way it's able to detect the volume level is based on your current ambient noise level. So for example, if you're asking Siri a question and your ambient noise is quiet like you're in the library, when Siri answers you, it will be in a very very low volume, even if your volume was set up really high because it understands your environment. And on the other side of that, if you're like in the gym and you have a really loud ambient noise level, then Siri will talk very loud because it can detect that you're already in a loud environment. So, this is really cool. I have tested it and it does work quite well. And if you go into your settings, there are settings for this as well. So, we're going to go into sounds and haptics right here. And you can see there's a toggle for automatically
3:51 adjust volume. So that is enabled by default, but you can have an option right here for level as well. So if you go to level, you could have it set to either louder or quieter than the default. Also, the UI here is a little bit different as well. So it doesn't show the volume up there. So if you turn off automatically adjust volume, you can see the little slider right there like we saw before, but it's down lower now. Before in watch OS 11, it was all the way up at the top. So that's another little minor change here in Watch OS 26. Now, here's a cool one for the smart stack. So, I'm going to double tap to go into my smart stack right here. That was a feature introduced last year. But with smart stack, it gets even smarter this year with hints. So, this uses ondevice data and trends to predict what to show
4:37 at the top of your smart snack. So, for example, if you go to the gym at a certain time every single day or at a certain time of each day and you usually do a strength workout when you go into that gym, your Apple Watch will now put that stack all the way up at the top because it knows that is most likely what you're going to do at that time and at that place. So, smart stack is getting better with hints. Or for example, when you lose signal on your Apple Watch or your iPhone, it might show backtrack up top as a suggested feature since you do not have signal. But also, if you go into your settings right here, we do have settings for this. So, if we go down to our smart stack settings, you will see that in SmartStack, if we go to widget suggestions, so if we go into this, you
5:23 will see that we have smart stack hints right here. So, it says an icon can appear at the bottom of your watch face when there's a timely suggestion in the smart stack. So, not only will it show the suggestion at the top of the smart stack, but it will also show you a little hint on your watch face down here at the bottom to indicate that there's a hint that you might want to open up the smart stack for that suggestion. Now, also, if we go back into our settings, we have a brand new section for control center. So, that was not there before, but now we have a settings pane for control center. And the only option in there is to reset the layout of the control center. So at least you now have that in your settings. Okay. So now we need to talk about workouts because the workouts application has a nice redesign here. So take a look at this. This is
6:10 the new view when you go into the workout application for the first time. So it's a new full screen interface with rounder buttons right here. So the buttons you see four corners all around in each corner and they are more rounded off and they each have their own different function. So up top in the top left for example this is workout views. So you can add or remove certain workout views that you see during your workout when you start a workout. So you can see you have metrics right here. You have metrics too which is not included but if you do want to include that you can include it right there. Heart rate zones and these other ones. You have segment as well. Activity rings. And you can also reorder them right here if you would like to as well. And that is going to change depending on what workouts you select. This is for strength training
6:57 right now. Also, in the top right, we have this timer where you have goals and custom. So, you can set different goals right here. So, if you want to have a goal of 30 minutes for your uh strength training workout, you can do that. And you can also set a calorie goal right there. Down here on the bottom left, we have this music icon. When you tap on that, this allows you to play music automatically when you start that workout. But interestingly, you could also have picked for you now as an option. So instead of choosing a specific playlist or album to play, you can choose picked for you. So it will automatically choose the music it thinks you'll like for that specific workout. And then down here in the bottom right corner, we have this icon, which is the workout buddy. So, it says, "Get
7:42 personalized encouragement and your data from a synthesized voice during your workouts." So, if you need some encouragement, if you need a cheerleader along the way throughout your workouts, you might want to enable workouts buddy and it will use AI voices from either a man or a woman. And you can select that when you set this up. And you can also set alerts for heart rate and time. So you'll basically get a voice telling you something if you go like, you know, above or below your certain heart rate and also for your time. You could also get target alerts as well. So if you want the AI voice, the the trainer, the AI workout buddy to tell you you're doing a good job, you know, after you hit a certain target in your workouts, you can have that set right there. That is actually enabled by default. And by the way, the reason it shows traditional
8:28 strength training first for me is because that is my mostused workout and that is my recommendation. but it might show something different for you. And as you scroll down, you might see different icons for these different workouts. So, if I tap on this, you can see that we may have something different in there. And this is kind of a new interface here for workout. So, you see all your workouts in this full screen view like this with this little fade animation. And when you go all the way down to the bottom, we have edit workouts and add workouts right there. So, if you want to see that long list, you have to go all the way down there. It's kind of hard to reach. So, you know, luckily I don't really do many workouts besides traditional strength training, so I don't have that to worry about. But you do have to go down quite a bit to be able to view all of the workouts since we have this new full screen view, which
9:13 I do like this view, I have to say. Now, here's something I am excited about, and I really did not anticipate this coming to watch OS 26, but we have a brand new application on the Apple Watch for the first time, and that is the notes application. Yes, we now have notes on the Apple Watch with watch OS 26. So now you can create new Apple notes straight from your wrist. You could also view existing notes right here. And you could also ask Siri to create a note very simply for you as well on your Apple Watch. And this works out really well with the huge display of the Apple Watch Ultra. This is going to be great for maybe if you're out in the field and you don't want to carry around a phone, you can just carry around your Apple Watch on your wrist and you can see your notes right there and add to your notes from your wrist as well. So, that is awesome.
10:01 Also, if you go into the control center and then you go down to the bottom and go to edit and then tap on the plus up here in the top left, we have a new widget for notes. So, you can now create a new note widget right here in the control center. So now if we go out down here at the bottom in our control center, we can simply tap that and it will allow us to create a new note straight from our wrist. And of course, we can type it out or it will automatically start dictating right after you press that in the control center. Super useful. Now, we also have live listen transcriptions on the Apple Watch. So if you're using the live listen feature on your iPhone, your Apple Watch will now be sent the transcription of what your iPhone is recording. And if we head into the watch application on our iPhone and go over to
10:47 the face gallery, this has a redesign with watch OS 26. So you can see that everything is now organized better. So it shows health and fitness photos, tool watch, datari. There's a section specifically for Apple Watch ultra watch faces, which is really cool. And it shows the one I use, which is modular ultra right there along with wayfinder. So this whole section is so much better than it used to be. It's so much less cluttered and it's a lot more organized so you know you know what each watch face is going to be considered whether that's health and fitness you know datari photos and so on. Now keep in mind the only new watch face with watch OS 26 is going to be the photos watch face with the glass-like time the font with that glass-like look. That's the
11:32 only new watch face for now. There might be some in the future but that's it. And also these watch faces have been removed with watch OS 26. So RIP if you are somebody who used one of these. Oh, and by the way for the photos watch face, if you go into create a photos watch face and you go to the shuffle section, you could also now shuffle by featured. And by the way, if you have an Apple Watch Series 10 and you have a watch face that has a seconds hand, when you go into the always on display mode, you'll now be able to see the seconds hand moving around without having to lift your wrist up and, you know, wake it up. So, it'll now show in the always on display, which is awesome. That is exclusive to the Series 10 for now. Oh, and by the way, inside of the messages application, you
12:18 can see in this group chat right here, I have the background. So, we have custom backgrounds on watch OS 26 as well for these messages along with the ability to make and vote in polls. And we also have the auto translation for if a different language is detected. And you also have smart actions with watch OS 26. So, if somebody asks you for your location, you might now see a prompt to share it. Oh, and also the phone application has a new look in watch OS 26 just like we have in iOS where everything is unified. And you do also get access to call screening, hold assist, and live translation. So that is a look at the new features in watch OS 26 so far. I'm sure more features will be added over time, and I will be covering those here on the channel. Overall, I think it's a pretty minor update for watch OS, but I do like
13:05 the new changes to the workout application as that's something I use multiple times a week. So, I'm a fan of that. Let me know what you guys think about the update overall. What's your favorite feature in watch OS 26? and just share your thoughts in general down in the comments below.
