Apple Watch to get watchOS 26 – that’s NOT a typo

Big changes are ahead for the Apple Watch in a couple of weeks at WWDC, as Apple is rumoured to be overhauling the Watch software, including its name.

Along with all other operating systems, numbering will be aligned with the year after release. Thus, examples of the new versions released this year include macOS 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26.

Other changes include a full visual refresh of many operating systems, including watchOS and tvOS, the latter of which has remained largely unchanged in appearance for years. Heavily rumoured are simple colour and transparency changes; however, I suspect that iPhone and Watch will also benefit from revamped menu logic. That’s also been rumoured, but less heavily.

Take Out

Many Apple customers own multiple product types. Numbering changes make sense to align customer understanding with the features and compatibility on their devices. That’s a no-brainer in my eyes. #GoodMove.

More interesting to me is the iPhone and the Watch. The logic and location of, for example, Health and app permissions, as well as general options on iOS, are awful and confusing. In my mind, any improvement is long overdue.

Watch presents further difficulties for Apple. Going back over five years, the Apple Watch was a simpler beast. It had far fewer options and tweaks to hide in its simple menus, displayed on its small screen. In recent years, I have mentioned several times that the current Watch interface won’t be sustainable in the long term if Apple plans to add new capabilities. And…Apple plans to add new capabilities. Something has to give. WatchOS needs a significantly improved interface. However, as Garmin and others have found, it’s challenging to cram access to a multitude of features into a small-screened device in a sensible way, and Garmin has more buttons to leverage than Apple.

I wouldn’t want to be an Apple WatchOS designer. But Apple does give FAR more thought to usability than companies like Garmin. If anyone can pull it off, Apple can.

Source: via Gurman, Bloomberg