Apple WatchOS 10: Widgets are Back and Changing Uses of Connected Watches

Apple should completely review the interface of its connected watches this year with watchOS 10 for the first time since their arrival in 2015. The firm plans to refocus uses towards widgets.

The widgets which had, moreover, disappeared from the Apple Watch a few years after their release in favor of other elements deemed more important by Apple. This big update connected watches of the brand, supposed to be unveiled at WWDC on June 5, is explained to us a little more by journalist Mark Gurman of Bloomberg in his weekly newsletter Power On.

First big changes in eight years

As Mark Gurman explains, when the Apple Watch was launched in 2015, the Apple giant decided to turn watchOS towards four main axes: the dials, the Glances interface dedicated to widgets, the main menu filled with application icons and access to frequent contacts. Over time, Apple has moved away from contacts and widgets (starting with watchOS 3) to focus on notifications and the watch’s multitasking capabilities. To obtain information, it was therefore necessary – and it is still necessary – to launch the application specific to what one is looking for.

At the Worldwide Developers Conference held by Apple in early June (where we should finally see the brand’s mixed reality headset in particular), the company should announce the new version of watchOS, which should again focus on the widgets. According to Mark Gurman, the new system should be a fusion between the old Glances system and the widgets currently visible on iPhones since iOS 14.

Uses are changing

WatchOS 10 should therefore present its widgets in the form of frames superimposed on each other. You would have to scroll between each to have access, for example, to your agenda, the weather forecast or even financial information. With this change in interface, Gurman explains that Apple would test new functions for its rotating crown. Currently pressing this brings up the app cloud. It may in the future display the widget menu instead.

Apple would have understood over time that the format of applications like on the iPhone did not always work on other devices, which are not used in the same way. A connected watch must consult quickly. The current state of Apple Watch means that users must perform several actions on their screen to access the information they seek. Making them directly available via widgets would correspond more to the intended use of the watch. However, rather than imposing this change which could confuse the oldest owners of the watch, Gurman specifies that the new interface could, initially, be offered as an option.