Apple WatchOS 10, why oh why?

[ShadowJade]

Why don't apple give us the users the ability to use the products how we want?

My ultra watch auto updated to OS 10 last night and I'm deeply disappointed. I don't like how I can't access night mode via the crown, I don't like the widgets and in their infinite wisdom they've now made it so that you can access it in three ways, i.e. rotating the crown, swiping up from the bottom of the screen and swiping down from the apps screen. So they've given me a function I don't want,.... three times, and in the meantime taken away a function I do want.

I also don't like that from the apps screen it's too easy to activate widgets, and I prefer the old apps screen where you're favourite apps are central and then you can scroll around. I also don't like that there's no quick access (that I've found) to fully closing apps. Lastly, a very minor point, I don't like the way the timer now displays when on the watch face corner.

Now I know there's going to be people that prefer the new functionality, but that brings me back to my initial question at the top, why don't apple give us the choice? These are not cheap products, if they're going to make changes at least give us the option to change it if we don't like them.

A further nightmare, list view default to the top when it times out. My most used and favorite app starts with an "S", so if I miss tap the app, going back in takes me back to "A". This app has no complication, thus without the ability to have a favorites dock anymore, I have resorted to grid view. They did get this right though...rather than a big glob with central view, I can put my top few apps up at the top of the grid.
I agree on night view. It is too dark for me except in the middle of the night...so automatic is bad, and I am not going to go in every night and change it.

 

[ShadowJade]

I'm just a bit confused. "Accessing night mode from the crown" -- what are the use cases for that exactly? Like, I'm just curious. Was this something you actually used? Or ever needed to use that quickly? Its not THAT hard to turn on in watchOS 10

If you sleep with the watch on, it was easy to rotate the crown to change it when I went to actual sleep. In the pitch dark of groggy sleep, I can read it well enough. I usually go to bed between 11-12. Now it either changes due to ambient room light, or its full on/full off. Well, ambient room light is 100% triggered when the wife and I are in evening TV/Movie mode...when I might glance at other apps/complication. My 51 year old eyes...that is basically just a blur. A minor work around is to have my favorite watch face not use the night mode, and my second face use it on auto, but just switch faces right when I decide to call it a night...too bad I can't just swipe to face 2 anymore...gotta long press, swipe, tap 🤦‍♂️

 

[highdefjunkie]

I’m in the same boat. I didn’t like the changes at first because they were changes. It did require me to adjust how I used the watch, which I understand presents some friction for people. But now I love it. I can use really nice watch faces and tuck useful information and app shortcuts into the widget screen, and rearrange my app view to put my most common apps at the top for quick access.

Very well said and I couldn't agree more. I love 10. I'll agree. It took some time to get use to it.

 

[ispcolohost]

Came here for similar reasons, WatchOS 10 pissing me off with the UX changes and no way to undo them. The only thing I need my WatchOS 10 device to do is let me quickly switch between watch faces, and they took that away. Instead of raise my wrist and swipe, now I have to raise my wrist, hold my finger on the watch until the screens bubble, oops, did I touch the screen a millisecond before it illuminated since I leave it not on 24x7 for battery reasons, well take finger off and try again, now it bubbles, swipe left or right, tap yet again, and finally I have my desired watch face.

I make frequent use of data presented only in a 'middle' section of a Modular watch face, but prefer to be on the activity screen for fitness reasons. For example, when at work, I like to flip back and forth quickly to see my calendar, which would have been a single swipe and done. When I'm surfing, I like to frequently flip over to a tide chart so I know when certain areas will be getting towards low tide and not safe to be near. When I'm exercising via phone app, I want to see my heart rate. All of these were so easy to get to and from with a swipe, now it's a dedicated raise, hold, move, tap, and again to go back. I've had a few Apple Watches across what I think is five or six years now, I work out, run, ski, surf, mow the lawn, and I'd be shocked if it went to an unintended watch face more than ten times in probably thousands of times I've switched faces. So they seem to have deployed a feature to prevent something that never occurred to begin with, and as a result I'm going to be wasting seconds of time with every swipe, as well as no longer being able to safely do it while driving.

 

[Minarets]

I just wish they’d leave the watch face and 3000 nits alone until I want a dark mode. I love the idea of scrolling the crown up to turn that on and off.

I do not like wearing a long sleeve shirt and not being able to see my watch face bc the sensor doesn’t see daylight.

Other than that, I’m loving, watch os 10 and my ultra 2.

 

[ssledoux]

10.1 is now available

Mine has been verifying for at least 15 minutes thus far. Ridiculous.

 

[MisterSavage]

That is called changing the watch face by not swiping sorry

Was trying to be helpful and tell you about something you might not have known about.

Have a wonderful day.

 

[match14]

Widgets might have been more useful if they weren’t limited on older watches, my series 5 only supports 3 widgets plus 1 complication widget. It would be good to add more than 1 complication widget.

 

[TGM85]

Came here for similar reasons, WatchOS 10 pissing me off with the UX changes and no way to undo them. The only thing I need my WatchOS 10 device to do is let me quickly switch between watch faces, and they took that away. Instead of raise my wrist and swipe, now I have to raise my wrist, hold my finger on the watch until the screens bubble, oops, did I touch the screen a millisecond before it illuminated since I leave it not on 24x7 for battery reasons, well take finger off and try again, now it bubbles, swipe left or right, tap yet again, and finally I have my desired watch face.

I make frequent use of data presented only in a 'middle' section of a Modular watch face, but prefer to be on the activity screen for fitness reasons. For example, when at work, I like to flip back and forth quickly to see my calendar, which would have been a single swipe and done. When I'm surfing, I like to frequently flip over to a tide chart so I know when certain areas will be getting towards low tide and not safe to be near. When I'm exercising via phone app, I want to see my heart rate. All of these were so easy to get to and from with a swipe, now it's a dedicated raise, hold, move, tap, and again to go back. I've had a few Apple Watches across what I think is five or six years now, I work out, run, ski, surf, mow the lawn, and I'd be shocked if it went to an unintended watch face more than ten times in probably thousands of times I've switched faces. So they seem to have deployed a feature to prevent something that never occurred to begin with, and as a result I'm going to be wasting seconds of time with every swipe, as well as no longer being able to safely do it while driving.

Absolutely agree - send a problem report to Apple about it. I did a few days ago and the more problem reports they get about it, the more chance they’ll put quick swipe back in a future update.

 

[Anaxarxes]

I love people complaining on anything that requires them time of getting used to something new.

 

[DDustiNN]

I just want to know why every time I go to look at my watch, the calendar app is open instead of the watch face. It’s driving me crazy.

 

[ispcolohost]

I love people complaining on anything that requires them time of getting used to something new.

As I explained, Apple now requires my wasting two to three seconds of my time every single time I need to change watch faces since it is no longer possible to just swipe. So no, it has nothing to do with getting used to something new, it means something I do probably ten times per day, will waste twenty to thirty seconds per day now. Across a year, this 'improvement' to prevent me from accidentally changing watch faces is going to waste three hours of my life, or, I'll just stop using the watch in the way I found most productive, diminishing its value significantly.

 

[missingar]

Came here for similar reasons, WatchOS 10 pissing me off with the UX changes and no way to undo them. The only thing I need my WatchOS 10 device to do is let me quickly switch between watch faces, and they took that away. Instead of raise my wrist and swipe, now I have to raise my wrist, hold my finger on the watch until the screens bubble, oops, did I touch the screen a millisecond before it illuminated since I leave it not on 24x7 for battery reasons, well take finger off and try again, now it bubbles, swipe left or right, tap yet again, and finally I have my desired watch face.

I make frequent use of data presented only in a 'middle' section of a Modular watch face, but prefer to be on the activity screen for fitness reasons. For example, when at work, I like to flip back and forth quickly to see my calendar, which would have been a single swipe and done. When I'm surfing, I like to frequently flip over to a tide chart so I know when certain areas will be getting towards low tide and not safe to be near. When I'm exercising via phone app, I want to see my heart rate. All of these were so easy to get to and from with a swipe, now it's a dedicated raise, hold, move, tap, and again to go back. I've had a few Apple Watches across what I think is five or six years now, I work out, run, ski, surf, mow the lawn, and I'd be shocked if it went to an unintended watch face more than ten times in probably thousands of times I've switched faces. So they seem to have deployed a feature to prevent something that never occurred to begin with, and as a result I'm going to be wasting seconds of time with every swipe, as well as no longer being able to safely do it while driving.

There are ways you can work around some of this. You could set up automations or use focus modes for whatever activity you are doing if you have specific faces you want during that time.

An exercise example: (edited with better workflow)
1. Go into Settings > Focus > tap the +
2. choose your focus mode or add a custom one
3. tap Customize Focus > choose the watch face under Customize Screens
4. tap "Add Schedule" and choose "App" -- Choose the phone app you want to trigger your focus mode/watch face

Now you'll never have to touch your watch again for this situation. It will set your preferred face when you open your exercise app and start a workout, it'll revert back when you're done.

 

[rehkram]

Well this is a surprise (not), Apple changes something and a lot of people dislike it, and many others love it. I'm a relatively new watchOS user, had my S8 a couple of months. Jumped onto the 10.1 beta and found it much more logical.

Also, I gotta tell ya speaking as a career s/w developer, making functionality 'optional' is seldom "just a couple of lines of code" added to the old code. So assuming they could have made it optional is seldom correct and often a bad idea.

It results in old code hanging around that needs to be supported and tested. This results in code bloat, lengthier testing- and regression testing, which adds up to a higher risk of bugs. I'll take clean code anytime.

 

[ispcolohost]

Well this is a surprise (not), Apple changes something and a lot of people dislike it, and many others love it. I'm a relatively new watchOS user, had my S8 a couple of months.

I've never seen anyone complain that their watch switches to an unintended face with any significant frequency. It seems like they added code to fix a problem that didn't exist, consuming an extra few seconds with every watch face change now.

There are ways you can work around some of this. You could set up automations or use focus modes for whatever activity you are doing if you have specific faces you want during that time.

An exercise example:
1. Create workout focus mode with your preferred watch face for exercise
2. Create personal automation for when you launch your exercise app to set workout focus. Turn [Workout focus] On until [Event Ends].

Now you'll never have to touch your watch again for this situation. It will set your preferred face when you open your exercise app and start a workout, it'll revert back when you're done.

Do you know if watch focus can be influenced by apps running on phone and not watch? For example, I prefer to run with a phone app that gives me my splits and other info audibly, and like to have my Watch on the modular screen with my heart rate graph in the middle. If that app running on phone could cause watch to switch, that would be helpful. For the other scenarios, I'm frequently flipping back and forth. During the work day, I like to be on the Activity face, but also constantly flip over to my calendar to check on next appointment time; that back and forth used to be just a swipe swipe, but now it's a high touch interaction.

 

[missingar]

I've never seen anyone complain that their watch switches to an unintended face with any significant frequency. It seems like they added code to fix a problem that didn't exist, consuming an extra few seconds with every watch face change now.


Do you know if watch focus can be influenced by apps running on phone and not watch? For example, I prefer to run with a phone app that gives me my splits and other info audibly, and like to have my Watch on the modular screen with my heart rate graph in the middle. If that app running on phone could cause watch to switch, that would be helpful. For the other scenarios, I'm frequently flipping back and forth. During the work day, I like to be on the Activity face, but also constantly flip over to my calendar to check on next appointment time; that back and forth used to be just a swipe swipe, but now it's a high touch interaction.

Yes this is all phone-app triggered. I also just realized you don't need to use shortcuts to trigger focus modes because there's a "Schedule" option built in that can trigger it when launching any app, so:

1. Go into Settings > Focus > tap the +
2. choose your focus mode or add a custom one
3. tap Customize Focus > choose the watch face under Customize Screens
4. tap "Add Schedule" and choose "App" -- Choose the phone app you want to trigger your focus mode/watch face

Now, when you have that specific app open, your watch face will change and revert back when you exit the app.

Let me think if there's another solution to the other situation(s) you describe...

 

[missingar]

For the other scenarios, I'm frequently flipping back and forth. During the work day, I like to be on the Activity face, but also constantly flip over to my calendar to check on next appointment time; that back and forth used to be just a swipe swipe, but now it's a high touch interaction.

would the calendar schedule widget be better than using a watch face in this scenario? I added the widget and then pinned it for this example. (Using double tap so I can video but this is just a simple scroll of the crown)

 

[parameter]

Battery issues, battery issues, battery issues.
On Watch 8, with OS 9, battery would last all day.
On OS 10.0 and 10.1, battery needs to be charged at least twice a day.

Yes, I've gone through and disable just about everything I can. No widgets, no complications, lowered brightness and on and on. Makes no difference, the battery just drains like crazy. Massive difference than with OS 9.

So that's my big issue. Battery life. Pretty much killed a lot of the usefulness, for me at least. Now this watch that's on my wrist all day long needs a lot of time and care to make charging work throughout the day, multiple times. That wasn't how it worked before.

Watch OS 10.x sucks.

 

[MarkNewton2023]

Why don't apple give us the users the ability to use the products how we want?

My ultra watch auto updated to OS 10 last night and I'm deeply disappointed. I don't like how I can't access night mode via the crown, I don't like the widgets and in their infinite wisdom they've now made it so that you can access it in three ways, i.e. rotating the crown, swiping up from the bottom of the screen and swiping down from the apps screen. So they've given me a function I don't want,.... three times, and in the meantime taken away a function I do want.

I also don't like that from the apps screen it's too easy to activate widgets, and I prefer the old apps screen where you're favourite apps are central and then you can scroll around. I also don't like that there's no quick access (that I've found) to fully closing apps. Lastly, a very minor point, I don't like the way the timer now displays when on the watch face corner.

Now I know there's going to be people that prefer the new functionality, but that brings me back to my initial question at the top, why don't apple give us the choice? These are not cheap products, if they're going to make changes at least give us the option to change it if we don't like them.

Apple might have reasons to layout Apple Watch OS the way it is to be uniformed and not allowing changes. One of them can be for security reason. I trust Apple decision. Although it might not be what all customers like, it might protect us.

 

[Farrellcollie]

Apple might have reasons to layout Apple Watch OS the way it is to be uniformed and not allowing changes. One of them can be for security reason. I trust Apple decision. Although it might not be what all customers like, it might protect us.

That is like saying the govt or health insurance companies are going to protect you and have your best interests at heart

 

[Farrellcollie]

Out of interest, what were you doing with your watch before that you can't do now, or that you struggle with now?

I can't get back to main screen any more - if I press the crown - that brings up siri which I never use, I can't go betwen apps without more clicking and swiping and waiting. And god forbid I hit the wrong thing as I have to scroll through it all because then siri comes up and I can't dismiss it and get back to where I am trying to go - it is worse if out walking or biking or doing anything physical.

 

[boss.king]

I can't get back to main screen any more - if I press the crown - that brings up siri which I never use, I can't go betwen apps without more clicking and swiping and waiting. And god forbid I hit the wrong thing as I have to scroll through it all because then siri comes up and I can't dismiss it and get back to where I am trying to go - it is worse if out walking or biking or doing anything physical.

Pressing the crown does go back to the main screen though (assuming that by main screen you mean the watch face, otherwise I don’t know what you mean). To trigger Siri, you hold the crown. It sounds like either you’re doing a long press or maybe your crown is dirty and gummed up, or potentially broken and not registering a regular press correctly.

A quick double press of the crown should bring up your recently used apps too, so you should have no problem quickly jumping between things.

EDIT: fixed a bunch of typos.

 

[Anaxarxes]

As I explained, Apple now requires my wasting two to three seconds of my time every single time I need to change watch faces since it is no longer possible to just swipe. So no, it has nothing to do with getting used to something new, it means something I do probably ten times per day, will waste twenty to thirty seconds per day now. Across a year, this 'improvement' to prevent me from accidentally changing watch faces is going to waste three hours of my life, or, I'll just stop using the watch in the way I found most productive, diminishing its value significantly.

I for the fact welcome the change. I hated the swipe function since the faces changed randomly during the day from my movements. Now I can select a face and it stays put until I want to change it.

But I was not winging about the previous swipe function with pitchforks in my hand on forums.

And look at you counting seconds to hours of your life wasted per year when you cannot change the face of a smartwatch. Congrats on your top shelf 1st world "problem".

 

[vinegarshots]

I make frequent use of data presented only in a 'middle' section of a Modular watch face, but prefer to be on the activity screen for fitness reasons. For example, when at work, I like to flip back and forth quickly to see my calendar, which would have been a single swipe and done. When I'm surfing, I like to frequently flip over to a tide chart so I know when certain areas will be getting towards low tide and not safe to be near. When I'm exercising via phone app, I want to see my heart rate. All of these were so easy to get to and from with a swipe, now it's a dedicated raise, hold, move, tap, and again to go back. I've had a few Apple Watches across what I think is five or six years now, I work out, run, ski, surf, mow the lawn, and I'd be shocked if it went to an unintended watch face more than ten times in probably thousands of times I've switched faces. So they seem to have deployed a feature to prevent something that never occurred to begin with, and as a result I'm going to be wasting seconds of time with every swipe, as well as no longer being able to safely do it while driving.

This is the entire point of the widgets-- so that you can easily access whatever data you need, while still being able to use whatever watch face you prefer. The point is to eliminate the need to switch between watch faces. You just roll the dial upwards and glance at your calendar, weather, whatever.

Personally, I think it's great, and much better than watchos9

 

[Farrellcollie]

Pressing the crown does go back to the main screen though (assuming that by main screen you mean the watch face, otherwise I don’t know what you mean). To trigger Siri, you hold the crown. It sounds like either you’re doing a long press or maybe your crown is dirty and gummed up, or potentially broken and not registering a regular press correctly.

A quick double press of the crown should bring up your recently used apps too, so you should have no problem quickly jumping between things.

EDIT: fixed a bunch of typos.

If you like it great-I don't- I hate it and I've stopped wearing the Apple Watch for the most part it was bad enough for last year when they changed the font sizes and I can't read the weather for any of the things that show up on the face of the watch it other than the time when I can get it to go back to the time. I don't need a range of what the weather is going to be I just want to know what the temperature is and so on -they took that away with the last os. This new one is just continuing a trend of being more unuseful to me.