New Apple Watch Gesture in watchOS 26 Limited to Newer Models

[MacRumors]

You may have missed it, but select Apple Watch models are gaining a new Wrist Flick gesture in watchOS 26 that allows users to dismiss notifications and return to their watch face with a simple wrist movement.

The gesture works by turning your wrist over and back, using the accelerometer and gyroscope to detect the motion. With the gesture, you can dismiss incoming notifications, mute calls, silence alarms and alerts, and return to the watch face without needing to use your other hand.

Wrist Flick joins the existing Double Tap gesture as another one-handed control option for Apple Watch users. The feature can be toggled on or off in Settings ➝ Gestures ➝ Wrist Flick.

The new gesture is only available on Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 – the same models that support the Double Tap gesture.

Apple doesn't say exactly why older models don't support the feature, despite having the same sensors, but it does use a new machine learning model, suggesting that only the newer chips found in recent Apple Watch models are powerful enough to handle it.

The watchOS 26 beta is currently available through the Apple Developer Program, with a public beta coming later this month, followed by a general release in the fall.


Article Link: New Apple Watch Gesture in watchOS 26 Limited to Newer Models

 

[1Peace]

Dear Apple, this won’t encourage people to upgrade their watches. New health sensors will.

 

[JapanApple]

Wonderful upgrade to the Gestures.

 

[rbbloom99]

Dear Apple, this won’t encourage people to upgrade their watches. New health sensors will.

Like a blood glucose monitor.

 

[rbbloom99]

This is like the tap your fingers to play next song feature that never works.

 

[uwdude]

I could just see myself getting a notification, flicking my wrist real fast to see it, and then it disappears, oh crap, and have to pull out the phone real fast to read it lol.

 

[maasj]

So any watch can detect whether your whole body is standing, but only special watches can determine whether the watch itself was just quickly rotated. 🤔

 

[Channan]

it does use a new machine learning model, suggesting that only the newer chips found in recent Apple Watch models are powerful enough to handle it.

Are they going to hide all new basic features that they limit to newer devices behind AI? Older models can't even use an accelerometer anymore without AI apparently.

 

[Sophytaylor6@]

These basic features will be of no use. The only thing that is going to change is the speed with which we will switch to our phones to view the notification.

 

[Taq'aix]

This is like the tap your fingers to play next song feature that never works.

It only works when your watch screen is active. You have to raise it to become awake otherwise it won’t work. It’s annoying AF. When a timer goes off you can’t simply double tap to stop the alarm you have to look at it. The days of Apple brilliance is long gone.

 

[Godspeed8230]

I wish you could use Double-Tap to wake your Apple Watch screen.
I use AOD on and Raise to Wake off (to preserve battery life) and Double Tap would be a game changer.

 

[Edsel]

Hallelujah!!

I gave away my Apple Watch 8 because every time I wanted to know the time, it was telling me to "stand-up", heart-rates, notification from scammers, reminders, step-count, etc.

I "JUST WANTED TO KNOW THE DAMN FREAKING TIME!!"

So, I bought a cheap Timex.

 

[BelgianChoklit]

Dear Apple, this won’t encourage people to upgrade their watches. New health sensors will.

You say that, but one of the main reasons I upgraded to the Series 10 was the Double Tap function. And let me tell you that I find both that feature and the Wrist Flick better features than the blood oxygen one. So it's not everyone who prefers health features. It depends on what the health sensors bring.

 

[Paul Shields]

Hallelujah!!

I gave away my Apple Watch 8 because every time I wanted to know the time, it was telling me to "stand-up", heart-rates, notification from scammers, reminders, step-count, etc.

I "JUST WANTED TO KNOW THE DAMN FREAKING TIME!!"

So, I bought a cheap Timex.

Even cheaper would have been to turn off the notifications you didn't want to see.

 

[OS X Dude]

Double Tap is awesome for Keynote presentations. I've had people ask how I'm doing the transitions a good few times.

 

[azentropy]

I've found this to be much more useful and work much better than the double tap function.

 

[Ament]

I could just see myself getting a notification, flicking my wrist real fast to see it, and then it disappears, oh crap, and have to pull out the phone real fast to read it lol.

This is exactly the reason why I immediately turned off this stupid gesture on my AWU2

 

[Spock]

This is the Apple I’m getting tired of. This is not a feature locked behind AI, this is Apple being greedy.

 

[AusMness]

I could just see myself getting a notification, flicking my wrist real fast to see it, and then it disappears, oh crap, and have to pull out the phone real fast to read it lol.

As a S9 user with the beta installed, that can't happen as the gesture only works if you flick back then forth
It's really specific

 

[macdaddy43]

Dawg… how is this not possible on slightly older watches?? Like what on earth

 

[Kylo83]

The double tap is useless doesn’t ever work for what I need it to, also this could work on older watches

 

[alexandr]

— Johny, what are you doing?!
— Just dismissing notifications, Mom, I swear!!!

 

[citysnaps]

A nice feature.

 

[Octavius8]

The CPU and RAM haven the same since S6!
Just planned obsolescence…

 

[t0rqx]

Stagemanager 2.0 and another lie.