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watchOS 26 Brings Your iPhone's Control Center to Your Apple Watch

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Apr 12, 2001
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Apple Watches are gaining support for custom Control Center controls.

Apple-Watch-Custom-Control-Center-watchOS-26.jpg

Starting with watchOS 26, controls that are available in the Control Center gallery on an iPhone are automatically available on the Apple Watch as well. This is true even if the iOS app offering the control lacks a corresponding watchOS app. When you tap on one of these controls, the action is performed on the companion iPhone.

watchOS app developers can also create entirely new custom controls for watchOS, and in this case the action is performed on the Apple Watch directly.

The custom controls can even be assigned to the Action button on all Apple Watch Ultra models.

Until now, the Apple Watch's Control Center only offered controls from Apple, such as Wi-Fi, Airplane Mode, Theater Mode, and Flashlight toggles. You can access the Control Center on watchOS by pressing on the side button.

All of these changes mirror those introduced on the iPhone with iOS 18 last year.

watchOS 26 is currently in beta for the Apple Watch Series 6 and newer. The update will likely be released to the general public in September.

Article Link: watchOS 26 Brings Your iPhone's Control Center to Your Apple Watch
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/15/watchos-26-custom-controls/
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Apple desperately needs to find something, anything, for Apple Watch to do. It’s getting extremely boring with literally same features as 10 years ago. It should be doing way more. But this is the new Timmy Apple so really not that surprising. Innovation has stalled.
 
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dominiongamma said:
Few days or a week long battery life would be a start
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That requires a larger battery or worse screen tech and for that people have garmin. The masses instead choose Apple Watches since most can easily charge everyday and prefer the benefits they get. Eventually battery tech will improve and well I’m sure have all week watch batteries with the same features but I think the focus should be much more on
The software first.
 
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trusso said:
How about letting me swipe up to get to the watchOS control center (as it used to do) instead of the side-button press? I'd really love to meet the Apple engineer who decided to make that change & not give us the option to switch it back.
Click to expand...
Yeah my brain/muscle memory still hasn’t gotten used to all the button and swipe changes over the years.
 
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By far the biggest problem I have with my watch is the screen coming on and something being triggered without me wanting it to. Especially the watch going into Watch Face Switch mode.
 
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TechRemarker said:
That requires a larger battery or worse screen tech and for that people have garmin. The masses instead choose Apple Watches since most can easily charge everyday and prefer the benefits they get. Eventually battery tech will improve and well I’m sure have all week watch batteries with the same features but I think the focus should be much more on
The software first.
Click to expand...

Spot-on. Seems many people don't understand there are always engineering trades to be made when dealing with tech. For a given battery technology (Apple is using the latest), more runtime requires a larger battery and thus a larger Watch case. Or a more advanced silicon chip process and display using less power, which Apple is already using.

If Apple could economically provide a week-long battery charge they'd already be using it.
 
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pugxiwawa said:
Apple desperately needs to find something, anything, for Apple Watch to do. It’s getting extremely boring with literally same features as 10 years ago. It should be doing way more. But this is the new Timmy Apple so really not that surprising. Innovation has stalled.
Click to expand...
The only things holding back smartwatches — including the Apple Watch — are more useful AI and timely data sources.

I love that I can wrist up and tap a transit glyph to see bus and train departure times near me, for example. But most of the transit companies provide scheduled times; many don’t give delay info.

Taking that further, in transit I’d love to be able to see at a glance estimated arrival times or suggestions for alternate routes, and for the Watch to do a better job of managing this stuff without me tapping or entering data that’s already elsewhere (calendar, habits, etc.).
 
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tgwaste said:
By far the biggest problem I have with my watch is the screen coming on and something being triggered without me wanting it to. Especially the watch going into Watch Face Switch mode.
Click to expand...
I've noticed its a much bigger problem since going to watchOS 11, even in the shower drops of water trigger something onscreen and I never had that issue before, crazy frustrating.
 
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How about the ability to take *any* 2x2 iOS widget and push it to the watch so it runs independently of the iPhone. See a 2x2 widget on your iPhone home screen you want on your watch? Just long press and "send to watch" and voila.


Also, an iPad app to manage and sync apple watch to iPad
 
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Watch OS26 is a complete waste of time. The best is for years now we have group message texts that say I have new messages after I’ve read them and cleared them on my phone. And complication still says I have messages. Another thing, complications are a complete waste of time. I have the fitness complication that does daily steps and it never updates unless I click on it. Considering getting rid of my Apple Watch. All of my complaints are pre beta by the way.
 
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trusso said:
How about letting me swipe up to get to the watchOS control center (as it used to do) instead of the side-button press? I'd really love to meet the Apple engineer who decided to make that change & not give us the option to switch it back.
Click to expand...
I didn’t even realize that’s what they changed it too. I thought they removed it and I never bothered to check where it went.
 
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pugxiwawa said:
Apple desperately needs to find something, anything, for Apple Watch to do. It’s getting extremely boring with literally same features as 10 years ago. It should be doing way more. But this is the new Timmy Apple so really not that surprising. Innovation has stalled.
Click to expand...
You know everything about watches... Some have been telling time, and only time, for a hundred years and people seem to like them still...
 
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pugxiwawa said:
Apple desperately needs to find something, anything, for Apple Watch to do. It’s getting extremely boring with literally same features as 10 years ago. It should be doing way more. But this is the new Timmy Apple so really not that surprising. Innovation has stalled.
Click to expand...
Boring? Tech is supposed to achieve a task, not be exciting.

You're also looking at it the wrong way round. You should be seeing a problem and then looking for a solution, not saying "hey, I've got this tool, now what can I use it for?"
 
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