watchOS 26 Removes These Apple Watch Faces

[Asthmatic Kitty]

Personally I didn't use any of these faces so don't mind them being removed. I'm still mad about Chronograph being removed a year or two ago though, I created my favourite face with that.

On the whole I agree with the policy of removing some each year, however — you can't just end up with some huge bloated library of faces, they need to be trimmed down to keep the amount manageable.

 

[technicalFoozle]

For some reason, Apple tends to remove minimalist analog watch faces. After losing Numerals with the last watchOS update, now losing Gradient starts to feel personal. Some of us like minimalist clean analog options.

I really liked the Numerals watch face. It was my late night watch face. I also like Gradient but overall I want my watch to sometimes have fewer glowing bits and there aren't many faces that allow this.

 

[fatTribble]

For some reason, Apple tends to remove minimalist analog watch faces. After losing Numerals with the last watchOS update, now losing Gradient starts to feel personal. Some of us like minimalist clean analog options.

I liked Gradient too. Like you said, sometimes you just want a clean look.

 

[bluespark]

The Snoopy AppleTV screen savers are excellent!

They are so good.

 

[foobarbaz]

I like Gradient for dressing up. Made the color match the shirt and it looked pretty nice. Oh well

 

[The_Martini_Cat]

If you love Toy Story, you can always add Toy Story photos onto the photos watch face! Am I right about this, it would be even better? 🍸😸

 

[Newbee2025]

Liquid glass removed when?

 

[Timo_Existencia]

Custom watch faces is at the very top of my list of things I want from Apple. No idea why they won't allow this.

 

[Moopy]

Given how much Apple likes milking their customers for every single penny they can I'm still surprised we don't have a custom watch face store yet. IIRC in the original days the reason given was the processor wasn't powerful enough but I don't think that excuse really holds any longer. A lack of this customization is one of the reasons I haven't felt a need to upgrade on from my now near 5 year old Series 6.

 

[Colpeas]

There really isn't and I don't understand why Apple would remove any watch faces at any point to begin with.

They’re probably trying to clean up the OS a little bit. Which it is in dire need of.

 

[Ankaa]

They’re probably trying to clean up the OS a little bit. Which it is in dire need of.

By randomly removing some watch faces? Do explain how exactly that helps to clean up the OS....

 

[dchronus]

Just don't remove Minnie Mouse or my mother won't know what to do 😂

 

[svish]

Very disappointing. Have used the 'Gradient' watch face a lot. Was waiting for Apple to add new watch faces and not remove! Hopefully there will be quite a few new watch faces in September.

 

[ZMacintosh]

why? just have them available as download they cant take up that much space.

 

[BC2009]

Darn it, I like the Toy Story one and gives me a chuckle every time when switched to it.

the toy story one was a nice memorial to steve jobs

 

[vaxes]

My kids love the Toy Story Watch face.
It’ll be a shame to see it go.

-AE

 

[macduke]

So is this the first time that a watchOS update has fewer watch faces in total than the one before? No new faces is just lazy, especially given the lack of a watch face store or any way to make your own custom faces. They used to say these customizations were limited people Apple doesn’t want their hardware looking like crap. But just look at all the customization on their other platforms now, and how ugly you can make things like the Home Screen and now Messages app look. But they’re going to be all precious about the Watch? I don’t get it.

And yeah, I still want a Goldeneye watch face for the weekend sometimes. A man wants what a man wants.

 

[bluecoast]

I'm still waiting for a digital watch face that allows for all the complications I want - also for complications to be universal across all watch faces. e.g., Seconds widget not working on one of the Nike watch faces for no real reason. All of the most complication heavy watch faces have historically been analog only or modular only, which is a huge bummer.

Additionally, I really wish Apple would allow for custom watch faces. I'm already considering leaving the Apple Watch for Garmin due to the awful battery life on the AW (no, I'm not spending $350+ for half a day extra of battery) and if in 1.5-2 years the locked-in watch faces are still a thing I'm a Garmin guy at that point.

Agree that the digital watch faces are mostly not good.

Which is curious as apple has so much experience in designing for computing UX.

I can’t put my finger on it as to why, but I don’t really like any of the apple designed ones.

I too find the huge amount of round analog faces to clash with the rectangular body of the watch.

They just don’t work properly - the watch is no Patek Phillippe Nautilus.

So yeah if Apple won’t do it being able to heavily customise the faces would be a great solution.

 

[bluecoast]

So is this the first time that a watchOS update has fewer watch faces in total than the one before? No new faces is just lazy, especially given the lack of a watch face store or any way to make your own custom faces. They used to say these customizations were limited people Apple doesn’t want their hardware looking like crap. But just look at all the customization on their other platforms now, and how ugly you can make things like the Home Screen and now Messages app look. But they’re going to be all precious about the Watch? I don’t get it.

And yeah, I still want a Goldeneye watch face for the weekend sometimes. A man wants what a man wants.

We often get new faces announced with the latest watch with it back ported to the last screen size so let’s hope the watch screen stays the same as last year’s.

 

[iHorseHead]

iWont miss any of those, all of those are useless

I use the second one and have been using for years.

 

[iHorseHead]

I'm already considering leaving the Apple Watch for Garmin due to the awful battery life on the AW

I find it absurd that Huawei's $100 Watch has 10 days battery life.

HUAWEI WATCH FIT 3 - HUAWEI Global

HUAWEI WATCH FIT 3, ultra-slim design with 1.82 inches AMOLED display, all-round fitness as well as comprehensive health management, and up to 10-Day long battery life for you to enjoy.

consumer.huawei.com

I had one Huawei Watch before I had Apple Watch. It was actually good. I upgraded to Apple Watch SE just because it's Apple's and I thought at least I'd getting 6 years of updates, but it was only for four years.

I was surprised by how horrible Apple watche's battery life is. I know it's SE, but yeah…
Edit: What's there to disagree with ?

 

[tfigs]

I won't miss any of those. Funny, after watching the Keynote, I went into the Watch settings and looked at the Watch Faces. There are so many there I had forgotten about and just never used. These were some of them.

 

[jjwwqq]

Apple does three things which are completely idiotic: they create a relatively small number of compelling watch faces, they remove some of them occasionally while adding a few new ones, and they don’t allow the creation of custom watch faces.

 

[RobNYC]

I wish they'd come out with a watch face that kind of looked like the old Casio digital watches.

 

[Ursadorable]

I really don’t understand why Apple won’t allow custom watch faces on WatchOS. They could create a Watch Face store and bring in more money.

I personally don't care if there's a watch face store or not, but the fact that you still can't have custom faces is disturbing. It's a dumb decision. Imagine if the iPhone only allowed "Apple Approved" home screen images.