The Apple Watch operating system, watchOS, would be close to a profound renewal, one of the largest since the launch of the first model which took place back in 2015. watchOS 10, which will be announced during the next WWDC 2023, will represent an “important” update , as stated by the authoritative Bloomberg journalist, Mark Gurmanwhich will go to mainly affect the user interface.
watchOS was initially focused on four main areas: the watch faces, the main screen with app icons, an area for accessing frequent contacts and the Glances, the “Glances”, which were just a sort of carousel of widgets that could be browsed. Over the years, with successive versions of watchOS, Apple changed its strategy, abandoning widgets and frequent contacts in favor of notification highlighting and multitasking capabilities.
Apple would now be focusing again on something different, even going back to basics in a certain sense. Indeed, in recent years, widgets have evolved a lot and with this new version of watchOS, according to Gurman, Apple should make the much more “widget centric” user interface in order to offer users greater convenience in accessing the many information that an Apple Watch now provides.
The new UI, in practice, should be a combination of the first system of using widgets present on watchOS, the Glances, and the widgets that have been introduced on the iPhone since iOS 14. Full-screen widgets, therefore, that users should be able to scroll with the Digital Crown which currently has almost no functionality when on the home screen.
As is the case today also on Google’s WearOS, as well as on many smartwatches with a proprietary operating system, it will be possible to quickly have various widgets available to browse, such as those for monitoring physical activity, weather forecasts, stock quotes , appointments, and much more, without necessarily having to open the apps.
Apple’s goal, as stated by Gurman, would be to make the whole Apple Watch user experience even more immediate and streamlined, especially considering the fact that specific apps for Apple Watch have not yet had great success . Indeed, according to a recent report, the smartwatch app store has less than one million monthly users in Europe, unlike the 101 million monthly App Store users on the iPhone. Much more used, however, are the widgets that are integrated into the various dials as complications.
Furthermore, this new way of using widgets could definitely represent an important novelty for owners of the Apple Watch Ultra who would make the most of the much available space offered by the larger diagonal of the display. Obviously, it must also be considered that more regular users may not like this important change, which is why it is not excusable that this new interface may be an option that can be activated or not.
