All articles tagged with #watchos 27
Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 will receive Siri Recap and Live Rewind later this year. These features use AI to summarize conversations and rewind recent audio, raising significant privacy concerns among critics and experts.
Apple released watchOS 27 on September 14, introducing a dynamic app grid, a dedicated Siri app, and improved health tracking. The update removes the Walkie-Talkie app and changes the Digital Crown gesture, though the App Switcher returns in the 27.2 beta.
watchOS 27 introduces 13 new colors for the Modular face and a new Siri Modular face, alongside AI-powered Siri and a dynamic app grid. Testing on older hardware shows no battery or speed penalties, though advanced AI features remain exclusive to newer models.
Apple Watch Ultra 4 introduces a new 'Readiness' bezel option for watch faces, displaying a numerical score and category bars. This feature leverages the new Health Sensing System, which tracks heart rate every five seconds. Additionally, a new 'In Theater Mode' setting reduces heart rate measurement frequency to prevent green sensor lights from distracting others in dark environments. The watch starts at $799, offering 50 hours of battery life and an S11 chip.
Apple released watchOS 27.0.1 on September 23 to address unexpected restarts affecting Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 users. The update, available via the Watch app or directly on the device, requires the watch to be charging with over 50% battery. While the patch targets a specific Neural Engine timeout issue, some users report that the problem persists or that other stability issues remain.
In watchOS 27, you quit Apple Watch apps by pressing and holding the Side button to reveal the power sliders, then pressing and holding the Digital Crown to return to the watch face—since the old App Switcher method (Crown double-click) is now reserved for Live Rewind. Quitting an app doesn't save battery power, but it can fix misbehaving apps.
watchOS 27 introduces Live Rewind for the new Series 12 and Ultra 4, but reserves the Digital Crown double-click for that feature, removing the long-standing crown shortcut to switch between apps on all watches. Updating older models also disables crown-based app switching and replaces it with a dynamic app grid, with no available toggle to revert. Apple encourages user feedback as pre-orders for the Series 12 and Ultra 4 begin ahead of the Sept. 18 launch.
watchOS 27 removes the long-used double-click Digital Crown shortcut for switching between apps, replacing it with a dynamic app grid. Apple says the gesture is freed up for Live Rewind—a 15-second audio transcript feature coming to Series 12 and Ultra 4—leaving older models (Series 11, Ultra 3, SE 3) without Live Rewind and without a built-in option to restore the old multitasking gesture.
Apple today released watchOS 27 for Apple Watch Series 9 and later (Ultra 2 and SE 3), adding Siri AI with on-device context and more natural voice interactions, a new Siri Modular watch face, improvements to Smart Stack, and a consolidated Find My app, plus system tweaks for faster media playback, better treadmill distance tracking, battery-life options, and offline Music/Song recognition.
Apple is rolling out iOS 27 alongside watchOS 27, iPadOS 27, and visionOS 27, centering around a Siri AI overhaul in beta for English devices with broader language support planned for October; the update also adds a Liquid Glass opacity slider, refreshed app icons, larger widgets, and customized sound settings across devices.
Apple Watch Series 12 introduces the new Health Sensing System with a faster heart-rate monitor, enabling the Heart Rate complication to show live readings instead of just an app launcher. The five-second heart-rate polling makes the small complication more useful, and pre-orders start at $399 for the Series 12 and $799 for the Ultra 4, with launches on September 18.
Series 12 adds a faster S11 chip with Audio Intelligence and more frequent heart-rate readings, enabling new AI-driven features like Siri Recap and a Readiness score; battery life and storage stay on par with Series 11, and pricing remains $399 starting with additional options. Overall, it’s the better buy at launch unless you can snag a Series 11 on sale, since the exterior design is largely the same.
The Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Series 12 (pre-orders) reportedly ship with 4GB RAM—double the 2GB of prior models—based on Xcode 27 findings. Powered by the new S11 chip, they support watchOS 27 AI features, though Apple has not publicly announced the RAM increase.
Apple unveiled the Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 with a faster S11 chip, redesigned health sensors, and a revived ceramic case. The new watchOS 27 includes expanded Siri capabilities (Siri Recap) and a Health app with Longevity metrics like Health Age and a Readiness score. Health tracking gets more granular with continuous heart-rate data every 5 seconds. Ultra 4 extends battery life to up to 50 hours and adds proactive battery-saving features. Walkie-Talkie is being removed. Availability was announced at the September event with sale timing to follow.
Apple has released release-candidate builds for iPadOS 27, watchOS 27, and other major updates (iOS 27, macOS Golden Gate, tvOS 27, visionOS 27) to developers and public testers. The RCs are expected to ship to all users next Monday, Sept. 14, with a potential RC2 if any critical issues are discovered after WWDC-era testing.