My two biggest wishes for watchOS 27 aren't new features they're fixes

Date:
Sun, 29 Mar 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Description:
Im hoping Apple will fix the Apple Watchs wrist flick gesture and Live Activities at WWDC 2026.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Tech Radar Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Become a Member in Seconds Unlock instant access to exclusive member
features. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting
your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Join the club Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards. Explore An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter Ill be honest: Im a complete Apple Watch fanboy. Ive been using Apple s wearable for close to a decade, and I went from reluctant skeptic to total convert the minute I first borrowed a friends Watch to see what all the fuss was about. The device is, in my opinion, the best smartwatch money can buy.

That doesnt mean its perfect, though. There are several aspects of Apples device that Im less keen on, from the single-day battery life to the eye-watering price of its straps. And there are two Apple Watch annoyances that top my list of problems: the Wrist Flick gesture and Live Activities. Both are consistent sources of frustration in my day-to-day usage. With
Apples Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) just around the corner, Im hoping for some changes this summer. Heres why these two features grate so much for me and what I hope Apple will do to fix them. Article continues below You may like Theres only one thing I want in watchOS 27: better battery life 7 settings I change on every Apple Watch for a 'calmer, clearer, and
more useful' experience watchOS fitness apps need to make better use of the Apple Watchs incredible user interface 1. Wrist Flick (Image credit: Apple) When it was introduced as part of watchOS 26 in summer 2025, the Apple Watchs Wrist Flick gesture was pitched as a quick and convenient way to dismiss notifications with one hand. All it took, Apple said, was a speedy backwards flick of the wrist and any on-screen alert would be banished, all without the need to do anything with your other hand.

Yet in practice, Ive found this gesture to be frustratingly flaky. Sometimes it just doesnt register my action, leaving my repeatedly rotating my wrist as the notification stays firmly in place, mocking my plaintive irritation.
Other times, Ill raise my wrist to check the alert, but my Watch interprets this action itself as a wrist flick gesture, leading to the notification
being dismissed when I in fact wanted to read it.

In other words, I often find that wrist flick doesnt work when it should and does work when it shouldnt.

Adding to the problem is its inconsistency. Wrist Flick is not always an
issue for me indeed, sometimes it works perfectly. Most of the time, raising my wrist to check a message does not accidentally invoke the gesture. Yet occasionally it does, with watchOS maddeningly misreading my intention. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

That makes it very hard to determine if Im doing something wrong or if the gesture is just a little buggy. I can never tell when its going to work and when its not.

Despite that, I love the idea behind it. Like watchOSs Double Tap gesture , Wrist Flick is a great addition for those times when youve only got one free hand and still want to be able to perform an action on your Watch.
Ultimately, though, it feels like it needs a little more time in the oven.

Hopefully, Apple will fix it up at WWDC . I dont need a full-blown wrist
flick overhaul. Just a little attention to make it more consistent. What to read next The best Apple Watch 2026: Which wearable is right for you? Got a new Apple Watch? Here are 3 hidden features you're probably not using (but should be) 5 innovations I want from iOS... that'll keep me away from Android

There are reports that iOS 27 coming at WWDC will be focused much more on performance and stability improvements rather than new features. Hopefully that applies to watchOS 27 , too, with wrist flick getting a spot of much-needed love. Live Activities (Image credit: Apple) While Im happy that
my Apple Watch can forward texts from my iPhone , record my workouts and
start timers on the go, much of the time I just want to use it as a regular, everyday clock. Yet theres one feature that frequently gets in the way of this: Live Activities.

If you havent used Live Activities in watchOS yet, the feature basically
works like an automated mini app that mirrors ongoing activities from your other Apple devices. So, if youre playing music in Spotify on your Mac, for instance, youll see a little Spotify now playing widget appear on your Apple Watch.

The idea is to give you a way to control what youre doing on your other devices without having to be physically sat in front of them. In the Spotify example, you could pause your music from your wrist, even if youre some distance away from your Mac.

That sounds like a pretty handy feature, and it frequently is. But my problem is with how Live Activities tend to take over your watch face often without you even realizing.

I use an Apple Watch face with four of my favorite complications around its edge: the date, my Watchs battery level, the temperature, and my activity rings. Tapping one of those complications brings up more detailed
information. For that reason, I like to have my Watch face displaying most of the time so that I can quickly use these complications in a frictionless way.

The widgets launched by Live Activities, though, interfere with that. With a Live Activity taking over my Watch display, I have to dismiss it to get to my complications, then bring it back to get the added functionality granted by Live Activities. Its disruptive for the way I want to work.

As well as that, Live Activities launch themselves automatically you dont bring them up manually. Because of that, I often forget theyre there. Ill raise my wrist to check the time or tap a complication, only to find that the information I need is obscured by something thats not even happening on my Apple Watch, but is instead taking place on one of my other devices. That makes it feel like my Watch has prioritized something of less importance and relevance to me. (Image credit: Future) Im aware that I can disable Live Activities on my Apple Watch I wrote a how-to guide on disabling the feature , in fact but the problem is that your only options are severely limited. Essentially, you can either switch off Live Activities entirely or leave them as they are. Yes, you can disable Live Activities on a per-app basis, but you cant really change how they work. Its an either-or, on-off situation, with little middle ground.

I would prefer to have an option that sits somewhere between full-blown
screen takeover territory and a complete absence of Live Activities. And Ive got an idea of how that could work.

In fact, that idea comes straight from Apple in the form of Smart Stack hints . These are tiny icons that appear on your Watch when Apple thinks you might want them, such as a workout suggestion right when youre about to start your daily 8am jog. Its all arranged through harnessing artificial intelligence to predict what you might want to do with your Watch.

Why not take out the AI guesswork and expand these hints to Live Activities? When you start playing music on your Mac, your Watch could show a little Spotify icon at the bottom of your screen. One tap and the full Live Activity would launch. That would be a good compromise, enabling you to still get Live Activity functionality without the feature dominating your display. (Image credit: Apple) Now, before you tell me this already exists, I know that
theres a toggle called Auto-Launch Live Activities buried in the Apple Watchs Settings app, and disabling this stops Live Activities starting by
themselves. But if you do this, the app that would otherwise trigger the Live Activity is restricted to a tiny icon at the top of your screen one which I struggle to hit half the time. Smart Stack hints, on the other hand, are a touch larger and therefore much easier to press.

As well as that, the existing situation tapping the minute icon at the top
of your display launches the full-blown Watch app. A Smart Stack hint, meanwhile, fires up a Live Activity, which often preserves important watch face information like the clock. Personally, I prefer the latter.

Making that idea a reality is something Id love to see at WWDC. Apple has already laid the groundwork in the form of Smart Stack hints. Now it just needs to open the system up to Live Activities and tweak the feature.

And who knows, perhaps Apple will come up with something even better. For a company well known for its intuitive software, Im sure it can rustle up something impressive. Ill be watching with bated breath. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/health-fitness/smartwatches/my-two-biggest-wishes-fo r-watchos-27-arent-new-features-theyre-fixes


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