watchOS 11 continues the overhaul of the navigation system on the latest Apple Watches, including the Apple Watch Ultra 2. This means that the gestures and buttons you used to use on watchOS 9 may no longer work as expected, and ones from watchOS 10 might work a bit differently as the actions have been remapped. Worry not, though. We’re here to tell you exactly what each button and gesture now does.
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Apple Watch physical buttons
Starting with the Apple Watch’s physical buttons:
- Rotating the Digital Crown now brings up the new Stacks and allows you to scroll through them. With watchOS 11, the Smart Stack intelligently offers widgets that are personalized for you. New ones include Shazam, Photos, and Distance. It can also suggest widgets to add based on the time, date, location, your daily routines, and other factors, so they are easy for you to access with a twist of the Digital Crown. There are also interactive widgets, so you can access things like Translate or see when your Uber is arriving.
- Clicking the Digital Crown once opens the App Library.
- Double-clicking the Digital Crown shows recently-opened apps.
- Clicking and holding on to the Digital Crown triggers Siri.
- Clicking the Side button opens/closes the Control Center.
- Double-clicking the Side button shows your Apple Wallet cards.
- Clicking and holding the Side button brings up the Power menu.
Gestures on watchOS 11
Moving on to watchOS 11 gestures on the main screen:
- Swiping up from the bottom now shows the new widgets in the Smart Stack instead of opening the Control Center.
- Swiping down from the top reveals the Notification Center, just like on watchOS 10.
- Swiping left and right no longer switches between the different watch faces you’ve added, unless you manually enable the toggle in Settings> Clock. However, this option is only available on watchOS 10.2 and newer versions. Now, you can’t swipe left and right from the home screen, it won’t perform any function at all.
- Tapping and holding on to the watch face’s center allows you to edit the apps, add new ones, or delete them, as is the case on watchOS 10.
Mostly more of the same
That’s it! That’s all you need to know about the gesture and navigation system on watchOS 11, which works almost identically to watchOS 10 beyond the enhanced Smart Stack options. Apple rarely makes significant tweaks to a device’s core controls. So rest assured that big changes likely won’t occur again anytime soon in the watchOS department.
As with any usability changes, you get used to it over time and it becomes second nature. If you plan to update your Apple Watch to watchOS 11 beta or wait until it’s officially available in the Fall, you won’t have to deal with much of a change compared to watchOS 11. You will, however, have some fun trying to customize and personalize the Smart Stacks, and might find yourself using the Digital Crown to access them more often.