Watchos 26 Comes to Apple Watch with training buddies with AI, new designs and more

Press Release June 9, 2025

With the new software design, you can enjoy using the Apple Watch, and your workout buddy will bring you your first workout experience with Apple Intelligence, and your smart stack and messaging will be more intelligent

Cupertino, California today previewed the Watchos 26, providing a beautiful new look and even more intelligence for a more personalized experience, helping users stay active, healthy and connected. The new design with Liquid Glass makes features like Smart Stack, Control Center, Photos Watch Face, and In-App navigation more expressive, keeping Watchos instant familiarity. Apple Intelligence improves your fitness experience with your workout buddy. The Workout app features a new layout and offers music to listen to based on user preferences and workout type. Watchos 26 introduces new one-handed listflicking gestures to make everyday interactions even more convenient with message smart stack tips and updates and easily reject notifications.

“The Apple Watch is an integral companion to millions of people around the world, and Watchos 26 uses intelligence to provide an even more personalized experience,” said David Clark, senior director of Watchos Engineering at Apple. “From gorgeous new designs to training buddies at Apple Intelligence, personalized music suggestions in the workout app, to more intelligence in smart stacks and messaging, we are excited by the many ways Watchos 26 can help you stay active, healthy, connected and safe throughout the day.”

Beautiful new design

The luxurious new software design using Liquid Glass brings a fresh look to your Watchos 26. This new design allows for a vibrant, expressive experience that uses real-time rendering to reflect and refract content, making your Apple Watch even more fun with more content focus. Smart Stack Widgets, Smart Stack Tips, Notifications, Control Center, and in-app controls and navigation adopt a new design. The face of the popular photo is reinforced with numbers made from liquid glass, allowing users to see even more photos.

Apple Intelligence comes to fitness with training buddies

Workout Buddy is Apple Intelligence’s first fitness experience that incorporates user workout data and fitness history to generate personalized motivational insights during the session based on data such as heart rate, pace, distance, activity rings, personal fitness milestones and more.

For example, once the user starts running, the workout buddy will have a personalized PEP talk reminding him of the past week of driving, sharing how to oppose the goal of the activity ring.

During your workout, your training buddy will tell you whether you will mark key moments like miles splits or hit new milestones based on your fitness history. “Mile 4. “Hey, check this out. The total mileage for the year exceeded the 200-mile mark! That’s a lot of running!”

Once the user finishes their workout, the training buddy summarises training statistics and congratulates their achievements.

To provide meaningful inspiration in real time, Workout Buddy uses Apple Intelligence to analyze your data safely and personally. The new text-to-speech model has the energy, style and tone suitable for your workout, as it transforms insights into dynamically generated speech constructed using Fitness+ Trainer audio data.

The Workout Buddy will be available on Apple Watches with Bluetooth headphones and requires an iPhone supported by Apple Intelligence nearby. It starts in English with some of the most popular training types, including outdoor and indoor runs, outdoor and indoor walks, outdoor cycles, HIIT, functional and traditional strength training.

Additional updates to the workout experience

The Workout app is one of the most popular apps on the Apple Watch, and Watchos 26 will debut the biggest updates in layout and navigation since its introduction. Four new buttons in the corner of the app allow users to access their favorite features and make it easier to customize their training, including workout views, custom workouts, pacers, and race routes.

To add inspiration, users can set up music and podcasts in the training app and play them automatically when they start their workout. For user convenience, Apple Music now allows you to select the best playlist for training users based on the type of workout and personal preferences.¹ Alternatively, users can view playlists and podcast suggestions based on what they have recently heard in that particular training type.

Smart stacks become even more aggressive

Smart stacks are designed to allow users to quickly access important information from any Watch Face. In Watchos 26, smart stacks improve prediction algorithms by incorporating more context data, sensor data, and data from user routines and providing smart stack hints. Tips for smart stacks made of liquid glass are displayed on the display as a gentle visual prompt. For example, you might see a backtrack hint when the user is in a remote location with no connectivity. Alternatively, you may receive tips for Pilates training when users arrive at the studio location at normal times.

Added convenience to your message

Apple Watch supports live translation on messages using Apple Intelligence, allowing incoming text to be automatically translated on top of the wrist into the language of your choice.² And when the user responds, the text of the person he is having a conversation can be translated instantly. Live translations are available on Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 with iPhones supported by Apple Intelligence.

Additionally, for users whose device language is set to English, Apple Watch intelligently suggests messages-related actions using the context of the conversation. This could include asking users to share when their friends arrive at their home, or checking in to use Apple Cash when users are asked to contribute to a group gift. Customizable backgrounds set on your iPhone will also be displayed on your Apple Watch, allowing the conversation to feel more personal and clear, allowing users to respond to wrist polls. Smart replies are even more accurate for users with device language set to English, and there is an improved on-device language model that allows you to generate relevant responses based on the content of the conversation.³

Notification management is easy

Notifications are even easier to manage with simple listflicking gestures for the Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2. Users are not ready to lift their wrists to see notifications, but they can quickly turn their wrists over and reject the notifications. You can use the ListFlick gesture to dismiss notifications and incoming calls, silent timers and alarms, and return to the face of the watch. Analyze user wrist movements along with machine learning models using accelerometers and gyroscopes. Listflick allows you to participate in double tap gestures to do more with your Apple Watch with one hand, such as when walking your dog or drinking coffee.

Apple Watch can automatically adjust the speaker volume based on the surrounding noise of the user’s surroundings for notifications, timers, alarms, incoming calls, and Siri, allowing you to stay connected without worrying about getting in the way of people around you.

Additional updates for Watchos 26:

• Notes app Come to your Apple Watch and allow users to access notes on their wrists. Users can also pin and unlock notes, unlock checklist items completely, and create new notes using SIRI, dictation, and keyboard.

• Keep assist and Call Screening When your iPhone is nearby, come to the phone app. If a user is waiting for a live agent, Hold Assist will recognize the live agent when it is available and notify the user to return to the call.⁴ Call screening helps users manage incoming calls from unknown numbers more efficiently by collecting names and reasons for the call before the phone rings. So you can make an informed decision about whether to pick up, reject a call or request more details.⁵

• For deaf or hard to hear users, Live Listen Controls are coming to the Apple Watch with a new set of features, including real-time live captions of what iPhones hear on a pair of Apple Watches while listening to audio.⁶ The Apple Watch acts as a remote control that starts or stops a live listening session on a pair of iPhones, or returns to the session to capture anything you may have missed.

• The photo is the face Images are now shuffled based on featured content from photos, allowing users to view the image of the most meaningful moments each time they lift their wrists, or tap on the display.

• Users can now use the redesign to explore and discover the face of their watches more easily View the Face Gallery Faces are grouped into collections in the Watch apps on Apple Watch and iPhone.

Developers can take advantage of new APIs in Watchos 26, including Design, The Smart Stack and more. Developers can use the new Swiftui API to adopt beautiful new design materials from Watchos 26. The Control Widget API allows developers to create custom controls that are added to the Control Center, Action Buttons, or Smart Stack widgets, and the Smart Stack Related APIs add third-party widgets to the smart stack, like new signals like user points. For example, Smart Stack can intelligently display widgets for the slopes when users arrive at a ski resort with improved location APIs. This allows Dark Noise to add custom controls to the Control Center, allowing users to easily turn on sleep soundscapes without picking up the iPhone.