Apple is set to release watchOS 27 on Monday, September 14, to the Apple Watch Series 9 and later. watchOS 27 brings several new features to the watch, including a new Dynamic App Grid, a new Siri, a new single-tap gesture, and more.
The release date was announced alongside the Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4, and several new health features such as Readiness, Longevity, Labs, and more. Read more about them here. Some features like “Audio Intelligence” are limited to the newly announced Apple Watch models.
With the rollout of the Release Candidate version to beta testers today, Apple has shared a full list of new features and changes within watchOS 27:
“watchOS 27 features the next generation of Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, updates to Workout Buddy, a new tap gesture, a dynamic app grid to make it easier to access your most used apps, and improvements that make watchOS 27 more responsive and delightful to use. Siri AI is an entirely new version of Siri that is more intelligent, knowledgeable, and capable. With improvements that span areas like fitness, design, performance, and more, the experience on watchOS 27 has been refined and elevated, so it feels even better to use.
Siri AI:
- A more capable and conversational version of Siri is rolling out to users. It helps you find what you need and get more done, drawing on capabilities like personal context understanding, app actions, onscreen awareness, and access to broad world knowledge
- New voice experience offers more expressive and natural-sounding voices, and lets you customize expressivity and pace to make Siri more personal to you using powerful on-device models on paired iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro models and later
- Dedicated Siri app provides an easy way to revisit an existing conversation or kick off a new one, and privately syncs conversations across your Apple products with iCloud
Apple Intelligence across apps:
- Workout Buddy delivers motivation with new insights and is now available without your iPhone nearby when you have a Wi-Fi or cellular connection
- Call Context in the Phone app understands when you’re speaking to certain businesses and proactively surfaces relevant information from across your apps, like a confirmation code or a reservation number
Cycle Tracking:
- Cycle deviation notifications that are suggestive of perimenopause can be received by those age 40 and over
Watch Faces:
- Siri Modular face features a rectangular complication that mirrors the top widget of the Smart Stack, which dynamically updates to show the most relevant widget, as well as a Siri complication to quickly invoke Siri
Smart Stack:
- Single-handed tap gesture enables you to tap your index finger and thumb together once to select a widget in the Smart Stack, even if your other hand is occupied
- New suggestion widgets will be surfaced when most relevant to you, including a Parked Car location, birthday reminders for a close contact, balance changes on a transit card, Noise app after a loud noise notification, and more
System Improvements:
- Dynamic app grid highlights your most popular and recently used apps
- Find My app is now consolidated into one app to show People, Devices, and Items with a map-centric interface
- Media playback now starts faster
- Workout app makes distance calculations during treadmill workouts even more accurate from the first step of every walk or run
- Fitness app features more accurate route maps after workouts
- Battery extension notifications may be proactively offered to disable certain features to increase battery life, including gestures, Start Workout reminders, and Raise to Speak method of invoking Siri
- Shazam in the Smart Stack and Music Recognition app identifies songs offline without an internet connection and delivers results automatically when you’re back online
- Liquid Glass refinements improve readability with more uniform refraction and improved contrast
For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit: https://support.apple.com/100100
Usage limits may apply for some Apple Intelligence features. To learn more, please visit: https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence
Software updates, like this one, add new features and improvements that may affect performance and/or battery life. To learn more, please visit: https://support.apple.com/125039“
Will you be updating your Apple Watch to watchOS 27? Which feature are you looking forward to using? Let us know down in the comments or write to us on @appleosophy! Be sure to download the Appleosophy App from the App Store or visit our website to stay updated with the latest Apple news!
