Apple is now offering the first public beta of watchOS 26, the next major update for Apple Watch, ahead of its official fall release. While the biggest visual update may appear to be the limited Liquid Glass elements, the substance of watchOS 26 exists in how it integrates with Apple Intelligence for smarter workouts and more context-aware communication. After some hands-on time with the update, here’s what stands out so far.

Apple has released watchOS 26 beta 4 for developers, debuting new software a little more than two weeks after the last beta and ahead of the public beta’s arrival.

watchOS 26 is coming this fall, with new features like the Notes app, watch face ‘hints,’ Control Center upgrades, and more. But unlike most watchOS releases, there are several tentpole features that will only be available on very recent Apple Watch models.

Apple Watch users have new beta software to install. watchOS 26 beta 3 is now available for developers, here’s what to expect.

watchOS 26 is the Apple Watch’s next major hardware update, and it includes several Apple Intelligence-powered features. Here are the hardware requirements to get Apple Intelligence on your Watch.

Anyone running a beta version of any software should of course expect issues, but if you own an Apple Watch Hermès, you’ll want to completely avoid the beta 2 versions of both watchOS 26 and iOS 26.

Apple has warned of an incompatibility issue between watchOS 26 beta 2 and the Hermès watch, believed to be due to a problem with the watch faces unique to that model …

watchOS 26 is the next major software update for Apple Watch, bringing Apple Notes to your wrist, updates to the Workout app, and more. Another big watchOS 26 highlight: upgrades to Control Center. Here’s what’s coming.

watchOS 26 is the next big software update coming to Apple Watch, and Apple has just released developer beta 2 for testing.

WWDC 2025 ends today, and we’ve seen all the new features on offer from Apple’s shiny glassy new iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, and visionOS 26.

The first developer betas are available now, and anyone can sign up to try them – but you probably shouldn’t. If you’re not a developer with sacrificial test devices, exactly how long should you wait in the beta cycle before risking them on your daily drivers … ?

On of the new features coming to Apple Watch with watchOS 26 this fall is wrist flick. This is a new gesture that unlocks an additional way to interact with incoming notifications.

Here are the Apple Watch models compatible with wrist flick.

Apple Watch has nearly 60 faces, and watchOS 26 optimizes way more than before for Apple Watch Series 10. It’s not all good news with watchOS 26, however, as Apple continues to discontinue watch faces through software updates.

Apple Watch Series 10 features an upgraded display with a faster refresh rate. This enables select watch faces to display a ticking seconds indicator even in always-on mode. However, most watch faces don’t actually take advantage of the new hardware yet. The watchOS 26 software update coming this fall will change that.

Apple has officially announced watchOS 26, the successor to watchOS 11. The new name aligns with iOS 26 (and using the upcoming year to reference each software version). The flagship new software feature for Apple Watch in watchOS 26 is called Workout Buddy, an Apple Intelligence-powered fitness feature.

Alongside the expected design overhauls coming to iOS 26 and the rest of Apple’s platforms at WWDC, 9to5Mac has learned that watchOS 26 is set to introduce one of the most requested Apple Watch usability features to date: third-party widgets in Control Center.