{"id":446562,"date":"2026-02-01T04:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T04:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/446562\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T04:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T04:46:11","slug":"heres-my-one-apple-watch-feature-request-for-watchos-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/446562\/","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s my one Apple Watch feature request for watchOS 27"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t<img width=\"1600\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/watchos-26-wrist-flick.jpg\" class=\"skip-lazy wp-post-image\" alt=\"\"  decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Apple Watch certainly feels like a rather mature platform at this point. Software wise, there isn\u2019t usually a ton I\u2019d like to see \u2013 though there probably is a lot of potential for the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/46qCeVQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch<\/a> to serve as an AI wearable. Nonetheless, there is one nifty software upgrade I\u2019d really like to see them add to the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/46qCeVQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Apple Watch Ultra has an Action Button<\/p>\n<p>One of the standout features about the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4bqwVJz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch Ultra<\/a> is the fact that it has an Action Button. I really appreciate having it, mainly to open the workouts app in a pinch.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not much of an <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/46qCeVQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch <\/a>power user. I do wear one every day to track my activity and check the time, but I don\u2019t really interact with apps or even really check notifications on it. So, when I do actually interact with my Apple Watch, its often to open the workouts app, which is what I have my Action Button set to.<\/p>\n<p>However, other <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/46qCeVQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch<\/a> models don\u2019t have that same parallel.<\/p>\n<p>It makes sense, to be clear. <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4bqwVJz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch Ultra<\/a> is a lot bigger and bulkier, so there\u2019s clearly room to include an additional button. On the sleek Series 11, I wouldn\u2019t expect Apple to add a second button. However, they could easily work around it with software.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"512\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/customize-action-button-apple-watch-ultra.jpeg\" alt=\"Customize Action button Apple Watch Ultra\" class=\"wp-image-837503\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>watchOS 27 request<\/p>\n<p>With <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/46qCeVQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch<\/a>, there\u2019s really two buttons to work with. There\u2019s the click functionality on the digital crown, and then there\u2019s the side button.<\/p>\n<p>Clicking the digital crown goes to the app launcher, double clicking it opens the app switcher, and holding it launches Siri. So, there isn\u2019t much room to work with there.<\/p>\n<p>As for the side button, clicking it once opens Control Center, double clicking it opens Apple Pay, and holding it goes to the power off menu.<\/p>\n<p>I think theres an opportunity to take advantage of the holding action on the side button.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it. On iPhone, holding the side button hasn\u2019t opened a power menu in ages. Since iPhone X, that\u2019s been mapped to Siri. Instead, to turn off your iPhone, you have to hold volume up and the side button.<\/p>\n<p>I think that same parallel could be brought to <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/46qCeVQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch<\/a>, where power off is accessed by holding both the side button and the digital crown. Right now, 10 seconds of that will cause a force reset, but they could simply extend that window to 20 seconds so the button combination could be used for powering off.<\/p>\n<p>Then, once power off is squared away, the action of simply holding the side button could be used to serve as an Action Button of sorts. This would be available on all <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/46qCeVQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch <\/a>models, including<a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4bqwVJz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Apple Watch Ultra<\/a> \u2013 so those users would have a second customizable button.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"512\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/apple-watch-series-10-sides.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1014421\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Wrap up<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps my suggestion is a bit too convoluted for some <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/46qCeVQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch<\/a> users. As an alternative, Apple could also consider allowing the double click side button action to be remapped to something custom \u2013 and keep everything else the same. I\u2019ve never really used Apple Pay on my Watch much (other than occasionally express transit), so I\u2019d be okay with that compromise too.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, I just think it\u2019d be cool if every <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/46qCeVQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch<\/a> user had the ability to have a customizable button, just like <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4bqwVJz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch Ultra<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>My favorite Apple accessory recommendations:<\/p>\n<p>Follow Michael:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mbrkhrdt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">X\/Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/michaelb.nyc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/instagram.com\/m.brkhrdt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Instagram<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/9to5mac.com\" aria-label=\"Add 9to5Mac as a preferred source on Google\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"google-preferred-source-badge-dark\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1767146409_918_google-preferred-source-badge-dark.png\" alt=\"Add 9to5Mac as a preferred source on Google\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"google-preferred-source-badge-light\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1767146410_539_google-preferred-source-badge-light.png\" alt=\"Add 9to5Mac as a preferred source on Google\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"disclaimer-affiliate\">FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/about\/#affiliate\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">More.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3LroSSb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1035230\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/750_150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"150\"\/><\/a>\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple Watch certainly feels like a rather mature platform at this point. Software wise, there isn\u2019t usually a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[49,48,195,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-446562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gadgets","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-gadgets","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}