{"id":23520,"date":"2025-09-15T09:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T09:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/23520\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T09:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T09:58:09","slug":"watchos-26-arrives-today-i-tried-the-new-apple-watch-faces-and-theres-a-clear-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/23520\/","title":{"rendered":"watchOS 26 arrives today \u2014 I tried the new Apple Watch faces and there\u2019s a clear winner"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Apple Watch Series 11<\/a> and Ultra 3 have launched and are bringing a raft of new features with them, including hypertension tracking, satellite connectivity and longer battery life.<\/p>\n

Hardware upgrades are great, but I always get just as excited about the new watch faces that arrive with any Apple Watch launch, and there are four coming to the Apple Watch Ultra with watchOS 26<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One of those is a Herm\u00e8s exclusive, but I\u2019ve tested the other three faces using the watchOS 26 beta on an Apple Watch Ultra 2<\/a>, and I have a lot of thoughts on them, with Waypoint being the standout of the trio in my view.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Waypoint<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 2<\/p>\n

\"Apple(Image credit: Future)\"Apple(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

This is an Ultra-only watch face, which is a shame for those using a Series watch as it\u2019s the best of the new faces. It\u2019s a data rich face that shows where you are in relation to places you\u2019ve saved, which rotate around the watch face on a ring.<\/p>\n

It almost reminds me of the Weasley clock from Harry Potter, which showed the location of the various Weasleys, but instead shows places and, you know, isn\u2019t magic.<\/p>\n

At the moment the face is a little redundant for me as I\u2019m not traveling, though dropping a pin to show where I parked the car is handy, but the Waypoint face makes me want to go camping in particular, just so I can log all sorts of useful spots to make navigation a little easier.<\/p>\n

You can customize four complications on the face, including the big circle in the corner, which you can have on the right or left or get rid of entirely.<\/p>\n

Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the most useful and attractive of the new watch faces in my opinion, and the only one I\u2019d consider swapping out my default pick of Modular Ultra for.<\/p>\n

Flow<\/p>\n

\n

\"Apple\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

Flow is a simple watch face that just shows the time in big numbers, in a similar vein to faceas like Flux or Numerals Duo. You can decide if you want a background and also pick the color on the face, but you can\u2019t add complications.<\/p>\n

The liquid effect on the face is quite interesting and responds to your movements when the watch face is activated. It really leans into the Liquid Glass features of watchOS 26 in general, but I don\u2019t like the lack of data you can show on the Flow face, and if I wanted a simple face to show the time I prefer the look of the Flux face myself.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Exactograph<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 2<\/p>\n

\"Apple(Image credit: Future)\"Apple(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

This a modern take on a regulator watch that shows you hours, minutes and seconds separately to provide more exact time. You can customize the face to show the time in rings or on lines, and if you have rings you can pick four complications for the corners.<\/p>\n

When you have the time showing on lines this looks cool, though the speed at which the seconds fly by is a little disconcerting. The three rings don’t look great in my opinion though, because you have two rings with the same 0-60 dial for minutes and seconds.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite a busy face in general and since my preferred version of it doesn\u2019t allow for complications, it\u2019s not one I expect to use a lot myself.<\/p>\n

Follow Tom’s Guide on Google News<\/a> and add us as a preferred source<\/a> to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!<\/p>\n

More from Tom’s Guide<\/p>\n

Today’s best Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Apple Watch Series 10 deals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Apple Watch Series 11 and Ultra 3 have launched and are bringing a raft of new features…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[356,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-23520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gadgets","8":"tag-gadgets","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}