These Are All the New Features in watchOS 10.2

While watchOS 10 added some great new features, it also, for some reason, removed the ability to swipe on your screen to change watch faces. This move was controversial among Apple Watch users, who swiped at their watch screens left and right in vain. Fortunately it looks like the feedback reached Apple, as the company reversed the change with watchOS 10.2. Along with this welcome change, there are a handful of other useful additions in this latest watchOS update.

Swipe to change the watch face

It’s time to celebrate: you can once again quickly change watch faces on your Apple Watch. If you prefer to swipe the screen of the watch to change its face, you can go to the Watch app on your iPhone and head over to Clock and enable Swipe to Watch Face. WatchOS 10.2 also fixes a bug where watch faces wouldn’t appear on the device.

Add a confirmation before ending workouts

If you tend to accidentally end your workouts on your watch, you can force watchOS to show a confirmation dialogue before wrapping things up. To do so, go to the Watch app on your iPhone, navigate to Workout, and enable End Workout Confirmation.

Siri is more useful

In watchOS 10, you have access to on-device Siri that works even when you’re offline. The 10.2 update brings more features to Siri. You can ask Siri to log and read back health data from your Health app. That includes metrics like how much you weigh, what your step count is, what medications you take and when, and other questions about your health. This option is only available on Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2.

Prioritise music or trainer’s voices in Apple Fitness+

Those who use Apple Fitness+ will be able to choose if they want to focus on the music or on the trainer’s voice. You can increase the volume of the trainer’s voice or the music, depending on what you find more helpful.

Automatically view Now Playing information near your HomePod

As long as you have an Apple Watch Series 6 or newer, you will be able to quickly check what’s playing on your HomePod mini or HomePod (2nd Gen). If you’re near your HomePod and check the Now Playing widget on your Apple Watch, you’ll see what’s playing on the Music or Podcasts apps.