Apple to return widgets to the Apple Watch platform with watchOS 10 says new report

With Apple planning on revamping the Apple Watch UI with watchOS 10, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes about what changes to expect in his weekly Power On newsletter. He says that Apple will bring widgets back to the most popular watch in the world. Not only is Apple bringing back widgets, but it also plans on making them a major part of the Apple Watch interface. The upcoming watchOS 10 update will be previewed at WWDC 2023 which will kick off on June 5th.

Gurman calls the Apple Watch widgets a combination of the Glances system which used to be part of Apple Watch, and the widgets currently found on the iPhone. Instead of having to open apps to obtain information, users would run through a stack of widgets that will show data related to the weather, the stock market, the user's calendar, and more. The widgets will be layered over any of the watch faces selected by the user on a compatible Apple Watch model.

One change that might take place in watchOS 10 would change the function of the Apple Watch's Digital Crown. Currently, pressing the button takes you to the home screen but Gurman says that Apple might have users press the button to open up the timepiece's widgets instead. As Gurman notes, Apple's move shows that it has come to the realization that the iPhone's app-centric platform doesn't work as well on a watch where the user wants to see the latest information quickly without having to waste time looking where to find it.

The Apple Watch doesn't have a particularly large selection of apps to choose from compared with Apple's other devices. In a legal filing that Apple submitted in Europe, the company said that the Apple Watch App Store has less than one million monthly visitors in that market compared to the 101 million iPhone users who visit that App Store on a monthly basis (again, in that region).

Gurman says that the watchOS 10 update will be the biggest change to the Apple Watch this year since the Series 9 models are likely not to have any major hardware upgrades.