Download Apple Ultra Watch Faces
Zayne Plascencia
watchOS 10 introduces two new artistic and joyful watch faces: Palette and Snoopy. The Palette face depicts time in a wide variety of colors using three distinct overlapping layers, and as the time changes, the colors on the display also shift.
The developer beta of watchOS 10 is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today. A public beta will be available to watchOS users next month at beta.apple.com. watchOS 10 will be available this fall as a free software update for Apple Watch Series 4 or later paired with iPhone Xs or later, running iOS 17. Some features may not be available in all regions or all languages, or on all devices. Features are subject to change. For more information, visit apple.com/watchos/watchos-preview.
Not sure if this is just me or did Apple just remove the ability to swipe between watch faces? After updating, the only way to get to the neighboring watch face is to long-press to (brings up the edit button) and then I can move to a neighboring watch face. If that's intentional, that sucks. I use four neighboring faces for different purposes and am swiping between them constantly. This will make using the watch very laborious for me.
"Accidental watch face changing???" You've gotta be kidding. How hard is it to swipe back to the right face? They tipped over the entire design and let it fall in the mud over that? If this stays permanent, I'm putting my Series 5 white ceramic on permanent battery life support (the reason my iPhone 1 still works) and wear it occasionally just for fashion reasons, and go back to analog watches for daily use. The loss of left/right swipe plus the loss of the crown interacting with faces like kaliedescope, solar dial, metropolitan, all three astronomy, etc means I lost my favorite fidget (the crown). Definitely going back to analog. No one wants to wear a source of frustration on their wrist.
Major bummer, yes! I updated to 10 last night and was also shocked to find I had to long press, swipe and click to get to my other watch faces. Watch faces are my preselected groups of complications that I use throughout the day for different events and times of the day. A simple fun swipe that was replaced by multiple gyrations that will eventually drive me mad!!
The more I consider it, the more I worry. Smart Stacks is supposedly the replacement for changing watch faces. Smart Stacks is a horrible design for people who want lots of information at a quick glance (this is what I thought all Apple Watch owners used their watches for). The crown is imprecise - it's wiggle-y. Not enough data is shown at once. It's cumbersome, inefficient, dynamic, and not predictable. It's a bad user interface for a smart watch. A smart watch should function primarily as a device to give you a lot of information as bold and efficiently as possible. WatchOS 10 fails on many accounts to do so. This is an observable and repeatable objective fact.
With watch faces, I can easily swipe from one to the next to get a ton of information - at a glance. I can even swipe faces and open apps all in one motion as I'm raising my wrist before I even look at the watch because I know how they're designed. A predictable user interface is superior to an unpredictable one.
It seems that all watch faces display the time as 10:09 and then jump to the current time. That does seem to be new behavior but it happens in milliseconds and certainly isn't something to get ruffled about.
Since you're new in the Apple Support Communities, you are unaware of how many folks complained in this forum about the constant accidental switching of watch faces! Millions around the world welcomed the tap & hold to activate watch face swutching.
Now that the Apple Watch Series 3 has been put out to pasture, nearly all of the faces in watchOS 10 are available on every supported model of the wearable. The only exceptions are Explorer, which has always been limited to cellular-capable Apple Watch models, and the Contour and Modular Duo faces, which are limited to the Apple Watch Series 7, 8, 9, and the Apple Watch Ultra and Ultra 2 due to their larger screens. The two Apple Watch Ultra models also include a pair of unique faces: Wayfinder, which is geared toward the outdoor adventure enthusiasts who are its target customers, and a new Modular Ultra face that makes better use of the even larger display.
Lunar offers a valuable addition for moon-watchers and folks who like to use alternate calendars. For whatever reason, Apple took away the ability to show a Chinese, Hebrew, or Islamic calendar date on the standard watch faces in watchOS 9, so the Lunar face is the solution to getting that back. You can choose between an analog or digital clock and place up to four complications in the corners.
You can add faces to your Apple Watch either directly from your wrist or via the Watch app on your iPhone. While adding directly on the Apple Watch is the quickest option, the iPhone app can be better for customizing your watch face and adding complications.
To add, edit, or customize faces directly on your Apple Watch, press and hold your current watch face. This will take you to a left-to-right list of all your saved watch faces. You can edit an existing face by swiping to it and choosing Edit, or create a new face by swiping left or turning the Digital Crown upward until you see New. Select the big Plus button and then swipe or use the Digital Crown to scroll through the gallery of watch faces to find the one you would like to add.
Apple Watch Ultra includes hardware-exclusive faces called Wayfinder and Ultra Modular. These watch faces are capable of shifting its standard color mode to a black and red version. This is how it originally worked in watchOS 9 for Wayfinder:
Night mode activates automatically when the light is low enough by using the ambient light sensor, which is a feature that also comes to the Wayfinder watch face on the first-gen Ultra if you are running WatchOS 10. Apple has added the second-generation ultrawideband chip that supports precision finding for the iPhone 15.
There are now tons of Apple Watch faces on offer, and the great thing is how customizable they all are. Below, we've highlighted our top picks, but make sure to play around with the complications on each and have a good crop of options in your on-watch library that you can switch between when you get bored.
Contour is made to show off that more curvy case look of Apple's latest smartwatch. You have the option to have the font displayed flat on the screen or to match the curves of the Watch case. You can also adjust the background color and there's a special Pride version as well which is a welcome addition to Apple's growing collection of slick faces.
Designed by artist Geoff McFetridge, the Artist watch face shows faces that subtly show the time as the eyes and nose. Tap the screen to change and customize the face shown, and the always-on display will show the outline of the drawing when powered down. It's abstract but has a very unique look.
Windy This offers the most aviation weather features of any watch app, including general forecasts, wind forecast, METARs, zoomable weather radar, and custom watch faces (read our full watch app review here). Get the watch app here.
It comes with an inner dial with 12-hour markings that shows your local time, and an outer dial with 24-hour markings that shows you a different time zone. This, you can set by simply rotating the Digital Crown to see all the available time zones, and selecting the one you want to view on your watch face.13. Liquid Metal, Fire/ Water Watch FacesTechnically these are separate watch faces, but they are basically the same thing, except for the element used. These watch faces show awesome animations every time you tap the screen or wake your watch.The animations were recorded by Apple, and you can choose between water, fire, and liquid metal in the watch faces.These are by-far the coolest looking Apple Watch faces you will find. The animations are insanely captivating to look at, and I would recommend you keep the dial shape to full-screen for a more immersive animation. However, if you want complications on the screen, you can opt for a circular dial shape as well.14. MeridianMeridian is like a slightly more casual version of California. It offers a refined look to your watch while still being slightly playful. Meridian only offers a full-screen look, but includes four complications in the middle of the screen that you can customise.
I bought my ultra last week and today went for my first swim and I was shocked when I realized that the information on the watch screen is useless!
I just need last set avg pace, distance & time, total time & distance, rest time. My 8 year old ambit 3 gave me this information.
It detects the sets pretty well because the information on the fitness app is good but not on the watch during the workout
Is there any app that you guys recommend? I was reading about swimpro and swim.com I guess I will try them next pool day
Is it possible to trigger a satellite SOS / send a satellite location message (if an iPhone 14/15 is connected) from the ultra/ultra 2 (if you are out of cell/internet connection)? I mean to use the watch as a remote for that? Do you think Apple is going to add paid 2 way (satellite) messaging to the iPhone 14/15 or is the used satellite system/hardware not able to manage that?
There seems to be an app for the ultra/2 (and/or other apple watches) to get a Garmin Varia Radar 515/516 connected via bt. Have you perhaps tried it? Its called Aradar (it is a paid version). Would like to ger your opinion about that app.
Thanks for the great review! As you mention at the end a lot of features are on the software end of things and the U2 has better battery life.
I am looking for a new watch as I managed to smash my Series5 over the weekend and I am torn between the S9, U2 or perhaps even something entirely different. One of the main gripes I always had with my apple watch is the need for third party apps to achieve tasks other watches can do right out of the box.
Are you planning to update the comparison view with the Ultra watches? ?