When it launched watchOS 26.4 on Tuesday, Apple mounted an annoying latest addition to the Exercise app. After you replace, you’ll be able to faucet on the large fats exercise sort icon to begin recording a exercise rapidly and simply.
It’s a small factor, however if you’re coping with a display screen the dimensions of the Apple Watch — and particularly if you’re exterior within the shiny solar, on the point of leap right into a exercise — the larger the faucet goal, the higher.
watchOS 26.4 makes it simpler to begin a exercise
As Apple continues to refine watchOS 12 months after 12 months, among the modifications don’t sit nicely with Apple Watch homeowners. That’s utterly comprehensible — it occurs with iPhone homeowners, too, each time Apple updates iOS.
However with the Apple Watch, modifications that intrude with established routines can show much more upsetting. Folks get used to doing issues the identical manner, whether or not it’s launching a podcast or beginning a exercise. And for the reason that Apple Watch display screen is so small, precision is paramount if you’re tapping on tiny icons.
That’s why when Apple switched to its “4 corners” format within the Exercise app in watchOS 26 final fall, it threw common customers for a loop. Sure, it gave you quick access to varied settings. However out of the blue, after discovering your required exercise — Outside Stroll, Open Water Swim, and so forth. — merely tapping its massive, stunning icon didn’t start recording a exercise prefer it did within the outdated days.
As a substitute, you wanted to faucet the spherical icon with the triangle on the backside of the Apple Watch display screen. (That icon by no means actually made a lot sense, both, because it’s the common media management icon for “Play,” not “Document.”)
“Earlier than the replace to 26, I might hit Exercise => Outside Stroll and it could rely down from 3 and begin the exercise,” wrote one pissed off consumer on Reddit just a few months in the past. “Now it reveals me a display screen with an arrow that I’ve to hit after which it begins the countdown. This looks like an additional step with no function.”
An excessive amount of tappy tappy
It seems no person desires additional steps — even when launching a exercise that’s all about counting their steps.
Anyway, these aggravated by the change didn’t must put up with it for too lengthy. With watchOS 26.4, Apple modified the Exercise app so you’ll be able to as soon as once more press the larger (and rather more recognizable) exercise sort icon to start a exercise.
“Exercise sort icon within the Exercise app enables you to begin a exercise with a single faucet,” Apple stated within the watchOS 26.4 assist doc.
It’s an amazing instance of Apple listening to customers’ complaints and strolling again an unwelcome change. (Now do macOS 26 Tahoe’s unhelpful vomit of menu merchandise icons.)
Different updates for Apple Watch in watchOS 26.4
That wasn’t the one change in watchOS 26.4, although. It additionally added eight new emoji — trombone, orca, combat cloud, landslide, ballet dancer, treasure chest, furry creature (aka Bigfoot) and the clear standout, distorted face — in addition to assist for Apple’s new AirPods Max 2 headphones.
The replace additionally consists of numerous bug fixes and safety updates.
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Lewis Wallace is the managing editor of Cult of Mac and writer of our weekly publication, The Weekender.
He’s a San Francisco-based author and editor specializing in expertise and tradition. He loves his iPhone, hates Siri, and appreciates any {hardware} that mixes kind and performance.
Previous to Cult of Mac, he juggled phrases and concepts as tradition editor at Wired.com, homepage editor at TechTV, information product supervisor at NBCi, copy editor at PC World, reporter at The (Hayward) Day by day Overview and editor in chief of EveryBody’s Information in Cincinnati.
He earned a bachelor of common research diploma with a journalism certificates from the College of Cincinnati. Whereas at school, he labored because the leisure editor of The Information Document and as editor in chief of Clifton Journal.
He’s additionally a bass participant, who’s recorded and carried out round america with These Darn Accordions, The Electrical Boogie Dawgz and The Mad Maggies. When not writing, modifying or laying down bass traces, he performs darts and serves on the board of the San Francisco Darts League.