This fall, Apple brings a fresh new coat of paint to the Apple Watch as it redesigns watchOS. With watchOS 10, many of the ways you interact with your Apple Watch will change. While change can be scary, the redesign brings significant changes that might improve your use of your Apple Watch. Check out how watchOS 10 changes with the Smart Stack and new app designs.

How I Used My Apple Watch Until the watchOS 10 Redesign

I’ve had an Apple Watch since its launch. With all of the years of use, I’ve developed a particular way to navigate it. Most recently, I used a plethora of watch faces that I would swipe between to get the complications I needed. Some watch faces I tied into focus modes. My two most used watch faces were Modular, where I stuck the hourly weather focus in the big spot in the middle, and the Siri watch face, which would change based on Siri intelligence.

Other than watch faces and complications, I set my dock with my most used apps. Most of these apps were either fitness-related, like Strava, Fitbod, and Apple’s Workout app, or audio apps, like Music and Podcasts. Most of my app launching came from the dock, with a few complications on watch faces.

But with watchOS 10’s redesign, the dock has been changed, and it has become harder to swipe between watch faces. Even though the way I navigated through my watch has completely changed, I enjoy the redesign. It will take a little getting used to, but this is a better system.

The Dock

As mentioned, the dock was where I launched most of my apps from before. To access it, you’d press the side button, and depending on how you had it set up, either your most recent apps or apps you selected would spring up here for you to choose from.

Now, pressing the side button brings up Control Center. Previously, Control Center could be accessed with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen. This has been the most challenging change for me to get used to, but it is nice that I can access the Control Center in any app now instead of trying to swipe up from the bottom and make something else happen inside an app.

So how do you access the dock? Well, the dock is mainly gone. You can’t pick your favorite apps anymore. Instead, double-tap on the Digital Crown to see your most recent apps. On previous versions of watchOS, the double-tap on the Digital Crown would send you to your last used app. Now, you’ll get a list of a few of your last used apps.

If you have apps you use all the time, there are now better ways to access them than the dock. Also, if you are used to double-tapping to return to an app, you’ll get used to this new system quickly. It is an extra push of the screen, but in practice, it hasn’t been an issue. It’s been nice to toggle through several of my last few apps instead of just returning to the last used.

Smart Stack

Swiping up from the bottom of the watch face will engage Smart Stacks, a new interface like the Siri watch face that springs up from below. The Smart Stack surfaces information you might like but also offers some customizability. This is why Control Center moved to the Side Button.

Before watchOS 10, I had apps like Timers set to stay open when a timer was running. This worked great but limited the info I could get now. Of course, I could put a timer in a complication spot, but I didn’t always want one on my screen.

With Smart Stacks, I can start a timer and just flick up from the bottom of the screen or roll the Digital Crown to see how much time is left in my timer. Similarly, the Now Playing widget will appear in the Smart Stack when playing audio.

You can also add widgets for apps into the Smart Stack. If you press and hold the screen, you’ll see all the apps you can add. You can even add a complication widget that will allow you to add three more complications.

Since watchOS is still in beta, only a few apps have been updated to take advantage of the Smart Stack, but as more get updated, this will replace how I used my dock. Instead of pressing the side button to get to the dock and scrolling, I can scroll down from my watch face and find the widget for the app I want.

App Designs

watchOS 10 also brings a fresh coat of paint to apps. With the larger screens of the newer versions, like the Apple Watch Ultra, Apple wants developers to get more use to the screen.

Now apps take up the entire screen with artwork, while complication-like icons fit in the corners. The Fitness app is the best example.

When you launch the fitness app, you’ll see the entire page is taken up with your rings. You can still swipe or roll the Crown to get to other pages. Each ring now gets its own page. There are also little complications in the top left, bottom left, and bottom right corner. One to see your Weekly Summary, one for your friends’ tab, and one for awards.

The new design makes things a little more focused and fresh. You don’t have long pages to scroll through now; each page should contain concentrated information.

Changing The App Launcher

Apple has also slightly adjusted the honeycomb-style app launcher that comes up when you press the Digital Crown in. Before, the app launcher presented a spread-out list of apps, and you could scroll in any direction to find an app.

When Apple created the list app launcher, I immediately switched to it. Trying to find an app in the honeycomb could be frustrating. I would look all around and not see the app I wanted. Or there would be so many icons that looked the same — I’m looking at you: timers, stopwatch, and alarm — that I had to pick the wrong app before finding the correct one.

With watchOS 10, App has reigned in the sides. Now the honeycomb style is restricted on the sides. You can scroll up and down to find your app, but you don’t have to worry about looking side to side. This new restriction makes browsing the list for the app you’re searching for much more manageable. It doesn’t fix the similar app icons, but finding the app is much less frustrating now.

A Good Change

So far, I’m a fan of what Apple has done with the watchOS 10 redesign. It has forced me to change how I use my Apple Watch, but I think it brings a more useful system. The new Smart Stack brings functionality to the Watch that had been siloed in the Siri Watch face but can replace the dock. Apps look better, and they are easier to find in the launcher.

It might take some getting used to watchOS 10 changes, but I think most people will like it when it releases this fall.

Do you have any questions about watchOS 10? Let me know on Threads on Facebook, and I’ll be happy to answer.