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watchOS 27 Will Add These New Features to Your Apple Watch

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Apple will unveil watchOS 27 during its WWDC 2026 keynote on Monday, June 8, and a handful of new features have been rumored already.

Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium
The first developer beta of watchOS 27 should be available immediately following the keynote, and a public beta typically follows in July. The update should be released to all users with a compatible Apple Watch model in September.

Below, we recap watchOS 27 rumors so far.

Improved Heart Rate Tracking

In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said watchOS 27 will include improvements to heart rate tracking, but he did not elaborate.

New Modular Watch Face

watchOS 27 will add new watch faces, including a variant of the "Modular Ultra" watch face that is currently exclusive to the Apple Watch Ultra, according to Gurman.

New Apple Intelligence Features

On watchOS 26, the following Apple Intelligence features are available on an Apple Watch when it is paired with an iPhone 15 Pro or newer:

  • Workout Buddy
  • Live Translation in Messages
  • Notification Summaries

When it announced the dates for WWDC 2026, Apple promised to unveil "AI advancements" across its platforms, and it can be reasonably assumed that watchOS 27 will include some additional Apple Intelligence features powered by the iPhone.

New Satellite Features

Apple Watch Ultra 3 has built-in satellite connectivity, enabling Emergency SOS, Find My, and Messages via satellite without any reliance on an iPhone.

iOS 27 will reportedly include up to five new satellite features, and the following two would likely extend to watchOS 27:

  • Apple Maps via satellite
  • Photos support for Messages via satellite

Amazon last month announced plans to acquire Globalstar, the satellite company that powers Apple's satellite features on the iPhone 14 and newer and the Apple Watch Ultra 3. In turn, Amazon announced that it has signed an agreement with Apple to provide satellite connectivity for current and future iPhone and Apple Watch features.

Stability Focus

Apple is largely focused on "stability, performance, and smaller refinements" for watchOS 27, rather than on major new features and capabilities, according to Gurman. This suggests that the update could include many bug fixes.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch 12, watchOS 26, watchOS 27
Tags: Bloomberg, Mark Gurman
Buyer's Guide: Apple Watch (Buy Now)
Related Forum: Apple Watch

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Top Rated Comments

D
dominiongamma
16 weeks ago

Wake me up when battery life is half decent.
Wake me up when Apple Watch hits a week worth of battery life
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
E
eduardodfj
16 weeks ago
Wake me up when battery life is half decent.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple_Robert Avatar
Apple_Robert
16 weeks ago
What is so hard about charging the watch once a day? You iPhone people make sure your phone is charged. If you don't want to spend the money on a new watch, fine. At least offer up a valid response that doesn't contradict what you are doing already.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
A
Allen_Wentz
16 weeks ago

I’m not buying until we get decent battery life like Garmin watches.
Interesting. What watch do you use? I have found AW battery life "decent" enough for me since v1 AW and now since v1 of the AWU. My recent watches have always just magnetically charged while I showered every day.

Please do not tell me about how some watch you do not own has a long lasting battery. Who cares? For many of us the AWU is all around preferable. If a Garmin suited my needs I would buy a Garmin.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
A
Allen_Wentz
16 weeks ago

Wake me up when Apple Watch hits a week worth of battery life
Why do you feel you need a week of battery life? If you intend it for backpacking the AW is the wrong tool. Otherwise a daily magnetic charge while showering works quite well for many of us. Personally for basic hygiene reasons I do not want any watch on my wrist for more than ~23.5 hours at a time; sometimes I switch wrists as well.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
J
jimscard
16 weeks ago

This would be so pathetic if the improvements are limited to this.

The Health features lag WAY behind Oura and Whoop. Don't need to go all the way to what they have but the best we currently have is "You had a fine night of sleep" what it was obviously horrible.
Oura and Whoop are mostly snake oil, and require you to provide your sensitive health data with them and their third-party processors. No thanks. I much prefer the more conservative, medically validated and approved approach that Apple Watch has, with processing on my devices.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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