If you’re athletic, the Apple Watch can help you boost your body’s performance, whether that’s staying on top of your pace and heart rate during a run or tracking your sleep cycles. But workouts aren’t the only things that benefit from an Apple Watch. It also helps me stay on top of my schedule and is clutch in the kitchen when I need multiple timers. It’s these types of little details that make everyday tasks just that much easier.

And that’s just the beginning: At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference the company announced WatchOS 26, which will bring the new Liquid Glass design to the watch as well as the intriguing AI-based Workout Buddy feature. Here’s everything you missed at WWDC 2025.

Before WatchOS 26 arrives this fall, however, here are some of my favorite Apple Watch in WatchOS 11.

Swipe between watch faces (again)

Until WatchOS 10.0, you could swipe from the left or right edge of the screen to switch active watch faces, a great way to quickly go from an elegant workday face to an exercise-focused one, for example. Apple removed that feature, likely because people were accidentally switching faces by brushing the edges of the screen.

However, the regular method involves more steps (touch and hold the face, swipe to change, tap to confirm) and people realized that the occasional surprise watch face change wasn’t really so bad. Therefore, as of version 10.2, including the current WatchOS 11.2, you can turn the feature on by toggling a setting: Go to Settings > Clock and turn on Swipe to Switch Watch Face.

Stay on top of your heart health with Vitals

Wearing your Apple Watch while sleeping offers a trove of information — and not just about how you slept last night. If you don the timepiece overnight, it tracks a number of health metrics. A new feature in WatchOS 11 gathers that data into the Vitals app that reports on the previous night’s heart rate, respiration, body temperature (on recent models) and sleep duration. The Vitals app can also show data collected during the previous seven days — tap the small calendar icon in the top-left corner.

(If you own a watch model sold before Jan. 29, 2024, you’ll also see a blood oxygen reading. On newer watches in the US, that feature is disabled due to an intellectual property infringement fight.) 

How is this helpful? The software builds a baseline of what’s normal for you. When the values stray outside normal ranges, such as irregular heart or respiratory rates, the Vitals app reports them as atypical to alert you. It’s not a medical diagnosis, but it can prompt you to get checked out and catch any troubles early.

Make the Smart Stack work for you

The Smart Stack is a place to access quick information that might not fit into what Apple calls a «complication» (the things on the watch face other than the time itself, such as your Activity rings or the current outside temperature). When viewing the clock face, turn the digital crown clockwise or swipe from the bottom of the screen to view a series of tiles that show information such as the weather or suggested photo memories. This turns out to be a great spot for accessing features when you’re using a minimal watch face that has no complications.

Choose which Live Activities appear automatically

The Smart Stack is also where Live Activities appear: If you order a food delivery, for example, the status of the order appears as a tile in the Smart Stack (and on the iPhone lock screen). And because it’s a timely activity, the Smart Stack becomes the main view instead of the watch face.

Some people find that too intrusive. To disable it, on your watch open the Settings app, go to Smart Stack > Live Activities and turn off the Auto-Launch Live Activities option. You can also turn off Allow Live Activities in the same screen if you don’t want them disrupting your watch experience.

Apple’s apps that use Live Activities are listed there if you want to configure the setting per app, such as making active timers appear but not media apps such as Music. For third-party apps, open the Watch app on your iPhone, tap Smart Stack and find the settings there.

Add and pin favorite widgets in the Smart Stack

When the Smart Stack first appeared, its usefulness seemed hit or miss. In WatchOS 11, Apple seems to have improved the algorithms that determine which widgets appear — instead of it being an annoyance, I find it does a good job of showing me information in context. But you can also pin widgets that will show up every time you open the stack.

For example, I use 10-minute timers for a range of things. Instead of opening the Timers app (via the App list or a complication), I added a single 10-minute timer to the Smart Stack. Here’s how:

1. View the Smart Stack by turning the Digital Crown or swiping from the bottom of the screen.
2. Touch and hold the screen to enter the edit mode.
3. Tap the + button and scroll to the app you want to include (Timers, in this example).
4. Tap a tile to add it to the stack; for Timers, there’s a Set Timer 10 minutes option.
5. If you want it to appear higher or lower in the stack order, drag it up or down.
6. Tap the checkmark button to accept the change.

The widget appears in the stack, but it may get pushed down in favor of other widgets the watch thinks should have priority. In that case, you can pin it to the top of the list: While editing, tap the yellow Pin button. That moves it up, but Live Activities can still take precedence.

Use the watch as a flashlight

You’ve probably used the flashlight feature of your phone dozens of times, but did you know the Apple Watch can also be a flashlight? Instead of a dedicated LED (which phones also use as a camera flash), the watch’s full screen becomes the light emitter. It’s not as bright as the iPhone’s, nor can you adjust the beam width, but it’s perfectly adequate for moving around in the dark when you don’t want to disturb someone sleeping.

To activate the flashlight, press the side button to view Control Center and then tap the Flashlight button. That makes the entire screen white — turn the Digital Crown to adjust the brightness. It even starts dimmed for a couple of seconds to give you a chance to direct the light away so it doesn’t fry your eyes.

The flashlight also has two other modes: Swipe left to make the white screen flash on a regular cadence or swipe again to make the screen bright red. The flashing version can be especially helpful when you’re walking or running at night to make yourself more visible to vehicles.

Press the Digital Crown to turn off the Flashlight and return to the clock face.

Pause your Exercise rings if you’re traveling or ill

Closing your exercise, movement and standing rings can be great motivation for being more active. Sometimes, though, your body has other plans. Until WatchOS 11, if you became ill or needed to be on a long-haul trip, any streak of closing those rings that you built up would be dashed.

Now, the watch is more forgiving (and practical), letting you pause your rings without disrupting the streak. Open the Activity app and tap the Weekly Summary button in the top-left corner. Scroll all the way to the bottom (take a moment to admire your progress) and tap the Pause Rings button. You can choose to pause them for today, until next week or month, or set a custom number of days.

When you’re ready to get back into your activities, go to the same location and tap Resume Rings.

Bypass the countdown to start a workout

Many workouts start with a three-second countdown to prep you to be ready to go. That’s fine and all, but usually when I’m doing an Outdoor Walk workout, for example, my feet are already on the move.

Instead of losing those steps, tap the countdown once to bypass it and get right to the calorie burn.

How to force-quit an app (and why you’d want to)

Don’t forget, the Apple Watch is a small computer on your wrist, and every computer will have glitches. Every once in a while, for instance, an app may freeze or behave erratically.

On a Mac or iPhone, it’s easy to force a recalcitrant app to quit and restart, but it’s not as apparent on the Apple Watch. Here’s how:

1. Double-press the Digital Crown to bring up the list of recent apps.
2. Scroll to the one you want to quit by turning the crown or dragging with your finger.
3. Swipe left on the app until you see a large red X button.
4. Tap the X button to force-quit the app.

Keep in mind this is only for times when an app has actually crashed — as on the iPhone, there’s no benefit to manually quitting apps.

These are some of my favorite Apple Watch tips, but of course there’s a lot more to the popular smartwatch. Be sure to also check out which new health features are expected in the next models and Lexy Savvides’ review of the Series 10.

Apple’s WWDC 2025 keynote had a lot of fanfare about its new «Liquid Glass» interface for iOS 26, iPads, Macs and Apple TV, but beyond that there was very little that got me excited. In fact, it felt like one of the most underwhelming Apple events I’ve covered in my 14 years as a CNET journalist. That’s not a good sign. What I can say with confidence is that Apple really needs to make a big splash with the iPhone 17 when it launches in September. 

It wasn’t that Apple did anything especially wrong with its announcements. I actually liked most of them. The new Liquid Glass design language is arguably in a similar vein to Windows Vista, but it’s nice to see iOS get a bit of a refresh, as it’s felt a little stale for a while now. But, it’s hardly groundbreaking, nor will it change how we interact with our phones.

Some of the new features the company announced — such as the call screening tool or the screenshot search function that uses Apple’s Visual Intelligence — are nice to see, but they’re basically the same as Android’s call screening tool and Circle to Search, so it’s difficult to get excited. Ditto for the glossy icons now coming to TVOS and the new pointer in iPadOS. Even Apple’s Senior VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi seemed to know they had nothing much to shout about: «A pointier pointer? Who’d have thought!» he quipped. 

Fine, I like the windows in iPadOS. But that’s one of the only things in the whole presentation that piqued my interest. I sat up with anticipation when Apple talked about the new Games app, thumbs already twitching with the excitement about new titles I might be playing thanks to new platforms or new advances in Apple’s Metal graphics engine. But no, it’s just an easier way to view your games and see your friend’s high scores. Big deal. 

I’m left feeling a little deflated by the lack of excitement overall, so I’m forced instead to look towards September, when we expect to see the iPhone 17 unveiled. It needs to be a big one. It needs some real razzle dazzle. And not just for me, but for Apple, too.

The iPhone 16 is a great phone, but its biggest new feature was a new button for the camera that still feels a bit…weird. Last year saw the grand unveiling of Apple Intelligence, which so far has been a huge letdown, with Federighi stating that more information on Apple Intelligence’s updates will be shared «in the coming year.» In short, it feels like Apple needs a win. 

The iPhone 17 could be that win. Early rumors point to upgraded cameras with advanced video features for creators, along with the potential for a slimmer iPhone Air that would compete with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge. Will this be the year we see a foldable iPhone? Almost certainly not, but it’d definitely be something more exciting to hear about during a long keynote. 

Maybe I’m being too harsh, and I’m just a bit jaded after 14 years of covering Apple events. Maybe I’m grumpy because its keynote started at 6 p.m. in my UK time zone, effectively pushing back my dinner and making me wait for food. Or maybe Apple did need to put a bit more meat on the plate and prove that its biggest announcements of the year aren’t just style over substance.

Pixar is giving its old-school toys a decidedly modern antagonist: a tablet.

During the studio’s Friday showcase at Annecy’s International Animation Film Festival in France, Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter revealed that Toy Story 5’s villain is Lily Pad, a «sneaky» and «prickly» tablet that convinces 8-year-old Bonnie Anderson that friends and games on a device beat dusty ol’ toys in the closet.

The first concept art shows the frog-faced tablet looming over Buzz, Jessie and Bullseye like a touchscreen tyrant of the toy box. As you can probably foresee, this is a battle between analog toys and always-on tech. (You can stream Toy Story movies one through four on Disney Plus.)

The Lily Pad reveal topped a jam-packed Walt Disney Animation and Pixar showcase, where the company rolled out updated release dates, never-before-seen footage and a couple of all-new original films.

Toy Story 5: The enemy is tech

The premise of Toy Story 5 is that Anderson gets a Lily Pad for school chat and online games. But the tablet decides that Anderson’s toys, including Woody, Buzz and Jessie, are holding her back. Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Joan Cusack are all returning, while Ernie Hudson steps in as Combat Carl, honoring the late Carl Weathers.

Docter shared the opening scene of Toy Story 5, which shows a crate full of stranded Buzz Lightyears trying to escape a desert island. Toy Story 5 is set for release on June 19, 2026.

Pixar announced two new original films

Daniel Chong’s Hoppers, scheduled for March 6, 2026, turns an eco-heist into a critter-powered caper: 14-year-old Mabel uploads her mind into a robotic beaver to save her local pond from a highway project. 

Gatto, slated for summer 2027, centers on Nero, a black cat in Venice who’s burned through most of his nine lives doing jobs for a feline mob boss. Now, questioning whether he’s wasted those lives, Nero stumbles into an unexpected friendship that could finally give him purpose. The film will be shot in a «living storybook» style, which is new to Pixar. 

And we got to see new footage from Zootopia 2 and Elio

Jared Bush, Walt Disney Animation Studios’ chief creative officer and director-writer of Zootopia 2, showed some new footage and images from the anticipated sequel, which should come out in November. The audience also got to watch a 27-minute sizzle reel from Elio, the cosmic coming-of-age adventure, which opens June 20.