It appears like we’ll as soon as once more be saying goodbye to a few of Apple’s basic watch faces on this yr’s watchOS 26 launch, because it quietly retires a number of longstanding entries.
This yr, we’ll be dropping 5 watch faces which were round since a minimum of 2019. These embody Gradient, which arrived in watchOS 6, Liquid Metallic, Vapor, and Fireplace-Water from watchOS 5, and the enjoyable and playful Toy Story, which got here to Apple’s wearable in watchOS 4 in 2017 to assist showcase the bigger show of the Apple Watch Collection 4.
These have already vanished within the first watchOS 26 and iOS 26 betas, and it’s a protected guess that’s not a mistake. In reality, it’s doubtless simply the continuation of what might have grow to be a brand new pattern.
Whereas Apple has sometimes adjusted watch face designs and even shifted a couple of names round, final yr’s watchOS 11 launch was the primary time it had dropped complete watch faces. The closest it got here earlier than that was the elimination of the unique Modular face in watchOS 9. The Modular face we all know at present was initially Infograph Modular, a extra expansive model designed for the Apple Watch Collection 4. The unique Modular face was stored round for older fashions with smaller screens, however that grew to become pointless when Apple dropped help for the Collection 3 in watchOS 9.
When Apple launched watchOS 11 final yr, it axed the Chronograph, Explorer, Numerals, and Siri faces. Chronograph was arguably redundant in mild of Chronograph Professional, which was added 5 years in the past in watchOS 7, and the Siri face was made redundant by the brand new Good Stack function in watchOS 10, which offered comparable performance from any watch face. Explorer was a barely area of interest face designed explicitly for mobile Apple Watch fashions to point out mobile sign power.
Apple additionally eliminated Portraits as a standalone watch face in watchOS 11, however that’s as a result of it merged all its options into the Images watch face, which is arguably the place they need to have been within the first place.
Regardless that watchOS 11 eliminated watch faces, it made up for it with two new additions — Flux and Reflection — plus a considerably enhanced Images face that not solely gained portraits, but in addition took a web page from the iPhone’s Picture Shuffle Lock Display to intelligently select appropriate pictures and compose and body them on your Apple Watch show.
In contrast, Apple hasn’t introduced any extra watch faces in watchOS 26 to interchange the 5 it’s taking away. Following the addition of its 2025 Delight Concord watch face in watchOS 11.4, the Apple Watch now affords 64 watch faces. That’s a wealth of choices, so it’s not stunning that Apple has determined it’s time to trim the checklist down a bit.
In fact, it’s fully doable that Apple plans to shock us with some new watch faces this fall that may very well be designed to point out off the Apple Watch Collection 11 and Apple Watch Extremely 3. Whereas watchOS 10 ushered in thrilling new entries just like the Snoopy face early within the beta cycle, Apple has extra generally performed these playing cards nearer to its vest and solely added the brand new watch faces in its closing launch candidate builds that come out after its fall iPhone and Apple Watch launch occasions.