watchOS 10.2 RC available to developers with watch face tweak

A few days after seeding the watchOS 10.2 beta 4, Apple is now releasing watchOS 10.2 RC to developers as the testing cycle nears its end. Although we still don’t know much about changes with the Apple Watch operating system, Cupertino is finally adding one of the promised features exclusive to Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 users.

With watchOS 10.2 beta 2, users can ask Siri to read and long on-device Health requests. This change not only makes requests faster but more private and secure to users, as Siri can be used to access the Health app for health and fitness-related queries on-device.

There are over 20 health data types that are supported through Siri to help you access and log health data quickly and easily.

Users can try queries like:

• Siri, how does my Move ring look today?
• Siri, did I close my Exercise Ring?
• Siri, what’s my step count?
• Siri, I took my 9 AM medications.
• Siri, log that I took my multivitamin.
• Siri, I weigh 183 pounds.

Despite this watchOS 10.2 beta change, with beta 3, the company added a beloved Apple Watch gesture back. Now, you can swipe to switch your main watch face. Apple added a new setting’s function that enables that on watchOS 10.2 beta 3. This feature is under Settings and Clock.

That said, once watchOS 10.2 is available later this year, it won’t be turned on as default. Users will have to actively enable this to have this function back.

With watchOS 10.1, Apple added a few important features:

NameDrop from iPhone to Apple Watch lets you easily share your contact information from one iPhone to Apple Watch by approaching them. While this function is available for iPhone to iPhone with iOS 17, Apple says that nearing an iPhone to Apple Watch to perform the same action is possible with Apple Watch Series 6 and later, Apple Watch SE (1st and 2nd generation), and Apple Watch Ultra.

With the double-tap gesture, users can easily control the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 using just one hand and without touching the display by tapping the index finger and thumb of their watch hand together twice to quickly and conveniently perform many of the most common actions on the Watch. The faster Neural Engine enables this new double tap gesture, which processes data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and optical heart sensor with a new machine learning algorithm.

BGR will let you know once we learn more about the features available with the watchOS 10.2 beta for the Apple Watch. The company is also seeding the RC versions of iOS 17.2, iPadOS 17.2, macOS 14.2, and tvOS 17.2.