watchOS 10: Apple confirms Force Touch removal and no third-party watch face support

Two Apple executives have offered insights into the changes made between watchOS 9 and watchOS 10 ahead of the latter's stable release later this year. However, Kevin Lynch and Deidre Caldback, Software Manager and Marketing boss, respectively, explained why watchOS does not support third-party watch faces, eight years after its official release. Officially, Apple does not allow third-party watch faces because of a chance that they stop working following the installation of a system update.

Setting aside the fact that WearOS does not have these limitations, Apple also believes that it offers enough personalisation options through first-party watch faces, whether that be through different colours, fonts, shapes or complications. Supposedly, watchOS 10's biggest change, widgets, was developed based on user feedback that centred on wanting to access information more quickly than is currently possible on watchOS 9.

Similarly, user feedback drove the decision to switch the shortcut for pressing the Digital Crown to bring up the Control Center. With watchOS 10, double pressing the Digital Crown opens the app switcher rather than the most recently opened app. Caldback and Lynch add that the larger display sizes of newer Apple Watch models negate the need to include Force Touch, which served as a way to provide more information on small displays. While Apple has not provided a release date for watchOS 10 yet, you can already download beta builds for free, a first for watchOS. 

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