Apple has today released watchOS 27 to the public. watchOS 27 is compatible with the Apple Watch Series 9 and later and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later.
Due to the inherent challenges of beta software testing on watchOS, our testing of watchOS 27 has been quite limited. That said, for VoiceOver users, there is at least one new bug that we are aware of and a handful of new features and improvements.
New VoiceOver Bugs in watchOS 27
- There is rather significant latency with VoiceOver speech when swiping through the user interface. Specifically, there is a delay between when the VoiceOver sound effects/haptics play, and when VoiceOver speaks. Our testing suggests that this issue is not synthesizer-specific. It is unclear to us whether this behavior is simply a function of the newer operating system encountering the limits of hardware (something that has historically been a challenge on Apple Watch devices), or whether this is something that can be resolved by Apple in a future software update. A Feedback report has been filed, and we will keep the community advised as additional information becomes available.
If you identify any additional vision accessibility bugs in watchOS 27, please let us know by posting a comment.
New VoiceOver Features and Improvements in watchOS 27
- There is a new "Tap to Wake" toggle in VoiceOver settings. By default, the setting is enabled, and the Watch will be woken when you tap on the screen. Our best understanding is that disabling this feature should prevent the device from waking when the screen is tapped.
- It is now possible to customize the speaking of VoiceOver hints in watchOS. Available options are 'Always', 'Never', and 'App-Specific Hints'.
- On the Clock Face, VoiceOver now speaks the names of Complications before speaking their content. For example, VoiceOver might say, "Weather, Mostly Sunny 65 Degrees," instead of just saying "Mostly Sunny 65 Degrees."
- For braille display users, there is a new setting, "Translate After a Delay." There are other braille settings that we also believe may be new in this release, but our braille-related testing in watchOS is very limited and so this is not something we are able to comment on with any level of certainty.
If you spot any other new features/changes in watchOS 27 or have any corrections to the above, please do let us know by posting a comment.
watchOS 27 Release Notes
watchOS 27 features the next generation of Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, updates to Workout Buddy, a new tap gesture, a dynamic app grid to make it easier to access your most used apps, and improvements that make watchOS 27 more responsive and delightful to use. Siri AI is an entirely new version of Siri that is more intelligent, knowledgeable, and capable. With improvements that span areas like fitness, design, performance, and more, the experience on watchOS 27 has been refined and elevated, so it feels even better to use.
Siri AI
- A more capable and conversational version of Siri is rolling out to users. It helps you find what you need and get more done, drawing on capabilities like personal context understanding, app actions, onscreen awareness, and access to broad world knowledge.
- New voice experience offers more expressive and natural-sounding voices, and lets you customize expressivity and pace to make Siri more personal to you using powerful on-device models on paired iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro models and later.
- Dedicated Siri app provides an easy way to revisit an existing conversation or kick off a new one, and privately syncs conversations across your Apple products with iCloud. Apple Intelligence across apps
- Workout Buddy delivers motivation with new insights and is now available without your iPhone nearby when you have a Wi-Fi or cellular connection.
- Call Context in the Phone app understands when you’re speaking to certain businesses and proactively surfaces relevant information from across your apps, like a confirmation code or a reservation number.
Cycle Tracking
- Cycle deviation notifications that are suggestive of perimenopause can be received by those age 40 and over.
Watch Faces
- Siri Modular face features a rectangular complication that mirrors the top widget of the Smart Stack, which dynamically updates to show the most relevant widget, as well as a Siri complication to quickly invoke Siri.
Smart Stack
- Single-handed tap gesture enables you to tap your index finger and thumb together once to select a widget in the Smart Stack, even if your other hand is occupied.
- New suggestion widgets will be surfaced when most relevant to you, including a Parked Car location, birthday reminders for a close contact, balance changes on a transit card, Noise app after a loud noise notification, and more.
System Improvements
- Dynamic app grid highlights your most popular and recently used apps.
- Find My app is now consolidated into one app to show People, Devices, and Items with a map-centric interface.
- Media playback now starts faster.
- Workout app makes distance calculations during treadmill workouts even more accurate from the first step of every walk or run.
- Fitness app features more accurate route maps after workouts.
- Battery extension notifications may be proactively offered to disable certain features to increase battery life, including gestures, Start Workout reminders, and Raise to Speak method of invoking Siri.
- Shazam in the Smart Stack and Music Recognition app identifies songs offline without an internet connection and delivers results automatically when you’re back online.
- Liquid Glass refinements improve readability with more uniform refraction and improved contrast.
For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit:
https://support.apple.com/100100
Usage limits may apply for some Apple Intelligence features. To learn more, please visit:
https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence
Software updates, like this one, add new features and improvements that may affect performance and/or battery life. To learn more, please visit:
https://support.apple.com/125039
How to Update
watchOS 27 is available via Over-the-Air Update (Settings > General > Software Update) or by going to the Watch app on your iPhone and navigating to General > Software Update. To install the update, your Watch must be connected to its charger and have at least 50% battery power.
Comments
not worth it?
why would we want, as voiceover users to upgrade to something that runs even slower? not good, not good at all.
No Lag on Series 10
I saw this article and took a chance. Happy to say that I get no lag while swiping. My voice settings have gone a little weird, but I'm sure that's something I can fix. And if not, I'll deal because I'm lucky enough to not have that dreaded lag.
re:not Worth it
I'm just going to say, as a ware-OS user, you have not experienced the screen reader slowness on a watch until you have used a Ware-OS smart watch.
that is all.
Whoever updates, the first day is brave, I think
I think that anybody who updates the first day as VoiceOver users on any of our Apple devices is pretty brave. I mean, I get it. I literally didn’t once and that was only after reading a blog post and the things that were bugs were features I never used anyway so I did but yeah I don’t really ever do that again after that. That was Beck and I was 16. As far as iOS 27 I am definitely waiting till a .1 release at least. There’s just too many things going on with that. I don’t know for sure about watches as I’ve literally never owned an Apple Watch but just felt like coming on here to say that I hope you guys enjoy it aim brave for updating the first day and good luck to everybody with the watch. I hope it’s a good experience.
never updating on the first day again
Last time I did, iOS 13, two phones of mine got voiceover brick. It took like a day or two to get them back and talking again. That was a very rough time.
Maybe not missing out after all
I was a little upset my 1st gen Watch Ultra wouldn't get this update given it's only 4 years old, but that latency issue makes me relieved I won't be tempted now. Also having the complication name spoken out every time sounds like it will make getting information from the watch slower so I wouldn't really appreciate that change either. It sounds like the 27 releases have been pretty awful all round - particularly disappointing given that it was supposed to be the release that improved the overall quality.
Anyway, thanks as always to Applevis for the great round-ups. Not the news we all want but very important we get it.
Why would we compare it to non-Apple products?
I believe it's not correct to compare something like Apple to some other companies who were known to have fewer accessibility standards, at least a while ago? Apple used to be known for the highest quality of accessibility, comparing it to some other brands means lowering the bar! There are some basic issues in WatchOS 26 when it comes to Voiceover such as skipping the first part of a sentance, jumping cursor and so on.... We shouldn't be settling for less because it's Apple and we're spoiled by it's great and stable accessibility that is being more broken with each and every update.... You say they fixed the complications names on a watch face? I'll tell you what, they were there 5 years ago.... First they break something, then they bring some of those things back in a few years and we're excited?.... Safe goes for terminal on MacOS and so on....
not really a comparison
I'm just saying, the VoiceOver slowness on watchOS 27 probably isn't as bad as talk back on where OS. I feel like that's a good comparison? And all of this is my experience and not everyone will share the same experience as me.
What the Bell!
I was really about to buy an Apple watch, I mean money saved and added in kart level prepared. Now I get to know that it's having speech latency?
Afterall, when a new watch launches, previous gen gets chieper, so I thought this would be perfect time. Guess Apple isn't getting more money from me for now.
Speech latency
I definitely notice that on my Ultra 3 and am very frustrated so far with this release. My Ultra 3 feels like it has been downgraded to an Apple Watch Sport from 2015. It’s very odd.
Can't gry to the app switcher
Hi guys, I've updated to WatchOs 27 on my AppleWatch 11, ans I've notujesz that DoubleClick Presz of a Digital Crown diwa not focus me on the app switcher. Id Three a wat to fund SN app switcha ot id it a Sergiusz bug? Cheers!
Taptic Time
Hi,
I upgraded my Apple Watch Ultra 3 to WatchOS 27. And now taptic time doesn't activate? I raise up my watch and double tap it as always, and no taptic time. I checked in Accessibility Settings and the Taptic Time Speed setting is still there, mine is at 50%. Is there another setting it toggled off somewhere?
Recent apps gone and watch is way too chatty now
While I'm over all satisfied with iOS 27 so far, I am very underwhelmed by the watch OS update. The main issue I'm frustrated with is that there is no longer a way to access recent apps. Especially on the watch, I tend to close apps I'm not actively using, or use that recent apps screen kind-a like the app switcher on my phone. However, when I press the digital crown twice as I normally do to access recent apps, it essencially does exactly the same thing as pressing the digital crown once. I hope the recent apps functionality is restored in a future update.
My second issue is that VO is reading the name of each complication as I swipe through the watch face, and some of them are way, way too verbose now. For example, I have current temperature set as one of the complications on my watch face. When I swipe over it, I get something along these lines: "Weather: Temperature currently 89. High: 92. Low: 59. High: 92. Low: 59." No, that is not a mistake. It reads the high and low temperature twice. Once is great, but twice is a bit excessive.
I was hopeful that with the new update, I'd finally get the better quality version of American Siri voice 4 on my watch, but it's still using a much older version of the voice. The only way I can fix it is to use male Irish siri instead. Possibly others would work, but this is the only other voice I really like. I have the apple watch ultra 3, so can't understand why it refuses to use the better quality siri voice, especially since I know that my original apple watch ultra 1 didn't have any trouble using that voice.
My final issue with watch OS 27, at least for now, is that if I tap the screen to check the time, it doesn't always speak the time. It seems to focus on heartrate more often than not. I love having that on my watch face, but it's not what I want/need spoken when I wake the watch. The only way I've found to avoid this is pressing the crown for a time check instead.
Series 12
I've preordered the Series 12, so it will be interesting to see what WatchOS 27 is like on that, with twice the RAM (4GB instead of 2GB) and the new S11 processor. It will be interesting to see if those factors have an impact on the lag mentioned in this post, hopefully reducing it.
Having said that, I also hope the lag issues are fixed for those using earlier Apple Watches that support WatchOS 27. Not everyone can, or wants to, upgrade to the latest model, so the issues need to be addressed so that people can enjoy WatchOS 27 regardless of the model of watch they use.
I'm not updating my current watch, the Series 11, just yet. Firstly, I'm not confident enough in iOS 27 after reading AppleVis's thorough bug list for that operating system, and the VoiceOver lag is incredibly frustrating because I use my Apple Watch daily, and WatchOS 26 is working perfectly fine for me. I hope I can update when both iOS and WatchOS 27.1 are released, however I heavily rely on AppleVis to make an informed decision so I'll sure to be reading info I can find about WatchOS 27.1 before I make a decision.
watch os 27
I just updated. there is definitely a little bit of noticeable speeech latency but it's not as bad as using something like an apple watch SE first gen. for context, using an se third gen. saying the name of the complication doesn't effect me. as far as taptic time, turn of raise to wake, and it is fixed on my end. currently I can't get to recent apps either and that is a bit frustrating. I have iOS 27 watch OS 27 and mac os golden gate. For the most part, they do all work with a few bugs here and there.
On second thought... I think I will be keeping my SE 2
After what I've read, I think, at the time of this comment, that I will be keeping my SE 2. I like how fast it is, and it doesn't look like I'm missing out on much. I was quite disappointed at first, but at the end the day, it's a watch, so my disappointment has been dashed by a significant margin.
A phone on iOS 27 and a watch on watchOS 26 isn't that bad, and I'm not a heavy workout guy so this watch should suffice for now.
Double tapping the crown
I might be remembering this wrong, but I think I heard that double tapping the crown was the way you start the Recap feature that gives you a transcript of the last 15 seconds of conversation, but I think that probably needs the new watch models to work. So maybe if you don't have them it just does nothing.
Watch 26 had the problem where it wouldn't read the time when you tapped the screen, instead it spoke the first complication. So I would be forever hearing "watch widget microphone" all the time. They did fix it in the last update though - hopefully they are just a bit slow merging it into watch os 27 but its still disappointing.
I had been tempted to use some of my apple credit on upgrading my watch this year but think I won't bother after reading all this.
Only experiencing the Taptic Time problem
I'm on the Ultra 3, and the latency with the Samantha Compact voice remains identical to that on watchOS 26 for me. App Switcher now appears by default when I press the Digital Crown either once or twice, requiring tapping a Show All button at the bottom to show all the applications. Taptic Time is the only thing that appears truly broken at least when VoiceOver is enabled, but that's a feature that I never used anyway so it doesn't bother me much.
VO Lag Question
As I currently have an 8th gen watch, I don't get the update. I decided to pre-order the series 12, which should be here Friday, so we'll see how it does.
In the original post though, they mentioned that the sound effects were delayed. On my phone and watch, I disable the VO sound effects, and just have it speak, instead of it clicking and clanking all the time. Does VO lag improve if you turn the VO sound effects off?
Re: VO Lag Question
They mention latency in speech, not in audio icons, but I'm experiencing neither of them on my Ultra 3. Since the Series 12 is more powerful than the Ultra 3, I suppose that you won't feel the latency either.
Watch 11
I am no longer getting the voiceover repeating notifications. Call sometimes work when I answer a call from watch.
tons of issues
Tapping the screen now doesn't give me the time an the battery level which I enabled to auto speak. It gives me the complication I actually tap on, aka the icon itself. More often than not, it's my calendar.
Taptic time works but you have to do it very exactly, faster than before, and there is a risk you might miss it.
The app switcher is gone and the crown only shows a few apps at a time now, instead of the entire list of apps that you've ever opened.
Siri no longer respond for the only function I used it for: setting a timer.
The function that was introduced to no longer wake up the watch when tapping the display is honestly very much useless. It will wake up the watch for about half a sec, VO will talk the icon you touched, and then immediately go back to sleep. It doesn't completely turn off the touch response on the display like water lock would do.
The update did introduce some latency but not much. But overall, it's a really, really bad update. I hope they fix this mess, because I'm now on the edge of selling my watch.
Siri
So call AI is not working well. Sending message does not work. She does not read the message and send it, you have to find the send to send. tapping to get the time works as long you make sure the watch is lock. The haptic is low and is hard to feel. watch 11 and current OS 27.
Re: tons of issues
I'm only experiencing one of the problems that you reported.
First you are right about Taptic Time, as it works after all. Previously I said that it didn't but that was because I was tapping the screen 4 times way too early after locking the watch, so I'm correcting myself here.
I'm yet to figure out what Auto Speak is supposed to do, because even on watchOS 26 it didn't appear to do anything different for me. Maybe you're right and it's meant to steal the focus whenever the screen wakes up, but I'm not sure.
The App Switcher isn't gone, it just appears by default when the Digital Crown is pressed once, requiring pressing a button at the bottom to reveal all the apps.
I just tested asking Siri to count down two minutes and it worked as usual.
I couldn't find the switch to prevent the watch from waking up on tap in Accessibility or Display & Brightness Settings, so I'm not sure what you're talking about there.
Auto Speak
Suppose to talk and give you info when is tap. More than the normal. I think.
Re: tons of issues
The wake on tap feature is in VO settings, right next to the options such as wake on wrist raise, wake on crown up, sleep on wrist down.
For me the app switcher or what passes for the app switcher here is just having a few apps in it, and launching another app will remove one from the list. I opened a few apps, ecg, blood oxygen, activity, alarms... And noticed that when I opened alarms, ECG was gone. Before, the app switcher would still list that app. I definitely hate the new design of this.
I don't know why here but asking siri to put a timer doesn't do anything, she never reacts, never said she did it, and the timer doesn't show up in the timers app either. Long pressing the crown seems to invoke siri but she does nothing. Enabling auto speak on an item on your watch face used to make it so that item would be instantly read the moment you woke up the display, say with a tap. So my watch would go, 09:45. Battery 63%. Now despite having auto speak enabled for the battery item, it does not work. It doesn't even tell me the time anymore, but rather the complication my finger landed on, which on my watch face is more often than not the calendar.
Re: VO Lag Question
Hi Jesse, n my experience, disabling the VoiceOver sounds did not reduce latency.
Re: Only experiencing the Taptic Time problem
Hi Choom, do you by chance know if the Ultra 3 has more ram than the Series 10/11? Your report is not the first time that I've heard the Ultra is more responsive - though I never really gave it much thought until now.
Re: Only experiencing the Taptic Time problem
I'm none the wiser in that regard. I thought that the only difference between the Ultra and same generation Series model were the extra sensors and screen size. I do have Apple Intelligence disabled on iPhone though, which affects Apple Watch and may make it consume less memory.
Haptic time
I am in my cauch and just did it with one finger no issues. watch 11 and OS 27. How do we increase the strengh on the haptic? Is that possible?
I Think the Latency is a Software Issue
I just got my Series 12 GPS + Cellular, and VoiceOver is no more responsive than on my Series 10 with the previous-generation chip. This leads me to think that the issue is software-side rather than VoiceOver running up against the limits of older hardware. Hopefully, this in turn means that Apple can fix this for everyone on watchOS 27.