The long-awaited new double tap gesture for Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 is now available with watchOS 10.1, bringing users one of the most convenient and fastest way to interact with Apple Watch.
With this delightful smart gesture, you can now easily control your Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 by just tapping your index finger and thumb of your watch hand together quickly to perform the most common actions.
Say you want to quickly open your Smart Stack and scroll through your widgets fuss-free – now you can do that just by quickly tapping your index finger and thumb of your watch hand to do so.
Source: Apple
What can you do with Double Tap?
Here are some of the most common actions you can perform with the double tap gesture:
- Open the Smart Stack from any watch face and scroll through widgets in the stack
- Answer and end phone calls
- View a message from a notification, scroll through longer notifications with an additional double tap, reply using dictation, and even send a message
- Pause, resume, and end a timer
- Stop and resume a stopwatch
- Snooze an alarm
- Play and pause music, podcasts, and audiobooks
- Switch to the new Elevation view in the Compass app
- Take an iPhone photo with the Camera Remote in the Camera app
- Start or stop automatic Workout reminders
- Perform the primary action from notifications, such as reply to an incoming message from a messaging app and snooze reminders – including those from third parties
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The Neural Engine processed data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and optical heart sensor with a new machine learning algorithm that detects the unique signature of microscopic wrist movements and changes in blood flow when your index finger and thumb perform a double tap.
The double tap gesture works anytime the display is awake, and the feature is available all day long with very minimal impact to the 18-hour battery life on your Apple Watch Series 9, or the 36-hour battery life on your Apple Watch Ultra 2.
Source: Apple
Customisation of your Double Tap Gesture
Double tap has been specifically designed to automatically select the primary action for most apps and notifications, making it that much easier for you to perform actions on your Apple Watch. You can select a different function if you wish – for example, advance through widgets in the Smart Stack or select the first available widget, and play or pause media during an active session, or skip to the next track instead.
Availability
watchOS 10.1 is now available for Apple Watch Series 4, and requires iPhone Xs or later running iOS 17.
The double tap gesture is enabled by default on Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 running watchOS 10.1, with no additional setup required. Of course, if you’d like, you can also disable it easily in settings.
Do note that this feature is not supported in the following apps and experiences: ECG, Heart Rate, Blood Oxygen, Sleep Focus, Walkie-Talkie, Maps (during navigation), Mindfulness (during an active session), SOS features (Emergency SOS, Fall Detection, Crash Detection), and Workout (during an active session).
