Apple Brings Double-Tap to Apple Watch with Second watchOS 10.1 Beta

Less than a week after Apple sent out its first iOS 17.1 and watchOS 10.1 betas to developers, it already has a second pair of beta releases going out today to polish that experience and deliver a missing feature to folks who have opted to pick up one of this year’s Apple Watch models.

When Apple showed off the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 at last month’s Wonderlust event, arguably the biggest new feature in the two wearables was Double Tap, a new gesture to let you single-handedly answer and end calls, start and stop timers, and activate other functions on your Apple Watch.

The only problem is that those early adopters who wanted to get their hands on one of the new models weren’t able to take advantage of that feature out of the gate. While they could still enjoy a brighter display and other useful features like on-device Siri, Double Tap was nowhere to be found. In the fine print, Apple had said it wouldn’t come until a later software update.

While it didn’t directly appear in last week’s initial watchOS 10.1 beta, code sleuths discovered that Apple was laying the groundwork under the hood, and with today’s second beta, Apple appears to be ready to turn the key.

As mentioned by Apple, you’ll still need a new S9-equipped Apple Watch to use — we can report that it hasn’t shown up on a Series 8 or first-generation Ultra — 9to5Mac’s Benjamin Mayo has shared a video of it in action on a Series 9.

While this may change by the final watchOS 10.1 release, the iPhone Watch app and watchOS Settings app provide a new option to enable Double Tap and customize two of its functions under a new top-level Gestures menu. These include choosing to play/pause or skip to the next track when listening to music and whether to advance the Smart Stack or activate an individual widget.

To see these settings in the iPhone Watch app, the iPhone also needs to be running the second iOS 17.1 beta, but it’s always a good idea to ensure that iOS and watchOS versions match between paired devices.

Older Apple Watch models can still take advantage of some gesture-based controls using an Accessibility feature called AssistiveTouch. However, this is quite different from Double Tap as it’s designed to help those who may not have the use of both limbs to navigate the entire watchOS user interface with one hand. This makes it both more powerful and more complicated at the same time.

By contrast, Double Tap was built for a more specific purpose of assisting all users with relatively simple, everyday interactions like answering phone calls or dismissing alarms without having to reach over with your other hand.

However, since other Apple Watch models can detect a double-tap gesture, it’s not entirely clear why Apple needs to limit this to the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2. During its presentation, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Williams, said that the more powerful Neural Engine in the new S9 chip allows it to employ a new machine learning algorithm that can more accurately use the accelerometer and heart rate sensor to analyze the tiny movements and changes in blood flow when your hand and fingers perform the double-tap gesture.

Presumably, the Apple silicon in older models can’t handle this reliably enough to make it a mainstream feature, which isn’t surprising from some of the reports we’ve seen.

While the second watchOS 10.1 beta is only out for developers for now, the good news is that a public beta should follow later this week and could arrive as soon as tomorrow. So, if you’re an Apple Watch Series 9 or Ultra 2 owner who’s been itching to try out this new gesture, it may be worth signing up for Apple’s Beta Software program to get ready.