- Four All-New Faces: Apple’s latest watchOS update (watchOS 26, effectively watchOS 11 rebranded for 2026 ground.news) introduces four new watch faces: Exactograph, Flow, Waypoint, and Hermès Faubourg Party macrumors.com. Two are available to all users, while two are exclusives (one for Apple Watch Ultra models, one for Hermès editions) macrumors.com.
- Fresh Designs & Liquid Glass: The new faces showcase Apple’s “Liquid Glass” design aesthetic – with refractive, fluid visuals and translucent 3D numerals – bringing a vibrant, real-time rendered look to the watch face UI apple.com apple.com. The Flow face, for example, features Liquid Glass numbers and a colored orb that shifts as you move your wrist macrumors.com.
- Enhanced Personalization: An improved Watch Face Gallery in watchOS 11 groups faces into collections, making it easier to discover and customize faces macrumors.com. The existing Photos face also got a makeover: its clock numbers now appear in Liquid Glass, revealing more of your photo background macrumors.com. Plus, new Smart Stack “hints” can pop up as gentle icons on any watch face to suggest useful apps (e.g. a Backtrack icon when you’re off-grid) apple.com – adding context-aware info without changing your chosen face.
- User & Expert Reaction: Early reactions praise the Waypoint face (the Ultra-exclusive compass dial) as a standout – one reviewer called it “the most useful and attractive” of the new faces tomsguide.com. However, simpler faces like Flow have drawn mixed reviews for their beauty vs. utility trade-off (big eye-catching numbers but no room for extra info) tomsguide.com. Apple’s decision to lock two faces to specific watch models has also spurred debate among fans.
- Competitive Comparison: Apple’s new faces arrive as rivals also emphasize watch-face innovation. Samsung’s Galaxy Watches get fresh faces with each One UI Watch update (like a data-rich “Ultra Info Board” face boasting seven health stats nextpit.com), and Google’s Pixel Watch 2 launched with six new faces of its own 9to5google.com. Unlike Apple, which tightly curates its watch faces, the Wear OS ecosystem (used by Samsung and Pixel) allows a vast library of third-party faces – highlighting a different approach to personalization and choice.
Apple’s New watchOS 11 Faces at a Glance
Apple Watch users have four new ways to personalize their device with watchOS 11 (officially called watchOS 26 in Apple’s latest release ground.news). Apple revealed these new watch faces alongside the Apple Watch Series 11 and Ultra 3, and they are also coming to older watch models via the software update 9to5mac.com. Here are the new faces and what they offer:
- Exactograph – Modern Precision: A contemporary spin on classic regulator clocks, Exactograph separates the hours, minutes, and seconds into distinct sub-dials for ultra-precise timekeeping macrumors.com. It’s essentially a tribute to vintage precision clocks, where you’d read each unit of time on its own dial. On Apple Watch, Exactograph comes with customizable styles (for instance, dial rings or linear displays) and supports complications (widgets) in some layouts. In fact, users can tap to magnify the minute and second dials up to 5× for even more granular timing bgr.com. This face will likely appeal to horology enthusiasts who enjoy seeing the exact seconds tick by. However, some early testers find Exactograph “quite a busy face” – noting that one configuration shows two identical 0–60 rings for minutes and seconds, which can clutter the view tomsguide.com. And while you can add up to four corner complications in the ring style, the cleaner line-style view doesn’t allow any extra info, limiting its everyday practicality tomsguide.com tomsguide.com.
- Flow – Liquid Glass in Motion:Flow is a bold, artistic face that showcases Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language. It displays the time in large, fluid numbers over a swirling orb of color that reacts to your wrist movements macrumors.com. The numerals themselves have a glossy, refractive look – as if sculpted from glass – which “reflects and refracts” the background hues in real time apple.com. Users can personalize the palette (choosing from various colors or even turning the abstract background off for a cleaner look) bgr.com. The result is a dynamic art piece on your wrist – especially striking on the latest Apple Watch models with more curved-edge displays, where the colors seem to flow off the screen bgr.com. But Flow is intentionally minimalist: it only shows the time (no date or widgets), akin to Apple’s existing simple faces like Numerals Duo. This has split opinions. Reviewers love the “interesting” liquid effect and how it leans into Apple’s new visual style tomsguide.com. On the other hand, some miss having any complications for activity or weather. “I don’t like the lack of data you can show on the Flow face,” one expert wrote, noting that if they just want a big clock, they might prefer an older simple face design that’s less flashy tomsguide.com. In short, Flow is eye-candy that makes your watch feel alive – but it’s deliberately more fashion than function.
The Flow watch face on watchOS 11 features Liquid Glass numerals over a shifting orb of color. The background’s hue and shape change with the tilt of your wrist, creating a dynamic visual effect. While Flow delivers a bold look (especially on newer Apple Watch screens), it forgoes complications – meaning it’s all about style and timekeeping, with no extra widgets for weather, fitness, etc. macrumors.com tomsguide.com.
- Waypoint – Navigation at a Glance (Ultra Only): Apple reserved the Waypoint face for its adventure-oriented Apple Watch Ultra line. Waypoint functions as a live compass on your wrist, displaying your current direction and relative positions of saved locations macrumors.com. Imagine looking at your watch and seeing an indicator for your campsite to the northwest, the trailhead to the east, and your parked car behind you – that’s what Waypoint can do. Points of interest you’ve marked in the Maps app (or certain default locations) appear around the dial, giving you a sense of direction and distance at a glance macrumors.com. The face itself is information-rich: it supports three small corner complications plus one larger gauge at either side bgr.com, so adventurers can still see metrics like elevation, stopwatch, or temperature alongside the compass. Apple also includes a Night Mode (for low-light visibility, presumably with red tint) and both digital or analog time styles to suit different preferences bgr.com. Early feedback on Waypoint has been very positive – even from those who aren’t constantly out hiking. Reviewers say it’s a “data rich face” and praise its design; one tester went so far as to call Waypoint the best of the new bunch, “the most useful and attractive” new face that they’d even consider using over their usual go-to face tomsguide.com. It sparks a bit of wanderlust, too – one journalist said it “makes me want to go camping… just to log useful spots” to see on the dial tomsguide.com. The only downside is its exclusivity: Series watches (non-Ultra) can’t use Waypoint at all, a fact lamented by some who “shame” that such a great face isn’t available to all tomsguide.com.
The Waypoint face on Apple Watch Ultra presents a rotating compass dial with markers for your saved locations (e.g. Home, Car, Trailhead). In this example, the top of the dial points east (E), and colored icons around the edge show directions to saved points of interest. Waypoint also includes slots for complications (see the corner icons and bottom dial), so adventurers can view extra data like altitude or battery life. Reviewers have lauded Waypoint as a standout face – perfect for outdoor navigation and one of the few that might tempt Ultra users to switch from their usual info-dense watch face tomsguide.com tomsguide.com.
- Hermès Faubourg Party – Fashion-Forward Fun (Hermès Only): Continuing Apple’s partnership with luxury brand Hermès, watchOS 11 brings an exclusive Hermès face called “Faubourg Party.” This face is all about whimsy and style: it features animated characters and shorts that play based on the time of day or the user’s movement macrumors.com. In other words, your watch face might surprise you with a little cartoon vignette – a charming character doing something clever on your watch – turning mundane moments into a miniature “party.” The name nods to Hermès’ flagship store on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, and the design likely reflects Hermès’ fashion sensibilities with bespoke artwork. Like previous Hermès faces, it’s limited to those who own the pricier Hermès edition Apple Watch. That exclusivity underscores Apple’s strategy of offering unique extras for premium buyers. For most of us, Faubourg Party is something we’ll only see in videos or ads. But its presence highlights how Apple’s watch faces can be more than just utilitarian – they can convey personality (or in this case, brand personality). Hermès faces in the past have included playful elements like a hopping horse or changing colors; this new one continues the tradition with dynamic animations that bring the luxury watch to life macrumors.com. While not widely reviewed (given its limited audience), it exemplifies Apple’s range: from fitness tools like Waypoint to purely expressive visuals like this.
- Plus, an Upgraded Photos Face: Apple didn’t stop at the four “brand-new” faces. They also gave some love to the classic Photos face – one of the original Apple Watch faces that turns your personal photos into your backdrop. In watchOS 11, the Photos face benefits from the new Liquid Glass design: the clock numerals now appear as sleek floating glass, allowing more of your photo to show through behind the time macrumors.com. This subtle change makes a big difference in aesthetics, especially if you use bright or busy photos – the time no longer blocks as much of the picture. Apple’s aim is to make the watch face feel more integrated with your image, almost as if the time is part of the scenery. Additionally, the Photos face can now intelligently shuffle images based on featured memories (like your iPhone’s “featured photos”) every time you raise your wrist support.apple.com. That means you might see a favorite family picture in the morning and a different treasured moment in the afternoon without any manual tweaking. Together, these updates keep the beloved Photos face fresh and in line with watchOS 11’s visual theme. Many users who prefer a personal touch on their watch will appreciate seeing their pictures presented in a more elegant way. It’s a nice example of Apple enhancing personalization in a meaningful, if not flashy, manner.
More Personalization & UI Tweaks in watchOS 11
Beyond the new watch faces themselves, watchOS 11 introduces a broader design refresh and features that impact how you use and personalize your Apple Watch. A headline change is the adoption of a “gorgeous new” Liquid Glass design language across the system apple.com. This isn’t just a buzzword – it means the interface uses translucent, glass-like elements that reflect and blur colors dynamically (you can see this in the new faces like Flow, but also in things like the Smart Stack widgets and Control Center). Apple says this real-time rendering brings more focus to content and adds vitality to interactions apple.com. In practice, it gives the UI a modern, fluid feel – for example, buttons and backgrounds may subtly mirror colors from whatever’s beneath them, creating a layered glass effect.
For watch faces, the Liquid Glass design is most visible in Flow and the updated Photos face, as discussed. It’s also present in smaller ways like the Smart Stack hints feature. The Smart Stack (a scrollable stack of widgets you can overlay on any watch face) now can show “hints” – little translucent icons at the bottom of your watch face when the system has a contextual suggestion for you apple.com. These hints use the Liquid Glass style (so they appear as subtle frosted-glass icons) and are meant to be non-intrusive. For example, if you’re at a location where you usually start a workout, you might see a tiny Pilates icon nudge you to begin your routine apple.com. Or if you’re out in nature with no connectivity, a Backtrack icon could appear, suggesting you use the Backtrack feature to retrace your steps apple.com. You can tap the hint to jump straight into the suggested app or feature support.apple.com. It’s a clever way for Apple to add proactivity to the watch without forcing you to switch watch faces or keep certain complications active. Essentially, your chosen watch face can quietly surface timely info when needed, then disappear. This makes the watch faces feel smarter and more personalized, adapting to your context.
Apple also streamlined face management itself. The Watch Face Gallery on the iPhone Watch app has been redesigned so that faces are grouped into thematic collections support.apple.com. Instead of scrolling through a giant list of every face, you might see categories (Fitness faces, analog faces, motion faces, etc.) making it easier to browse. Given that Apple Watch has accumulated nearly 60 official faces over the years twitter.com, this reorganization is welcome. (It’s worth noting Apple actually pruned a few older faces in this update as well – faces like Fire/Water, Toy Story, and a couple others introduced years ago are no longer available macworld.com. A longtime Apple watcher observed that the face list had grown “excessive” – around 50 rows of options – and called it “too many, honestly” macworld.com. Removing some novelty faces that people stopped using helps declutter the experience, though it did sadden fans of those retired designs.) In any case, the new gallery plus the addition of fresh faces shows Apple balancing more options with more organization.
Another under-the-hood improvement: watchOS 11 enables 1-second update intervals for more watch faces in always-on mode, thanks to the efficient new S10 chip in recent models 9to5mac.com support.apple.com. Over 20 existing faces (including some of the new ones like Exactograph, and classics like Activity Digital and others) can now display a smoothly ticking second hand or moving animation even when your wrist is down, on Apple Watch Series 10/11 and Ultra 2/3 support.apple.com. Previously, many faces would drop to updating once per minute in always-on to save power. Now the second hand can sweep continuously on newer hardware. It’s a subtle touch, but contributes to that feeling of a real, always alive watch face – especially on something like Exactograph which is all about precise seconds.
Finally, watchOS 11’s focus wasn’t only on looks – it also brought some major health and convenience features that, while not directly related to watch faces, round out the user experience. For instance, there’s a new Workout Buddy feature (an AI-powered voice coach that gives you personalized pep talks and stats during workouts) apple.com apple.com, and a Hypertension notification system that can alert wearers to potential signs of high blood pressure over time support.apple.com. These don’t show up on a watch face per se, but they reflect the dual nature of this update: Apple is simultaneously making the Watch’s interface more stylish/personal and doubling down on health tracking smarts. So you might be admiring a pretty Liquid Glass dial one minute, and a few minutes later you’ll get a nudge about your heart health or a friendly voice in your ear encouraging you to close that activity ring. The combination of form and function improvements is what makes watchOS 11 significant.
Reactions from Users and Experts
The Apple Watch community had been eagerly awaiting new faces – notably, Apple hadn’t announced any at WWDC 2025, leading some to think watchOS 11 would have none 9to5mac.com. The surprise reveal of four new faces in the release candidate got people talking. So far, the response is a mix of excitement and some constructive criticism:
- Waypoint Steals the Show: Both regular users and tech reviewers are raving about the Waypoint face. For outdoorsy folks or anyone who loves data-rich displays, Waypoint seems to hit the sweet spot. It’s been described as “the only one I’d consider swapping out my default watch face for” by a reviewer who normally sticks to the ultra-informative Modular face tomsguide.com. Many appreciate that Apple is giving the Ultra model a face that truly leverages its adventurer persona (earlier Ultra-exclusive faces like Wayfinder were similarly well-received). The general sentiment: Waypoint is super useful and just plain cool. If there’s a gripe, it’s from non-Ultra owners feeling left out of the fun. Some commenters note that it’s a shame Apple keeps such a great face limited to hardware that not everyone has tomsguide.com. But from Apple’s perspective, features like this add allure to the premium Ultra line.
- Mixed Feelings on Flow: The Flow face has sparked debate about style vs. substance. On one hand, a lot of users love the fresh visuals. Social media posts have shown Flow in different color themes, with people calling it “mesmerizing” or noting how it “really leans into the new Liquid Glass look.” When you flick your wrist and the colors swirl, it delivers that little delight factor Apple is known for. However, more utility-focused users say they quickly went back to faces that show more info. One tech journalist put it bluntly: “The liquid effect is interesting… but I don’t like the lack of data on Flow” tomsguide.com. Essentially, while no one denies Flow looks great, some wish Apple had at least allowed a complication or two (perhaps subtle ones) to make it more practical for daily wear. Others defend Flow, reasoning that sometimes you don’t need to see a bunch of stats – for a dressier occasion or when you just want a clean watch face, Flow fits the bill. It’s a classic case of Apple offering a design that some will adore and others will skip, depending on personal taste.
- Exactograph for Watch Nerds: The Exactograph face has a more niche appeal. Watch enthusiasts who know about regulator clocks find it very cool that Apple made this nod to traditional horology. They enjoy customizing the style (Apple included a few variants, which is appreciated) and showing off the separated dials as a conversation piece. Casual users, though, may find it a bit complicated or unnecessary. Some early user feedback on forums jokes about “needing to train your brain” to read the time on Exactograph if you’re not used to multi-dial layouts. And practically speaking, if you shrink hours/minutes/seconds into different corners, you might have to squint more than with a normal watch face. A Tom’s Guide reviewer noted that while the line-based style looks sleek, having the seconds “fly by” on a tiny linear gauge can be “a little disconcerting” tomsguide.com. And if you use the rings style with all three sub-dials, the duplication of scales (0–60 on two rings) can be visually confusing tomsguide.com. So Exactograph isn’t likely to dethrone Infograph or Modular as a go-to face, but it’s gathering a small fanbase of those who appreciate its technical charm. It’s also a reminder that Apple’s watch faces can celebrate watch history, not just digital futurism.
- Hermès Face & Other Tidbits: Because the Hermès Faubourg Party face is limited to a specific (and pricey) subset of users, it hasn’t generated as much public feedback. Hermès collectors are happy to have a new exclusive design – it’s like getting a new piece of art for their watches. The animations reportedly add a touch of joy; one could imagine a little Hermès character doing a dance when you hit your step goal or something similarly playful (Apple hasn’t fully detailed the triggers publicly). In broader reactions, people have also noted the smaller changes: the Photos face update has been warmly received by those who use it (“the Liquid Glass numbers make the photo watch face so much nicer” one user tweeted). The Smart Stack hints feature impressed many once they discovered it, as it wasn’t heavily advertised – folks like that the watch can subtly suggest actions without forcing complications on every face. And on the critical side, a few users lamented the faces Apple removed in this update. For example, the Toy Story face, which used to show Buzz and Woody antics, is gone – a longtime fan of it wrote, “RIP Toy Story face, you were my favorite for years” macworld.com. Still, given that Apple added more than it took away, the overall attitude is positive.
In summary, experts are saying that Apple delivered some much-needed new visuals for the Watch, and there’s generally something for everyone: serious utility (Waypoint, Exactograph) and fun/artistic flair (Flow, Hermès). The main critiques center on Apple’s walled-garden approach to faces – no third-party watch faces are allowed, and even some of Apple’s own (like Hermès) aren’t accessible to all users. This contrasts with platforms like Android’s Wear OS, where variety is virtually limitless. Which brings us to…
Apple vs Other Smartwatches: How Do the New Faces Compare?
Apple isn’t the only one pushing out new watch face experiences in 2025. Its competitors have their own strategies, which makes for an interesting comparison:
Samsung Galaxy Watch
Samsung has long offered a rich array of watch faces, both through its own designs and third-party options (since modern Galaxy Watches run Google’s Wear OS). With each new Galaxy Watch generation and One UI Watch software update, Samsung typically introduces a handful of unique faces – and importantly, they usually don’t keep them exclusive to the very latest model. For instance, when Samsung launched the Galaxy Watch 7 and a new premium Galaxy Watch Ultra in late 2024, they rolled out One UI Watch 6 with three new faces nextpit.com. These included “Spatial Numbers,” a funky colorful digital face, “Simple Digital,” a clean easy-to-read design, and “Ultra Info Board,” which is a data-heavy face showcasing up to 7 different health and fitness stats at once nextpit.com. Initially, those debuted on the new hardware, but Samsung soon made them available to older models like the Watch 4, 5, and 6 via a software update nextpit.com nextpit.com. In Samsung’s ecosystem, it’s common for new faces to trickle down to earlier watches, which contrasts with Apple’s approach of hardware-tied faces (Apple’s Ultra and Hermès exclusives, or how certain Nike/Edition faces used to require those specific models).
Feature-wise, Samsung’s watch faces often prioritize customization and info density. The Ultra Info Board face mentioned above is somewhat analogous to Apple’s Modular or Infograph – it lets users cram complications for heart rate, steps, weather, and more into one view for at-a-glance stats nextpit.com. Samsung also integrates specific hardware features: for example, a compass face was introduced when their watches gained a digital bezel that could show directions, similar to Apple using Waypoint to leverage the Ultra’s adventure theme. One notable difference is the open watch face market on Samsung/Google watches. Users can download countless faces from Google Play or Galaxy Store – from luxury analog replicas to game-themed faces – something the Apple Watch does not allow. This means that while Apple delivers a few polished faces occasionally, Samsung users might never feel “stuck” waiting for new ones; they can always find a fresh design from third-party creators. On the flip side, Apple’s faces are generally more consistent in quality and integration (third-party faces on Wear OS can sometimes be battery hogs or not align with system widgets).
In terms of style, Apple’s new Flow face with its fluid animations stands up well against Samsung’s offerings – Samsung has had animated faces, but Liquid Glass has a distinct Apple flair. Samsung tends to include some playful faces too (for example, older Galaxy Watches had AR emoji faces or animals that react to your step count). Both companies see watch faces as a way to express personality: Apple leans into artistic and brand collaborations (Hermès, Nike, Disney’s Toy Story/Snoopy in past editions), whereas Samsung has done tie-ins like special edition watch faces for certain fashion editions and a lot of general customizable themes. Ultimately, Apple’s new lineup shows it catching up in giving users fresh default choices, even if it’s still behind Samsung in sheer variety.
Google Pixel Watch
Google’s Pixel Watch (now in its 2nd generation as of 2024) has its own set of signature watch faces, and Google has been expanding them gradually. The Pixel Watch 2 launched with six new in-house faces 9to5google.com – which is comparable to Apple adding four at once. Google’s design philosophy for Pixel faces emphasizes a blend of bold graphics and helpful info. For example, Pixel Watch 2 introduced “Analog Bold” and “Digital Bold,” faces that use big, clean type (and even mirror some of the design from Android phone lock screens for a cohesive look) 9to5google.com. There’s also an “Adventure” face aimed at an outdoorsy look (some likened it to a Casio G-Shock style) and “Concentric”/“Arc” style faces that arrange complications in rings around the dial 9to5google.com. In fact, one of Pixel’s faces can show up to eight complications at once (with tiny arc widgets all around) – surpassing what any Apple Watch face currently does. This underscores Google’s intent to offer info-dense options for power users.
When it comes to visuals, Apple’s new faces like Flow and Hermès Party are arguably more whimsical or artistically ambitious than Google’s, which tend toward minimalist or data-driven. Pixel’s Digital Bold with its bubbly colors and big numbers is somewhat akin to Apple’s Numerals or the new Flow (minus the Liquid Glass flair) 9to5google.com. One thing Google has done cleverly is tie watch faces to phone customization: the Digital/Analog Bold faces match Android 14’s lock screen clock, and you can coordinate colors with your phone’s Material You theme. Apple’s ecosystem is more siloed – your iPhone’s style doesn’t automatically reflect on your watch face beyond manual tweaking.
Another aspect is third-party faces via Watch Face Format on Pixel. Google recently introduced a new Watch Face Format for developers, making it easier and more battery-efficient for third parties to create faces for Wear OS. So Pixel (and Samsung, since they share the platform) benefit from a growing catalogue of downloadable faces – whether you want a Fitbit-like health face or a funky pop culture one. Apple Watch, conversely, doesn’t allow independent watch face apps at all. This means Apple has to anticipate trends and cover all use cases themselves. The four new faces in watchOS 11 show Apple trying to cover more bases: a precise technical face (Exactograph), an artsy one (Flow), a utilitarian outdoors one (Waypoint), and a luxury fashion one (Hermès). Google’s Pixel faces also cover bases – fitness dashboards, classy analog, playful digital – but if you don’t like Google’s selection, you have many other options to download. Apple’s approach is more curated: fewer but very polished faces, tightly integrated with complications.
It’s also worth noting that Fitbit influences Pixel’s direction. The Pixel Watch 2 includes some Fitbit-inspired faces and widgets (since Google owns Fitbit now), emphasizing health stats. Apple’s new faces didn’t introduce anything explicitly health-centric (e.g., no new heart rate graph face or similar), whereas health metrics are typically front-and-center in Fitbit/Pixel’s watch face design. We might see Apple add something like that in the future (for now, Apple relies on complications for health data). In summary, Apple’s latest faces keep the Apple Watch stylistically competitive with Pixel Watch’s fresh looks, but the ecosystems differ – Apple gives you a finite set of crafted choices, while Google gives you a good set and the freedom to grab more.
Fitbit and Other Platforms
Fitbit, which traditionally focused on fitness trackers and simpler smartwatches, also updates its clock faces, though on a different scale. Recently, Fitbit’s devices like the Fitbit Charge 6 (a fitness band) received new watch faces aimed at providing “more comprehensive data at a glance.” These new faces – with names like Axira, Geometric, and Momentum – were explicitly designed to put key health and fitness metrics on the screen (heart rate, steps, distance, etc.), according to Fitbit’s team androidauthority.com. For example, one of them might show your heart rate prominently with the time, another might show steps and date. This reflects Fitbit’s philosophy: the watch face is primarily a fitness dashboard. Apple’s new faces, by contrast, didn’t introduce a dedicated fitness-centric face (though you can, of course, add Activity rings or heart rate as complications to many faces). Apple tends to integrate fitness into the broader experience (workout apps, notifications, complications on modular faces), whereas Fitbit historically made faces that are your fitness summary.
The Fitbit Versa and Sense smartwatches (which run Fitbit OS, not Wear OS) have an entire gallery of faces in the Fitbit app, many created by third-party developers – often emphasizing health stats or fun designs, some free, some paid. That ecosystem parallels what Wear OS offers. However, Fitbit’s graphics and animations have been more basic compared to Apple’s slick offerings. Nothing in the Fitbit world quite matches the visual polish of a Flow or the intricacy of Waypoint. But Fitbit users might point out that they’ve long had watch faces showing multiple stats simultaneously or motivating animations when you hit goals, etc. Apple watchers might use complications to achieve some of that, but Apple hasn’t (for instance) made a face that natively shows a multi-metric health dashboard without customization. So, Apple’s watchOS 11 faces are not focused on health, likely because those needs are met through other UI elements on Apple Watch.
In the broader smartwatch arena (Garmin, etc.), watch faces continue to be a differentiator. Garmin devices, for example, allow custom faces via Connect IQ, but Garmin’s own faces are usually utilitarian and less flashy than Apple’s or Samsung’s – given their battery-saving focus. Apple’s new faces are certainly more power-intensive visually (especially Flow’s animations) and are designed for the always-on OLED screens in mind, whereas ultra-endurance watches opt for simpler faces to conserve battery. It’s all about priorities: Apple is prioritizing a vibrant user experience, confident in its battery management, whereas something like a Garmin Fenix prioritizes longevity over eye-candy.
Bottom line: With watchOS 11, Apple has upped its watch-face game to keep things fresh and fun for users, showing it can offer both practical and playful designs. The new faces have been largely well-received, adding personalization in an update already packed with health and UI improvements. While Apple Watch still doesn’t offer the wild watch-face freedom that some competitors do, these four additions (and one revamped classic) give Apple Watch owners more choices than ever out-of-the-box. Whether you’re a data geek who loves precise dials, an adventurer needing a compass on your wrist, or someone who just wants a beautiful splash of color or a bit of animated character on your watch, watchOS 11 has something new to try. And as the smartwatch market evolves, it’s clear Apple is watching the competition – and responding in its own distinctive style – to ensure the Apple Watch remains both a powerful tool and a personal fashion statement on the wrist. macrumors.com androidauthority.com
