Key Takeaways
- watchOS 10.4 brings quality-of-life improvements and new emojis.
- New features include a Tap to Show Full Notification setting and tweaks to Apple Pay.
- Bug fixes included for phantom touches and contact syncing issues.
After weeks of beta testing, Apple today released watchOS 10.4 to Apple Watch owners around the world, adding new features and bug fixes above and beyond the previous watchOS 10 software releases. Compatible with all the same models including the latest Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Apple Watch Series 9, the new software update is free and available to everyone.
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Like most of Apple’s point-releases, watchOS 10.4 doesn’t bring too many Earth-shattering features to the mix but it does add some notable quality-of-life improvements. This is also likely to be one of the last major updates before Apple unveils the next big thing — watchOS 11 — at WWDC 2024 later this year.
Evolution, not revolution
Like all the other software updates Apple made available for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac this week, watchOS 10.4 adds support for a number of new emojis for those who make use of them. Additions include a brown mushroom, a phoenix, and a broken chain while two shaking heads are here to make it easier to say “yes” or “no” without typing the words out, among others. The full list was finalized in September as part of Unicode 15.1.
In terms of features, Apple Watch owners can now enable a “Tap to Show Full Notification setting” that allows them to double tap to expand notifications. Apple also tweaked the way Apple Pay works with the company’s release notes stating that “using Apple Pay with Confirm with AssistiveTouch will require a passcode for additional security and will not support double clicking the side button.”
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Additionally, Apple has added the option to disable the Apple Watch’s Double Tap feature when using an Apple Vision Pro, a gesture that some people found was easy to accidentally trigger when using the spatial computer. For those not in the know, the Vision Pro uses a tap of the fingers as a replacement for a mouse click.
This update includes a couple of bug fixes that are worth mentioning, starting with a fix for an issue that caused some users to experience phantom touches on the Apple Watch’s display. Finally, a fix for an issue that prevented contacts from correctly syncing has now been fixed, Apple says.
Those with a compatible Apple Watch model can now download watchOS 10.4 via the Software Update mechanism within the Watch app on their iPhone.
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