Apple is seemingly dropping a long-standing Apple Watch shortcut in watchOS 27: double-clicking the Digital Crown no longer triggers the App Switcher allowing users to jump between and/or close recently used apps.
According to 9to5Mac’s Zac Hall, the change first showed up in the watchOS 27 beta and has stuck around all summer. For years, a double-click on the crown let users bounce quickly between two apps — or between an app and the watch face — without opening the full app grid. Hall says he used the gesture so often it became muscle memory, especially for jumping between Workout and Music.
That same recent-apps view also gave Watch owners a way to quit apps. On watchOS 26, users can still double-click the Digital Crown to open the App Switcher, swipe left on an app, and tap the X to close or quit it. iPhone users on iOS 26 have a similar option: open the recently used apps view and swipe left on an app to close or quit it. watchOS 27 takes away the double-click path that made that Watch workflow possible.
watchOS 27 instead pushes a new “dynamic app grid.” A single press of the Digital Crown now shows the Siri icon, five suggested apps, and a shortcut to the full grid. Hall writes that the new launcher has grown on him when the right app is already suggested. What it does not replace is a guaranteed, one-motion switch between two apps — or the swipe-left close action tied to the old App Switcher.
In the current beta, a double-click does the same thing as a single click. Hall argues that is a poor trade on a device with so few physical buttons. Only Apple Watch Ultra models have an Action button, and the side button below the crown still opens Wallet. Removing a dedicated double-click action from the crown, he says, leaves a useful control unused.
Hall first flagged the issue when the public beta launched in July and says he sent feedback to Apple in June. He still hopes Apple restores the crown gesture before watchOS 27 ships this month, or at least brings it back in watchOS 27.1.
Whether most Watch users will notice depends on how often they relied on the old shortcut. For those who used it both to jump between apps and to swipe left to quit them, watchOS 27 currently offers no equivalent.
MacDailyNews Take: Unless Apple has new plans for double-clicking the Digital Crown, they should bring back the App Switcher for that action.
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Crazy that there is no app switcher on the beta of watchOS 27.
If it isn’t restored by the shipping version, I predict it will come back in a watchOS 27.x update.