Apple appears to be walking back one of the more frustrating watchOS 27 changes. According to 9to5Mac‘s Marcus Mendes, watchOS 27.2 beta 2 restores the App Switcher on Apple Watch, though not with the old double-click of the Digital Crown.
watchOS 27 dropped the long-standing shortcut that let users jump between recently used apps by double-clicking the Crown. That left no quick way to hop among recent apps, a change 9to5Mac’s Zac Hall flagged earlier this month when he asked Apple to restore the feature before the software shipped, or at least in a later update.
The company has not revived that Crown shortcut in beta 2. What it has restored is the App Switcher itself, tied to a new interaction. As first spotted in the Apple Den Discord and shared on X by user Bones, users can press and hold the bottom of the screen while inside an app to bring up the switcher.
From there, the experience is familiar. Turning the Digital Crown scrolls through recently used apps. Swiping left on an app and tapping the X removes it from the list.
Apple seeded watchOS 27.2 beta 2 to developers today, less than a week after beta 1. Like any beta change, this gesture is not guaranteed to survive into the public release, which is expected next month. Still, its appearance so soon after user complaints suggests Apple is paying attention and looking for a way to put multitasking back on the wrist.
MacDailyNews Take: Whether the final version keeps this press-and-hold gesture, restores the Crown shortcut, or lands somewhere in between remains to be seen. For now, testers on watchOS 27.2 beta 2 have a path back to the App Switcher that vanished in watchOS 27.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
