The Apple Watch enters its tenth generation next year, and the company is expected to bring a major redesign to its smartwatch similar to what the iPhone X did for the phone series six years ago. That’s perhaps the reason theApple Watch Series 9turned out to be a mild iterative upgrade, save for a few improvements on the inside. But one Watch feature that got the most limelight at the event is the new Double Tap gesture. While Apple did make much of this feature on stage as it is wont to do, hand gestures like this are anything but new.
When out biking with my fitness tracker on, I often use its raise-to-wake gesture, which, as you’d guess, is finicky at best. If it manages to fail on me enough times, I halt for a bit, breaking my momentum, and use my other hand to get the damn thing working (it’s either that or using my nose to wake up the tracker’s screen). A single-handed gesture like the Apple Watch’s Double Tap, which does more than just waking up the display, would be a godsend in cases like these.
Apple demoed the Watch Series 9’s Double Tap gesture during its recent briefing, and as you’d expect from a pre-recorded event, the feature worked flawlessly on screen and even looked pretty useful. It is easy to imagine the instances in which the feature will come in handy, like when your other hand is occupied. For instance, winter is fast approaching, and it would be difficult to operate your smartwatch’s touchscreen while wearing gloves, or maybe you’re spending the weekend getting your hands dirty in the lawn and don’t want to smudge the watch. Double Tap’s utilities are endless!
The company pointed out that this gesture relies on the new S9 processor to work. This basically means Double Tap is exclusive to this year’s Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 and cannot work on older Apple Watches — or can it?
Previous-gen Apple smartwatches have supported similar features that let you control the device using hand gestures. And they go beyond the basic wrist twists and raises to do elementary stuff like waking the display up. The reason these gestures aren’t more widely known is because they are a part of the Apple Watch’s accessibility settings and are meant primarily for people with special needs.
When WatchOS 8 came out a couple of years back, Apple introduced some gestures underAssistive Touch, allowing even older Apple Watch models to support the feature. Assistive Touch has a pretty fleshed-out implementation that allows scrolling around the WatchOS and even using a motion pointer. Apple included a bunch of gestures like single and double clenching your hand along with single and double tapping your index finger — just like the newly introduced Double Tap.
The only new thing about the Watch Series 9’s double tap gesture is that Apple has made it available across the OS and enabled it by default. As the company noted, the gesture is contextually aware and operates the primary button on the screen. You can pick up a call and snooze your morning alarm with the same gesture without having to remember different gestures and awkwardly twisting your wrist for different tasks.
This simplified approach is what makes the feature special and far handier than other gestures that smartwatch owners are used to. And the fact that it’s available system-wide, more people are likely to use it when they are in a tricky situation, like when rock climbing wearing the new Watch Ultra 2. But unlike Assistive Touch, this Double Tap gesture uses the improved neural capabilities of the S9 processor. So, if you own an older Apple Watch, your best bet is to use Assistive Touch gestures, which work on models released in the last couple of years, including the budget Watch SE.
As you can see, Double Tap isn’t technically Watch Series 9 exclusive — in fact, it isn’t even an Apple Watch-exclusive feature. TheSamsung Galaxy Watch 4andWatch 5have supportedhand gestures for basic controls like accepting calls, dismissing alerts, etc.for quite some time now. If you haven’t been using them already, you can find them underAdvanced featuresof your watch’s settings menu.
More recently,Samsung rolled out the One UI Watch 5 updateto its entire range of Wear OS smartwatches, bringing even more features dubbed Universal Gestures as part of its accessibility tools. They use hand gestures like clenching and tapping your index finger, similar to what Apple’s Assistive Touch has on offer. And Samsung lets you customize what each of these gestures does.
So, Android users clearly aren’t missing out on this cool “new” Apple Watch feature, especially considering the same gestures are available across all Samsung smartwatches, including the Galaxy Watch 4, which is often available at dirt-cheap prices. However, Apple one-upped Samsung by making Double Tap a standard part of the OS and removed the friction of enabling it through the accessibility menu. It also helps that it is a single and simple-to-learn gesture, easing the learning curve for a lot of users who are new to such hand gestures.
But the more important factor is still how reliably this gesture is going to work, because if it fails to perform as expected half the time, it will end up being just another annoying feature like raising to wake. Apple’s official promo videos obviously show flawless operation with feather-light finger taps, butcertain early hands-on videosof the Watch Series 9 point to a slightly hit-or-miss situation, with the Watch requiring more deliberate taps for the gesture to be registered.
Since Apple isn’t rolling out Double Tap to its new smartwatches until October, this early software version deserves the benefit of the doubt. Apple will hopefully make the feature better and more reliable before releasing it widely to the Watch Series 9 and the Watch Ultra 2. But is the feature enticing enough for you tosplurge on one of these brand-new Apple smartwatches? Certainly not, considering you can enable similar hand gestures anyway on older Apple Watch models. Meanwhile, those in the Android ecosystem already havesome excellent Wear OS smartwatchesto choose from, including the newSamsung Galaxy Watch 6 series.
Apple Watch Series 9
The Apple Watch Series 9 offers new features and fitness tracking capabilities thanks to its improved S9 SiP and updated ultra wideband chip. The Watch Series 9 continues to provide excellent fitness tracking capabilities, access to tons of apps and features, and even a new Double Tap function which utilizes a gesture-like movement to interact with your device without having to touch it.
