• Tips - Get valuable charging notifications 🔋
• Trivia - Test your Apple Watch knowledge 🧠
• Deep Dive - Fixing your biggest Apple Watch complaints. ⌚
• Health Challenge Update - Join our February 2026 Challenge! 🏆

• 🔋Get notified when your watch is fully charged!
• ✉️Discover quicker ways to reply to texts.
• 👍 Navigate your watch without tapping!

If you’ve updated to watchOS 26, a cool new gesture lets you dismiss notifications quickly. What is it?

👍 Wrisk flick
👍👍 Three-fingered pinch
👍👍👍Finger tap

Did you get it right? Scroll down to find out!

I really enjoyed reading all of the pet peeves that you emailed me, but only because I can relate. Luckily, some of your gripes have simple solutions or workarounds that I’m happy to share with you!

[Note: Questions have been lightly edited for space and clarity.]

“I hate when ‘free’ Apple Watch apps have monthly fees.” - Bob G.

Me too, Bob. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s up to Apple since individual app developers set the prices. When the App Store claims that an app is “free,” that only means it’s free to download. If it says “In-App Purchases,” that means that there may be fees, but it still doesn’t tell you if any features can be used without paying. If you open up the description of the app and scroll to the very bottom, that is where developers disclose any subscription fees. Reading the app reviews within the App Store can help you recognize when a “free” app doesn’t offer any free features (which drives me crazy). You can also search Google for the app to find out if there are fees, what they are, and which features they cover. I hope this helps you waste less time downloading pricey apps, and I do wish that any fees were disclosed more transparently.

“I hate the huge Snooze button for the alarm that makes the Stop hard to tap when half asleep.” - J. Skene

Been there, done that; just ask my managers at iPhone Life! Fortunately, there are some workarounds! One idea is to turn on the water lock before you go to bed. This will prevent you from accidentally pressing any button until you disable the water lock. There are also alternative ways to snooze or stop the alarm. Pressing the Digital Crown will snooze your alarm, while pressing the Side button will stop it. Since they are side by side, it can still be hard for a sleepy human to get it right, but it might be better than tapping the screen. Finally, there are gestures you can enable to turn off your alarm by pressing your thumb and pointer finger together.

“I use the elliptical for an hour every day, but it seems that my watch doesn't acknowledge it.” - Linda

Yes, Linda, I hate when my workout doesn’t register! This is why you should always turn on the correct workout on your watch before you start. Sometimes your watch is great at realizing you are working out, but with some elliptical machines, it doesn’t sense your arms moving, and the GPS shows you’re standing still, so all your watch has to go on is your heart rate, which might not be enough to register. Luckily, the elliptical does have a specific workout setting on your watch! If you ever do an activity that isn’t on the list, you can always opt for “Other.”

“My watch doesn’t always charge to 80%, and I don’t want it to charge to full to protect the battery.” - Steve S.

You are right that charging past 80% can damage your watch battery over time, which is why the Optimized Battery Charging feature exists in the first place. I assume you already have it on, but I would double-check that. Also, keep in mind that this feature will only stop charging at 80% if it thinks you’ll have enough battery life. It figures this out by tracking your battery habits. If it knows that you often run out of battery at a certain time, it will charge your watch to full to prevent that from happening. First, check out the first tip in this newsletter: it covers getting notifications on your phone when your watch is fully charged or needs to be charged soon. Next, if you’re using an Apple charger, you should be able to find out how long it takes to charge to 80%. You could set an alarm to take it off the charger in time, which is annoying but still an option. Finally, I also just saw an ad for a smart charger called Anker Nano Charger. I haven’t tried it yet, so I don’t know if it works, but it will allegedly solve your problem. 

“My watch will randomly stop in the middle of a workout!” - Shelley A.

I’ve had that happen, and it is SUPER frustrating! It happens to me when I accidentally pause the workout by pressing buttons or tapping the display without realizing it. One way to fix this is to enable the Water Lock after you’ve started the workout. That way, you need to disable the Water Lock before you can do anything, including pause or stop the workout.

“Every kilometre I do on the treadmill takes about 90 seconds longer on the watch than the treadmill.” - Ian C.

I’ve had the exact same thing happen to me, Ian. I always trust the treadmill because when you’re running in place, your watch is merely estimating how fast and far you are going. While you can’t offset it, you could always track the workout, then delete it from the Health app, and add your workout stats manually. A lot more annoying and less satisfying, but it works.

“My Apple Watch battery is failing.” - Paul D.

Noooo! I hate when that happens. My husband is dealing with the same issue on his three-year-old Apple Watch Ultra (1st generation). Unfortunately, you might not be able to  prevent it without turning off a bunch of features, but you can slow down the degradation. Check out this article that gives tips on prolonging your battery life. 

“Autocorrect adds apostrophes when they are grammatically not needed.” - Ronnie

I have no solution for this, unfortunately, other than disabling autocorrect, which could lead to other disasters. But as a professional writer and the wife of an English teacher, I wanted to share my annoyance with this. You could download a third-party keyboard like Grammarly that might do a better job with apostrophes, but I haven’t tried it, so I can’t make any promises. With so many people relying on autocorrect, this mistake is causing people to think they belong where they don’t!

Did I miss your Apple Watch pet peeve? Email OntheWatch@iphonelife.com and let me know!

👍 Wrisk flick

To enable this feature, go to Settings, then Gestures on your Apple Watch, and toggle on Wrist Flick. Then just turn your wrist away from you, and the notifications disappear.

The first iPhone Life Health Challenge of 2026 is almost over! The January Challenge is now closed, but you can already join the February Challenge!

The monthly iPhone Life Challenge is a great way to come together as a community and motivate each other to reach our health goals by staying active. We’ll be doing a weekly accountability post for subscribers in our Insider Facebook group. Join to share struggles, trade tips, and support one another on our journeys.

To join the challenge, download the free Challenges app on your iPhone and enter the code MC4Y when prompted. Need help? This article explains the steps and tells you more about the app.

Are you enjoying the challenge? Do you have any suggestions for how we can make it even better? Email OnTheWatch@iPhoneLife.com and let me know.

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