Siri AI makes Apple Watch finally like a mobile computer

Siri has been on the Apple Watch since day one, although I often struggle to find people who use it well. It’s just… I’ve been there – especially when the process of setting up a counter has my hands full. But after playing with the watchOS 27 developer beta, I have a feeling things will start to change. Not for everyone, and unexpectedly, but the upgrade from Siri to Siri AI seems like a big change in the way Apple – and other tech companies – think we should be using our smartwatches.

To be clear: If all you want Siri to do is set an alarm or check the weather, by golly, it’s still great. But while I already found the Apple Watch useful for health and fitness tracking and notifications, Siri AI allows me to do so much more. reality computer from hand. The main reason is that it doesn’t feel like there are two separate Siri experiences on your phone and watch.

“Our main goal is to integrate with the Watch and make sure that the experience was consistent. What we don’t want is a user who asks Siri in one place, and gets a different answer if he asks (in) another,” said David Clark, Apple’s director of software development for watchOS. “Having a watch that’s tightly connected to a phone, having this content drive all the action, we can start to expect that it’s one Siri AI.”

The lack of compatibility between the phone and the watch was a problem I had last year while testing the Gemini on Pixel Watch 4 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 8. I often struggled to decide if it made sense to try Gemini on the wrist and pull out my phone. Use cases where he told me to answer random questions, where the phone was fast, or to complete complex questions that involved multiple applications. Promote things like “Remember to remind me to bring an umbrella when it rains” or “Make a K-pop playlist in YouTube Music.” Gemini on the wrist had already blown, and although it could make a playlist, it wasn’t the most natural request I would have made. When I asked it to suggest a local coffee shop and texted a co-worker, I found one 40 blocks away. I got the best results on my phone, even when I typed in the location manually.

I’ve never had this problem with Siri AI on watchOS 27. Partly because Siri AI is so advanced in what it does that it can’t do and will provide alternatives. For example, it can’t set reminders based on the weather forecast, but it can set reminders based on how long I’ve been away. As for the search results of the phone and the hand, I did not see any difference. Instead, the questions you create manually are stored in the same app as on your phone.

Thanks to its often-infuriating natural lock, the Apple Watch is the perfect device for taking notes on the go. Siri AI makes bookmarking and to-do lists on my phone or MacBook easy because I can ask to bring the contents. When shopping for Michael’s embroidery floss I was able to ask Siri to bring up a list of thread colors that I’d put in the Reminders app, then pull it off my wrist as I searched through random bins. Likewise, it’s easy to start looking for something when you’re out and about with your phone or your MacBook’s Siri AI app.

The biggest drawback of Siri AI is the new habit you have to create. When I had to think fast, I often didn’t remember to set my watch. You still have to deal with latency while Siri AI is thinking, and even though Big Tech claims that LLMs understand what’s being said naturally, it works better every time you say what you want. As an AI agent, I like to do bad things. If you’re an impatient person, chances are you’re Siri AI on the wrist annoys you from time to time.

Workout Buddy – an AI-powered exercise “coach” – adds a little extra. In watchOS 26, Workout Buddy often got big. This year, it is expanding its content and is now working in Spanish.

“This year we’ve added points that look more closely at what you’re doing, not just based on today’s fitness vs. history,” says Clark. “If you’ve just conquered a hill, work up a little sweat, we’ll know that the speed you got was really high, so it’ll thank you for hitting the top of the hill and keep going.”

My workouts have been more and more intense since then, so I’m not getting this new experience. If you were hoping for Siri AI on the wrist to provide assistance, that’s not in the cards right now. I am to relax that Workout Buddy or Siri AI are not interested in health advice. However, Clark says you can use Siri AI’s world-class knowledge to find “science-backed answers” to questions like “What is LDL cholesterol?” or offer to stretch to speed recovery. In other words, its main purpose is to be a tool to help people find information quickly.

Another nice change is the new App launcher, the type of apps you use frequently or recently. As someone who tends to use the same six apps on Watch, this has been very helpful. You can get less of it if you use a more complex viewing mode, but I’ve been trying the zen mode with a picture of my cat. This allows for beautiful flexibility without sacrificing functionality.

But my favorite feature of watchOS 27 is the new live interface. To where a pinch allows you to move, and a wave of the hand clears the screen, a single tap allows you to select. Combined with the smart stack and the upgrade to speak with hands, that’s it super easy to use Apple Watch on its own. I’m a user of gestures, and this has allowed me to look up information quickly without needing someone else. If you don’t do that use this, and encourage other gestures

I’m still trying out different parts of watchOS 27, but so far, it looks like the end of several updates over the last three to four years. The size of the hands, smart stack widgets, and now Siri AI make the Apple Watch today look like a very different device than it was in 2022. One by one, the features were good but repetitive. With the arrival of Siri AI, these different parts are starting to come together into a bigger picture: a watch that can become a wrist computer. Not until now, but even if I do – I’m still very happy.