How To

Apple’s watchOS 11, released in September 2024, didn’t add many new features to the Apple Watch, but one useful new feature is the improved Smart Stack. Apple says this provides "timely widgets," and that it displays, "the most relevant widgets at the appropriate time in your day."

You can navigate the Smart Stack using the Double Tap gesture, introduced with watchOS 10, which is only available on the Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, or Apple Watch Ultra 2. Surprisingly, even though the first Apple Watch Ultra was released at the same time as the Series 9, it did not get this feature.

Here’s how to use Double Tap to make your Apple Watch a lot more useful. Also, see our article about how the Smart Stack provides timely widgets that you can cycle through using Double Tap.

Also, see our article, How to Use Smart Stack Widgets on the Apple Watch.

How to use Double Tap on the Apple Watch

Double Tap is a clever feature of the Apple Watch that uses its onboard sensors to detect when you tap your thumb and forefinger tips twice. Think of it like a double-click with a mouse or trackpad on a Mac; but also think of it as a single click. While a double-click on a computer usually launches an app or opens a file, Double Tap acts like a button click to initiate an action or confirm an option in a dialog.

For example, if you are playing music on your Apple Watch or iPhone, and the Now Playing screen is visible on the watch, you can double-tap to pause or resume playing music. You can use the Double Tap for many actions, such as:

• Play and pause music, podcasts, audiobooks, and other media in Now Playing
• Answer or end a phone call or FaceTime call
• Dismiss a timer
• Reply to a message
• Open Smart Stack from the Apple Watch face and scroll through widgets
• Snooze an alarm
• Pause and resume a stopwatch

To enable Double Tap, go to Settings > Gestures on the Apple Watch or in the Watch app on your iPhone. Enable Double Tap, and you’ll see options for playback and Smart Stack. For the former, you can choose whether you want Double Tap to play/pause playback or skip to the next track. For Smart Stack, you can choose whether Double Tap advances to the next widget or selects the current widget.

Here’s one example of how Double Tap works. If you set a timer, and your Apple Watch vibrates to let you know the timer has finished, it will keep buzzing until you dismiss that screen, either by tapping the x icon or by Double Tapping. When you Double Tap, the watch briefly highlights the x icon, then dismisses the dialog; it’s as if it interprets the Double Tap as a press on the icon.

Here’s a video from Apple showing Double Tap in action, as someone answers a phone call.

What to do if Double Tap isn’t working

There are many cases where Double Tap may not work on your Apple Watch. I use timers often when cooking, and for a long time, Double Tap wasn’t working for me. I realized that, while I have my Apple Watch display set to always on and I could see the timer screen on the watch when I Double Tapped, it only worked when the display had brightened, which occurs when you raise your wrist. If you don’t have the display set to always on, you’ll notice that Double Tap doesn’t work until the screen displays.

Apple has a support document, If Double Tap isn’t working on your Apple Watch, explaining the many factors that can prevent this feature from working. These include not sitting or standing still, having a tattoo on your wrist, not having the watch snugly on your wrist, having Low Power Mode, Sleep Focus, or Theater Mode enabled, and more. The most important is ensuring that Wrist Detection and Wake on Wrist Raise are turned on. If you can’t get Double Tap to work, check out this support document.

Double Tap is extremely useful to control some of your Apple Watch’s features with one hand, and, combined with Smart Stack, gives you a quick way to scroll through timely information.

How can I learn more?

Each week on the Intego Mac Podcast, Intego’s Mac security experts discuss the latest Apple news, security and privacy stories, and offer practical advice on getting the most out of your Apple devices. Be sure to follow the podcast to make sure you don’t miss any episodes.

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About Kirk McElhearn