ZDNET's Nina Raemont reports that the dynamic app grid in WatchOS 27 solves a long-standing annoyance with the Apple Watch: a home screen crowded with tiny, hard-to-hit app icons. Instead of showing every app at once, the new view places six of your most-used and most-recent apps front and center, with the full grid tucked behind a single bubble at the bottom of the screen.
Raemont says the change reflects a simple design philosophy: subtraction over addition. She notes that she regularly uses only a handful of the roughly 40 apps on her watch, so having the rest one extra touch away actually made her use the home screen less. She also points out that users can still switch between list and grid views by swiping to the bottom of the display, and she personally prefers the grid because it shows every app without scrolling.
The feature is part of WatchOS 27, which also includes a more agentic Siri AI assistant and a new Smart Stack widget gesture. The update is available on Apple Watch Series 9, 10, 11, and 12, Apple Watch SE 3, and Apple Watch Ultra 2, 3, and 4, but requires updating an iPhone to iOS 27 first. Raemont hopes rival smartwatch makers, including Samsung and Google, adopt a similar app view in future software updates.