watchOS 26 kills off five classic Apple Watch faces

At WWDC 2025 earlier this week, Apple announced watchOS 26, the latest operating system for Apple Watch. And it’s a big update, encompassing AI features, a revamped Workout app, live translation in Messages, and a thorough redesign.

Most Apple Watch owners will likely install the new OS almost as soon as it becomes available–either at the public launch in September (although we might recommend giving it a couple of days to avoid the rush on the servers and give Apple a chance to patch any early flaws) or even earlier, when the public beta drops in July. But there’s something you might want to take into account before updating: a bunch of watch faces seem to have been removed.

As 9to5Mac points out, the Fire and Water, Gradient, Liquid Metal, Toy Story, and Vapor faces are all unavailable in the first developer beta of watchOS 26. That doesn’t definitely mean they are gone forever: Apple could bring them back later in the beta process, particularly if users protest. But it’s not a promising sign.

Apple

Apple software updates tend not to remove features, preferring to add them instead. But the range of face choices has been growing excessive in recent years. A glance through the Face Gallery for watchOS 11 reveals an astonishing 50 rows, each containing anywhere from one to 24 individual face variants. And that’s not counting the row of new faces highlighted at the top of the screen. It’s too many, honestly.

And this isn’t unprecedented. In 2024 Apple removed Chronograph (although Chronograph Pro remains), Explorer, and the plain Numerals (Numerals Duo and Mono are still available) as part of the watchOS 11 update. If people aren’t using the faces, it makes sense to trim back the list.

I’m a little sad because the Top Story face was my favorite for several years in the early days. But I don’t use it now and haven’t for a while, and that might just offer a hint as to why it’s gone. At least we still have Snoopy.