When Is The WatchOS 26 Release Date?

Apple has officially announced WatchOS 26, unveiling it to the public during its WWDC 2025 event on June 9. Apple will make the developer preview available today, and should make the public beta available soon, with the release date coming a little bit later this year. That being said, when exactly is the official release date for WatchOS 26? Well, Apple is usually pretty punctual with its releases and tends to launch the new version of its operating systems around the same time on an annual basis. While it can change a little, there’s not much variance, and if there is a change, it isn’t generally far from the previous release.

With that in mind, Apple launched WatchOS 11, the last version of the operating system, on September 16 of 2024. So we can probably expect WatchOS 26 to launch sometime around then. It’s very likely that it’ll be released the week of September 15 or September 22. Officially, Apple says the public beta will be available in July, with the full release coming this Fall.

WatchOS 26 gets an all-new design language with “Liquid Glass”

Apple’s biggest change with WatchOS 26 and all of its operating systems in general this year is the alteration of the design language. The design is getting a complete overhaul with the new design language that Apple is calling Liquid Glass. This new design gives app icon borders and other elements of the OS a glass-like style. This allows certain elements to shift and transform (like liquid) to fit the small changes of the display. Such as changing the wallpaper or incoming notifications.

Another change, though a lot more minor, is the change in the OS version number. Apple has made the leap to WatchOS 26 from WatchOS 11. This is a huge jump in version number, and an even bigger jump from iOS 18 to iOS 26. Apple is trying to keep everything unified across its entire ecosystem. So, the version numbers are being unified to look the same, even though they were different. The same is happening with the Liquid Glass design, which is going to be implemented across all of its devices. WatchOS 26 should be available on Apple Watch Series 6 and newer. This means Apple Watch Series 10 and Apple Watch Ultra will most certainly get it.