GoKawiilApple redesigned the Workout app in watchOS 26, but not everyone has loved the new Apple Watch exercise tracking experience. It turns out Apple has been listening, because watchOS 26.4 addresses a major complaint about the new design.
watchOS 26.4 improves Workout app user experience
A common complaint about the Workout app on watchOS 26 is that it feels slow or requires more interactions to simply start a workout.
The redesign is a huge change after a decade of using the Apple Watch Workout app one way, of course. The current design is also just a little less intuitive.
The problem is what worked like a tappable button in previous design was now just a decoration that ignored your tap.
With watchOS 26.4, however, Apple is adapting the Workout app’s existing design to work how users expect.
Per the release notes: Workout type icon in the Workout app lets you start a workout with a single tap.
Boom, that’s the fix people have needed. Now the workout icon/label and the play button do the same exact thing: start tracking your workout.
Tapping the icon from the list view still requires the rest of the workout view to load in. If you’re fast enough and tap the workout icon while the list is still visible, your tap is still ignored.
That’s one more area where this could be improved, but the watchOS 26.4 change is a great user experience improvement from the watchOS 26.0 to watchOS 26.3 behavior.
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