I Was Skeptical of the Apple Watch’s New Double Tap Feature—Until I Tried It

At this point touch screens, tapping and swiping have become as natural as anything else in a world full of smartphones, tablets and other all-screen devices. Now comes a new way of interacting on the most recent Apple Watch models.

Surprise, it doesn’t involve you touching the display at all, and it’s actually cool. While it’s not reason enough to upgrade if you have a recent Watch model, it does make the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 that much more intriguing for people with older Watches looking to upgrade and first-time smartwatch buyers.

“Double tap” might sound like something you do to the screen, but it actually refers to the tapping of your thumb and index finger together, almost like you’re making the OK sign. The idea is that when you only have one hand free—like walking the dog, carrying groceries or pushing a stroller—you can still interact with notifications and apps on your Apple Watch. Just “tap tap” after you’ve raised your arm to wake up the Watch and you’ll take action on the active app. No more trying to free a finger from whatever else you’re doing, or tapping with your nose. I’ve found it works with other fingers combined with the thumb, but the index finger is the easiest for me, at least.

What can you use double tap to do? The answer is a limited number of things right now, but they’re all useful. If a call comes in, double tap to answer it. Pull up voice dictation to respond to a text. Snooze (notably, not cancel) an alarm going off. Play or pause your music. And for third-party apps, double tap will do the primary action if you get a notification. For example, if you get an alert from WhatsApp, you can trigger a response. For all of these, you’ll see a blue circle with a white hand inside it and feel a vibration when you double tap to know it was successful.

It may sound like a novelty, but in my initial testing I’ve found double tap to be surprisingly useful (and it feels pretty magical, too). The gesture is correctly identified every time I try it, and I haven’t had any false-positives yet in the dozens of times I’ve tried it in the past few days.

Double tap only works on the Series 9 and Ultra 2. Apple says this is because the feature uses a combination elements related to the new, faster processor found in these devices. And it’s different from the assistive touch accessibility feature that’s currently found in WatchOS 10 and designed for people who physically can’t tap on the screen.

I can see double tap evolving to become as natural a gesture as poking at the Apple Watch’s screen or spinning its digital crown. It’s up there with the best of Apple’s “it just works” features because of how instantly intuitive and natural it is. (And I’m usually the first to say if an Apple feature is mostly hype and little function.) If you have an Apple Watch Series 9 or Ultra 2, I recommend you turn the feature on and give it a shot to see how it can make life a little bit easier.