Updated April 22 with other upgrades new to Apple Watch in watchOS 11.4 and a preview of cool new extras coming in watchOS 11.5.
Apple Watch users: do you have Silent mode turned on or off? A newly released update for the watch (watchOS 11.4) means that you can now hear audible alarms even when Silent mode is activated. There are other new features in watchOS 11.4, such as emoji, a fix for switching watch faces and compatibility between the Home app and robot vacuum cleaners. Oh, and there’s something new on its way: an extra watch face and perhaps a new Apple Watch Band are coming in watchOS 11.5.
First, the silent mode issue. I’m betting the answer to the question above is that it’s on, because, frankly, who needs a sound every time an email lands or WhatsApp arrives? The haptic feedback which silently alerts you is more than enough.
And much better to keep it regularly on Silent than risk forgetting to quieten it when you’re at the theater, say.
However, until now, Silent mode has meant that if you use your Apple Watch to wake you in the morning, that the alarm is silent, too. This has its benefits: the throbbing on your wrist to tell you to rise is hard to miss, I’d say, and it means your significant other can continue to slumber while you quietly ease yourself out of bed.
But what if you’re worried that the haptic feedback might not be enough? Maybe you’ve slept through it once or twice in the past when, say, you’d gone to bed tired and emotional (as the euphemism for being drunk goes).
With watchOS 11.4, released on Wednesday, April 16, you can keep your watch on silent but, when you set the alarm, can now choose a new mode: Break Through Silent Mode. This says, “Sound will always play while wearing Apple Watch,” which is clear.
But note the specific: you must be wearing the watch, so if you take it off as you retire to bed, it’ll still be haptics-only that happen in the morning. To be fair, if the watch is on a wooden nightstand, for instance, the vibrations can make quite a racket anyway.
This setting is done for each alarm, for the greatest flexibility. You could, for instance, set a silent alarm for 6.30 a.m. but a backup audible alarm for 7 a.m.
The other new features include seven new emoji, similar to the newbies released in iOS 18.4 for the iPhone. There’s one super-useful one, a face with bags under its eyes. Beyond that, there’s a fingerprint, a tree with no leaves, a root vegetable, a harp, a shovel and a splatter. All are now in the emoji keyboard on the Apple Watch so you need never be without access to a shovel image at short notice.
If you have a robot vacuum cleaner that’s compatible with the Matter platform, you can now say, “Hey, Siri, clean the living room,” to your watch and it can instruct the vacuum to get to.
Additionally, an issue has been addressed. This is one where switching watch faces has for some people let to watch faces becoming unavailable.
These are small but highly useful additions to the Apple Watch’s features. They will work with all watches compatible with watchOS 11.4, that is, the latest Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Apple Watch Series 10, right back to Series 6 and the second-generation Apple Watch SE.
Finally, looking to the future, an all-new watch face is coming in the next few weeks, when the next big software version, watchOS 11.5, is released. This is gleaned from something said by aaronp613, who is an analyst at MacRumors. They mentioned something in a post on X, “iOS 18.5 beta 2 describes the upcoming Pride wallpaper which will be added in the final version of iOS 18.5: ‘Multi-colored shapes meet at sharp angles in a vibrant display of verisimilitude’,” they said.
This, you’ll note, refers to the iPhone software, but we can make an educated guess of how it will affect Apple Watch.
Let’s pause for a second to compliment the use of the word verisimilitude, which is a handsome and elegant way of saying truth (though as one user on X mentioned, it’s the sort of word favored by Severance’s Mr Milchick).
Anyway, as noted by BGR, when Apple releases the Pride wallpaper, as it does on an annual basis at about this time, it also introduces a new watch face that matches the intent of the wallpaper.
And it usually releases a new Apple Watch band that fits with the same vibe. The Pride Watch bands are often the snazziest of the year, I’d say, and the x.5 software release is when it routinely appears. Since iOS 18.5 and watchOS 11.5 are expected in May, there’s not long to wait.
