Double Press on Apple Watch Went Away

TidBITS Talk
1

For the last week, double pressing the side button on my Apple Watch has stopped bringing up Apple Pay. I found that this is supposedly controlled by going to Settings→ Gestures and checking to make sure Double Tap is on, but it’s not on my Series 8 watch.

This has happened before about a month ago, and again I couldn’t find a way to adjust the speed of the double press.

I’ve used it on this watch since the start of 2023 and I think I used it on my Series 3 watch before that without any issues. I thought maybe I’m getting older and my double press speed has slowed down. But even pressing it as fast as I can, it doesn’t seem to work. The watch is responding to both taps and tapping the side button brings up the control panel without a problem.

Anyone else had this issue? Any suggestions?

2

You can slow down the double-click speed via Settings>Accessibility>Motor> Button Click Speed. You can do this directly on the Watch or via the Watch App on your associated iPhone.

In general, if you need to make any Apple hardware more sensitive, and Accessibility options is the Settings for that hardware is a good place to look.

3

Thanks. I’ll give that a try.

4

It definitely still works because I’ve been doing it periodically since watchOS 26 launched.

What I would try - and this is often the case with Apple Watch issues - is to try power off and power on again and see if it’s fixed.

By the way, it’s a double-press of the button, not the crown - saying this just to be sure.

5

Yup. Restarted the watch. Yup, the button and not the crown. Maybe I’m just getting old. I slowed down the double click speed to see if that helps.