Yes,
The dock was my repository for my favorite apps, which I used daily or wanted quick access to. The initial problem with the Smart Stack was that not all these apps had widget equivalents. So, it required some work, including learning the basics of Shortcuts to reclaim that functionality.
True that they arenāt the same thing, but Apple seems to have decided that the old dock was also an app switcher, and itās what their support document now calls it. I have also heard Apple employees call the new App Switcher the dock.
I also prefer and miss the old dock, because I did use it to access favorite apps. But Iāve grown accustomed to the new ways, so no more grumbling from me.
Apple has made it pretty clear that widgets are the new hotness. I expect most apps to include widgets soon, if they want to remain relevant.
Thanks for the article. Just addressing the myths around SnowLeopard, it wasnāt a myth that the goal was āno new featuresā. I was a MacOS engineer at Apple during the time, and even internally it was pressed very hard that the primary goal was to streamline, size down, and make things more stable. SnowLeopard was the first MacOS to drop processor support for PowerPC and because of that the installed space requirements were almost halved. Unfortunately, this āno new featuresā time allowed a lot of teams to refactor their code, so instead of just applying bandages on top of old major bugs, the refactors exposed some deeper issues which were unknown until the OS was released to millions of users. A decade and a half later I donāt recall all the details, but there were also some underlying services being implemented for more iCloud support, migrating off the old MobileMe, which was one of the reasons why it was priced so low ($30), to encourage people to upgrade so we could more fully deprecate a lot of old MobileMe stuff.
So in the end itās true that it doesnāt feel like SnowLeopard was a ābug fix releaseā; it should probably be called a ārefactor releaseā, since it didnāt fix bugs per se, it just swapped out for a new set of bugs that were hopefully easier to fix going forward. But Iāll agree that at the end (10.6.8) it was definitely one of the best OSās Apple has released, and I kept my personal machines on it for a long time.
Interesting article! In general, I liked the older interface better, but like apparently a lot of users, I donāt go into and out of apps, etc., much anyway. I do use one or two complications frequently (weather and workout).
I did like the restoration of the easy watch face swipe, though it seems to have a lag it didnāt have before.
Re Snow Leopard: That Mac OS worked the best for me of any before or after. I still have an affection for it. 
I tend to do the same things and prefer the items to be available the same way, quickly. The swipe up used to be used a ton. Now I have to figure out which button (bottom). Really donāt like the changes. Swiping up now gives me widget like stuff which I donāt need or use. I have no idea of how to swap to my other watch faces. Ugh.
Widgets replace the Dock in earlier versions. If you used an app in the dock, hopefully, you can find an equivalent widget. If not, you may need to get creative.
When WatchOS 10.0 was released, the procedure for swiping watch faces changed (as discussed in the article). Apple believed many folks were accidentally swiping faces when they didnāt want to (probably based on the quantity of support and genius bar calls). So they made it more difficult. However, after the change, the volume of folks who didnāt like the change caused Apple to provide an option in the Watch 10.2 update to reinstate the old behavior, swiping from the edge. To get that, you need to open the Settings app on the Watch, and then the toggle should be the first option in the Clock app settings. Folks have noticed that the change isnāt as smooth as before but is still close to instantaneous.
I more or less thoughtlessly ādowngradedā my watch from 9 to 10 and deeply regret doing that. I really hate the new UI and desperately want to restore WatchOS 9. I have not been able to find a way to do that. Any TidBITS readers that can point me to a way to restore WatchOS 9 on a series 6?
There is no way to downgrade. There was a time when you could ask Apple to do that, and I believe they had to send your watch out for a few days, but I donāt believe they offer that service anymore. (Actually they may have only offered that service during the beta period of a new version after WWDC in case a beta puts your watch in a non-working state.) Perhaps itās worth a try to see if you can get that service, but donāt get your hopes up.
Your only chance is probably if you find someone who is selling a Series 6 that was never upgraded.
@ddmiller is right, but Iād encourage you to call Apple Support and calmly tell them all the ways that watchOS 10 isnāt working for you and ask how you can revert to watchOS 9. I doubt theyāll be able to help you, but at least youāll have had the opportunity to provide feedback and encourage them to send it up the chain.
Are you sure itās a downgrade? Most of us donāt like change, and I fault Apple for not adequately preparing folks for the the major change that Watch OS 10 is.
In my case, I initially reacted very negatively to the change, as I had refined the Dock to be the base for many of my interactions with the watch. So, I needed to see if the new widget structure could adequately replace that. Long story short, after discovering how to create and modify Watch shortcuts, I succeeded in creating a more satisfying interface for myself. It worked so well that I was able to change my complication-heavy watch face (Infograph) for a complication-free one (Snoopy).
So, before you call it a downgrade, think about how you work with the Watch and see if there are opportunities in Watch OS 10 to provide an equivalent or better experience than you had before. If you have already done that, I apologize for the rant.
Thanks to everyone for replying. I guess Iāll just have to learn to live with WatchOS 10 as restoring to 9 sounds like too much of a hassle to me. And yes, I will be giving Apple feedback via their feedback page.
@aforkosh, no need to apologize for the ārantā, I found it insightful. I did look at the āsmart stackā and tried to customize the widgets, but in the end did not really find anything there that I could not reach more easily via one of my watch faces (I have 3 customized for specific needs and swipe left or right from my main watch face to quickly access what I want). So it bothers me that I now need to press the side button to get to the control panel, which I use a lot, because Apple did not provide a setting that allows me to choose how I want the watch to behave!
What intrigues me in your post is that you mention creating and modifying Watch shortcuts. I did look at shortcuts, but found no way to create one to, for example, open the control panel? Perhaps you could point me in the right direction?
Other than that, I have other issues with WatchOS 10. For example,
The new design of several apps now have screens that are almost illegible (for example temperature prediction of the Weather app), even with reduce transparency, increase contrast and bold text turned on.
The Activity app used to be a single page I could position so that I could see all 3 graphs in one glance, now it is a multi page thing that does not allow that anymore, forcing me to scroll where that was unnecessary before.
In the first few days that I have been using WatchOS 10 the watch has completely frozen on me twice, necessitating a reboot. That fortunately has not happened since.
I have experienced sudden unresponsiveness while swiping the watch face multiple times
and, last but not least,
WatchOS 10 seems to use a lot more power. Where I used to have about 30-35% battery left after a day, that is now reduced to 15-20%. I have already turned off background refresh for almost all apps and reduced the brightness setting in the hope this will help.
All in all, there is enough to dislike for me to call it a downgrade.
You need to create shortcuts on your iPhone and tap a checkbox to have them appear on the Watch. So, the action components of the Shortcut need to be either system functions that make sense on both the iPhone and the Watch or apps that appear in both places and have actions that are appropriate to the Watch. For example, I can work with the Autosleep app via a Shortcut (since it is an iPhone app with relevant Watch Shortcut triggers), but I canāt open the Blood Oxygen app (since it exists only on the Watch).
I donāt believe thatās a specific action for opening the control panel, but you can do things like changing the Focus via Shortcuts. If you had to access the control panel before to make changes, itās mainly a matter of retraining yourself to tap the side button to open it rather than scrolling down on the Watch face. Similarly, you need to retrain yourself to scroll down to access the Smart Stack rather than hitting the side button to access the Dock.
A long thread on Tidbits Talk includes discussions of creating shortcuts for the Watch and organizing the Smart Stack to make best use of them.
Iāve had this happen a few times but not swiping. Occasionally I canāt end a workout session necessitating a hard reboot to resolve.
Very interesting to me that someone who uses control center often is complaining about it being switched to the side button. That really does make the control center easier to use, particularly when you are using an app and not in the watch face - for example, while you are in a workout and want to open control center. Prior to watchOS 10, unlike when the watch face was showing, you needed to press and hold a bit on the bottom until the control center started appearing and then swipe up - simply swiping up wouldnāt work, because many apps, including the workout app starting with watchOS 9, could have multiple pages. watchOS 10 still has this UX with notification center. On the watch face you can simply swipe down to open Notification Center, but while you have an app running you need to press and hold for a bit on the top of the display until the display blurs and then you can pull down notification center. Having the side button always open control center makes it much easier.
Iām not like you - I rarely open control center but I used the customized dock of icons multiple times per day, so losing that functionality with watchOS 10 was a big loss for me.
That said, almost six months on and I have almost full adjusted to watchOS 10. I do use the Smart Stack swipe up from the bottom quite often, but mostly just to either start a timer (which I have on the ribbon of three icons pinned to the top) or to control media playing - when media is playing the Now Playing widget sits at the very top.
To replace the dock I have switched away from the list view of apps back to the grid view and I have put all of the apps that I use at the top of the grid so they are easy to get to. I also use the double-click of the crown to open the multitasking screen to switch between apps - double-clicking the crown used to switch between two apps automatically, but now itās added an extra step. I do this often enough that I miss the old behavior a little bit, but I can live with the change.
I am actually quite happy that the swipe to change watch faces is no longer the default because I used to hate that - my watch would frequently (generally once or twice a week) be in the wrong watch face, probably because of a mistakenly sensed swipe from my sleeve or something similar (maybe the watch brushing against my other arm or hand?). Now when I want to change watch faces - yes, itās harder, but the watch face I want stays until I change it (or a focus changes to for me - I have several foci set to specific watch faces.)
I know that Iāve seen a few people complain about this, but the same data is easy to see in the Fitness app or the Health app on the phone (also, there is a widget with this detail that you can add to the Today screen or a Home Screen), and I just donāt often need to see the actual detail myself. Itās rare when I open the Activity app on the watch.
This was definitely true prior to version 10.1 (or it may have been 10.1.1), but for me the battery usage is pretty close to what I saw with watchOS 9 and the changes can be partly explained by the maximum capacity being down to 93% after 17 months. But, yes, it does seem to use a little more power, but, for me, not that much more.
Just an FYI - there is now definitely no reason to try to downgrade to watchOS 9 unless you want to keep iOS 17.3.1 or older. iOS 17.4 will no longer sync with a watch running watchOS 9 - it prompts you to upgrade the watch to watchOS 10 before it will continue syncing.
I must confess that, based on the many negative responses to watchOS 10, I was prepared to dislike it, but after being forced to update due to iOS 17.4 I quite like it. As to its main feature, I donāt use widgets on any platform and couldnāt care less about them on the watch.
I am delighted with the way watch faces are changed - after accidentally changing faces so often when my shirt rubbed over the screen, I got so tired of this that I eliminated all faces but the one I mostly use. The new approach is much better in my opinion.
I like the large numbers in the activity app allowing me to read them without putting on my reading glasses. I also like the increased use of the Digital Crown instead of swiping to scroll through a list - a much better UI than swiping.
I donāt mind the button changes. In fact, I prefer a button push to swiping to show the control panel.
Perhaps Apple should take a cue from camera manufacturers and let the user set buttons and gestures to their preferred function.
Iād be happier I think, but if there is anything that we know from Apple after almost 50 years, that is not the Apple way.