Apple Watch to get a free upgrade that brings back an essential feature

Over the last few years, smartwatches have become one of the fastest growing segments of the consumer technology industry. These wrist-mounted computers go far beyond simply telling the time, adding in health and fitness tracking, notifications and more.

When you're thinking about smartwatches, chances are you're picturing the Apple Watch. These square-faced devices have found widespread acclaim, thanks to their easy-to-use operation and integration with iPhones.

Now, the range looks set to receive a substantial update which brings back a crucial feature for customisation. As part of the WatchOS 10.2 beta, the ability to change watch faces with a swipe gesture has been added back in.

That's according to a Twitter post from a user who has dived into the source code behind the update. A pair of strings are highlighted which relate to a feature called "swipe to switch watch faces".

Long time users of the Apple Watch range will be familiar with this. It was already part of previous software iterations, but was removed with the release of WatchOS 10. 

To use the feature, simply head to Settings and then Clock. From there, users will be able to select their preferred method of changing watch faces.

Personally, I used to really enjoy being able to swipe between faces on the fly. There are definitely practical uses – you could have one setup to show off all of your fitness data, ready to be opened when you go for a run, for example.

But far more than that, I enjoyed being able to switch between faces of different colours and styles to suit my outfit. On my own device, I had a handful of different faces set up, ready to jump between in different settings or scenarios.

Having that back on the watch is a really useful feature, and should provide Apple Watch users with an added degree of functionality. It's live in the beta right now, though users will have to wait for the 10.2 update to hit the public release if you don't want to use a beta.