watchOS also rumored to get visionOS design elements
A new rumor claims the Apple Watch will gain support for Apple Intelligence, along with a visionOS-inspired design.
For well over a year, we've heard all sorts of rumors saying the iPhone operating system would take stylistic cues from visionOS. Though multiple less-than-credible sources believed this would happen with iOS 18, it never did. Recently, however, other leakers have said a visionOS-style redesign would instead debut with iOS 19 and macOS 16.
Now, a report publication The Verifier, spotted by MacRumors, claims that watchOS 12 will receive the same visual treatment. The Apple Watch will reportedly contain user interface elements heavily inspired by the Apple Vision Pro operating system, with semi-transparent and revamped menus, icons, and more.
Supposedly, "several ideas" for the operating system interface are in development, but the publication offers no details as to when the described changes will debut, if at all. Though this claim may seem unusual, Apple can sometimes change its operating systems' UI elements mid-development, as AppleInsider saw with Distraction Control and other features.
This portion of the report gets the "Likely" rumor score because it is in line with what we've heard from other rumors and more accurate sources. If Apple is bringing visionOS elements across the operating systems to further unify design aesthetics, that includes watchOS 12.
There are ultimately no guarantees that these alleged design changes will ship at WWDC in June, but the report details another change that seems even more unlikely.
Unlikely on-device Apple Intelligence rumor
If the publication stopped with the design changes, the report would be stronger. Rather unrealistically, they suggest that Apple Intelligence features will make their way to the Apple Watch Ultra, with other models following within "a year."
It is unlikely that the current form of Apple Intelligence will run on Apple Watch locally
Specifically, Apple's notification summarization and Genmoji features are said to be in the works for the Apple Watch. There's even a claim of Apple's revamped Siri making its way to the smartwatch thanks to a new chip, even though the feature has faced delays. The idea that the Apple Watch could gain Apple Intelligence is unrealistic at best, given the current requirements for the generative AI tools.
In its current state, Apple Intelligence requires an Apple Silicon chip with at least 8GB of RAM, which is significantly more than the 1GB that comes with every Apple Watch. It is highly unlikely that Apple Intelligence will run on-device on Apple Watch anytime soon in its current state.
However, AppleInsider believes there is likely a truth somewhere in this rumor. Rather than run on-device, Apple Watch could show Genmoji originally generated on iPhone, show summarized and priority notifications already parsed on iPhone, or pass more complex queries to Siri to iPhone.
Apple would likely want to minimize the back and forth between devices during actual use to minimize the time it takes to get things done. Regardless, the report's suggestion that Apple Intelligence would come to Apple Watch in its current form seems highly optimistic.
To add to the questionable nature of this rumor, the publication behind it doesn't have a good or long track record. It previously claimed there would be a visionOS-style redesign for iOS 18, which was allegedly delayed to iOS 19 to focus on Apple Intelligence.
The base rumor about visionOS elements making it to watchOS 12 is what earned the "Likely" rating. We can't apply two ratings to one piece, but note that this Apple Intelligence on Apple Watch rumor would have gotten an "Unlikely" or lower score on its own.
Rumor Score: Likely
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Comments
Specialized AI models can be made really tiny, so technically it's no problem to run quite capable models on-device now. But it'd likely make sense to offload more resource intensive tasks to any iPhone or other nearby device when available.