Apple May Open the IPhone to Third-Party Smartwatches
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On Tuesday, Apple released the first beta of iOS 26.1 . It offers a glimpse into what the company is planning for the successor to iOS 26 , including new gestures in Apple Music, a new scroll bar for the video player, and Liquid Glass support for the Phone app keyboard. While it may seem like a minor update, there’s something quite interesting lurking behind the scenes.
Forwarding Notifications
As Macworld discovered , code in the iOS 26.1 beta indicates that Apple is working on supporting third-party smartwatches in future versions of iOS. Macworld found references to a new feature called “Notification Forwarding,” which will supposedly allow users to forward notifications from their iPhone to non-Apple devices. The name is a bit vague, as it could refer to anything from a tablet to a PC, but Macworld believes it is intended to support notification forwarding to third-party smartwatches.
The code also indicates that this feature only supports forwarding notifications to one device at a time. For example, setting up notifications from an iPhone to a Galaxy Watch may disable notifications on the Apple Watch. Additionally, there are references to an unfinished feature called “AccessoryExtension” that could support pairing third-party watches with an iPhone.
Notification forwarding and AccessoryExtension could be a sign of major changes for Apple. One of the company’s success factors is its “ecosystem,” the idea that Apple products are designed to work seamlessly with each other. If you have an iPhone, it connects and works with an iPad, a Mac, and, of course, an Apple Watch. However, connecting and working with third-party devices can be challenging.
Smartwatches can be one of the biggest hurdles. Apple’s smartwatches certainly do everything you’d expect from a smartwatch when it comes to interacting with your smartphone. But if you’re considering a Pixel Watch or Galaxy Watch, it’s a different story. In fact, connecting them to an iPhone is practically impossible. If you’re an Android user and trying to use a Pixel Watch with an iPhone, you’ll run into serious problems. “Notification forwarding” could be a solution.
Some smartwatches, such as Garmin, already support notification forwarding, so this feature isn’t necessarily groundbreaking. However, it could expand the smartwatch experience for users beyond the limited number of devices that currently support iOS notifications.
Two reasons why you might not see these changes on your iPhone
Before you get too excited, there are a couple of caveats. First, these changes aren’t an active part of iOS 26.1, but are merely referenced in the code. This suggests Apple is working on them, but they’re not necessarily implemented. Until we see these features in future beta updates, this may remain an experiment.
Even if Apple does implement these changes, they may only be available to a limited number of users. It’s possible that support for third-party smartwatches is targeted exclusively at the EU, in accordance with the EU’s Digital Markets Act . This law requires Apple to open iOS to third-party devices, which specifically includes smartwatches. Apple is reluctant to open iOS unnecessarily, which is why the EU has third-party iOS app stores while the rest of the world does not. In this case, we could see another EU-specific quirk: Europeans might be able to use their Android watches with iOS, while everyone else would stick with the Apple Watch.