Anyone who uses an app like Drafts on their Apple Watch to quickly get ideas out of their head and into text form via dictation, take note. When watchOS 8.1 arrives — soon, presumably — it will make that more difficult. With the update installed, Apple Watches will default to Scribble text entry, forcing an extra tap for those who don’t want it.
In its current state, watchOS 8 defaults to the last-used input method. However, Apple tells Drafts developer, Greg Pierce, that will no longer be the case with watchOS 8.1 and that it’s intended behavior for Scribble to be the default method, regardless of whether the watch’s owner ever used it.
That’s bad news for people who use Drafts and other apps as places to dump quick, dictated notes.
While watchOS 8.1 is still in beta and this behavior could change before launch, it’s worrisome that Apple says this isn’t a bug. That would suggest someone inside thinks this is the best way for the feature to work — something that could be related to Apple Watch Series 7 and its new keyboard feature.
Pierce has filed the situation via Apple’s feedback mechanism and encourages everyone else to do the same. Hopefully this is a change that can be undone before watchOS 8 ships. Quick dictation is one of the best Apple Watch features around, made possible by apps like Drafts being able to put a complication on watch faces that immediately begins a dictation session. Those complications are broken by this upcoming change.
