iOS 26.1 could have a clever trick for pairing your iPhone with your Garmin watch

• iOS 26.1 suggests Apple is working on a cross-platform pairing system
• This may make it easier to use an iPhone with a non-Apple smartwatch
• The feature might only roll out in the EU, however

Apple is well-known for the smooth interoperability between its own products: using an iPhone and an Apple Watch together, for example, is incredibly straightforward. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of pairing up an iPhone with one of the best smartwatches from the likes of Garmin or Pebble, but that might be about to change in the coming months.

According to Macworld, code in the iOS 26.1 beta reveals that Apple could be working on a new system to make it easier to send notifications from your iPhone to a non-Apple smartwatch. Instead of simply mirroring messages onto your watch – which you can read but not reply to – you may be able to take action right from your wearable.

The feature is called 'Notification Forwarding', and it pushes alerts from your iPhone to a third-party device or accessory. Macworld says that code it’s seen suggests that you’ll only receive notifications on “one accessory at a time.”

Once you’ve forwarded alerts to a third-party device, notifications will be disabled on your Apple Watch, Macworld believes. That could imply that there’s a degree of interactivity available to the third-party watch – otherwise, disabling notifications on your Apple Watch would mean you’d have no way to reply from any of your wearable devices.

As well as that, Macworld’s report alleges that iOS 26.1 comes with some seemingly unfinished frameworks relating to accessory pairing, including one called AccessoryExtension. These frameworks could make it simpler to couple an iPhone with a device made by a separate manufacturer – something users have long been yearning for.

A European exclusive?

Some Garmin smartwatches can mirror an iPhone’s Lock Screen notifications right now, but there’s no ability to interact with them (such as responding or reacting with an emoji). The hope is that Apple’s purported Notification Forwarding system will improve that interactivity.

Interestingly, this change might not roll out worldwide. Macworld suspects that it could be motivated by the EU’s Digital Markets Act. That’s because earlier this year, the European Commission put forward proposals to force Apple to improve the interoperability of its products with third-party devices. That suggests that Notification Forwarding and similar tech might only be available in Europe in order to placate the EU. If that’s the case, they might not appear elsewhere.

There’s also a chance that Apple might never implement Notification Forwarding at all. Since it has only been spotted in beta code, it could be delayed or abandoned for any number of reasons.

That said, iOS 26.1 is expected to launch in October, although Macworld feels Notification Forwarding is probably set for a later release date. We’ll be keeping an eye on the situation to see when (or if) it finally sees the light of day.

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