With iOS 26.2 and watchOS 26.2, Apple is removing a key Wi-Fi sharing feature from iPhone and Apple Watch in the European Union due to interoperability requirements under the Digital Markets Act.
This news was first reported last month by French publication Numerama. The report explained that starting with iOS 26.2 and watchOS 26.2, iPhone won’t be able to sync Wi-Fi history to a newly-paired Apple Watch like it can now.
Here are more details on how exactly this will work and why Apple is making the change.
How it works today
Typically, when a user sets up a new Apple Watch, their Wi-Fi network history is automatically shared from their iPhone. This means the user doesn’t have to manually connect to new Wi-Fi networks and enter passwords directly on their Apple Watch. Everything is seamlessly handled in the background.
Apple says that Wi-Fi sharing between iPhone and Apple Watch is designed to be private. Apple doesn’t have access to Wi-Fi names or passwords. Everything is handled completely privately between a user’s respective devices.
This is key because there’s a lot of information that can be gleaned from knowing which Wi-Fi networks a person has connected to. That information can be used to easily create a profile on users tracking their interests, where they’ve visited, and more.
This is how things will continue to work everywhere except the European Union.
What’s changing in the EU
In the EU, however, things are changing because of the interoperability requirements under the DMA. Starting with iOS 26.2 in the EU, when a user sets up a new Apple Watch, their Wi-Fi network history will no longer sync from their iPhone.
On a newly paired Apple Watch in the EU, any Wi-Fi network they have previously connected to on their iPhone will need to be manually connected to on their Apple Watch.
However, any future networks a user connects to on their iPhone will automatically be shared to their Apple Watch, so long as the iPhone and Apple Watch are in the same place at the same time. If both devices are not together, the Wi-Fi network won’t be synced.
For example:
- A coffee shop that you’ve visited in the past and whose Wi-Fi you’ve previously used on your iPhone: you’ll have to manually connect your Apple Watch to that network.
- A new coffee shop you’ve never visited before: connect to its Wi-Fi with your iPhone and that Wi-Fi name and password will be shared to your Apple Watch.
Another example:
- Your home Wi-Fi network: you’ll need to manually connect your Apple Watch.
- An Airbnb you’re visiting for the first time: connect to the Wi-Fi with your iPhone and that information will sync to your Apple Watch.
It’s a bit confusing, but it essentially boils down to access to Wi-Fi history. Under the DMA, third-party accessories must receive the same interoperability features that Apple’s own products receive.
Before iOS 26.2, that meant Apple Watch got your full historical Wi-Fi list — but that exchange happened privately, device-to-device, without Apple ever seeing or storing it.
If Apple had kept that behavior, it would have been obligated to offer equivalent access to third-party devices. But Apple cannot provide that historical Wi-Fi list, because it doesn’t possess that data in the first place. As a result, Apple is removing historical Wi-Fi syncing for newly paired Apple Watches in the EU.
As such, in iOS 26.2 and watchOS 26.2:
- When setting up a pair of Meta Ray-Ban Glasses, for example, your Wi-Fi history will not be shared with Meta. Only information about new Wi-Fi networks you join, while your iPhone and the accessory are together, will be shared.
In a post on X earlier this month, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney questioned why Apple doesn’t just “ask the user whether or not to share Wi-Fi history identically, whether connecting to an Apple product or a Meta product.”
Sweeney’s framing, however, ignores the core technical reality of how the feature works.
First, Apple itself never receives your Wi-Fi information. That data is shared privately, device-to-device, from your iPhone to your Apple Watch. The system is intentionally engineered so that Apple can’t see or store your network history.
Apple can’t “just ask the user” to share that history with a third party because it doesn’t possess it in the first place. It only ever moves directly between the user’s own devices.
Second, there’s no mechanism by which Apple can ensure third parties keep that Wi-Fi data private. Once they receive it, nothing in the DMA prevents them from storing it, analyzing it, or using it to build detailed behavioral profiles around it.
9to5Mac’s Take
Taken together, this makes Apple’s approach in iOS 26.2 easy to understand.
I think where Apple has landed with iOS 26.2 and watchOS 26.2 is a perfectly fair position.
It’s reasonable to assume a company like Meta, with its horrific privacy track record, would ingest a user’s Wi-Fi history and use that information to build profiles on Apple users and learn patterns about their day-to-day lives.
Did you connect to a Wi-Fi network named “Starbucks Wi-Fi”? Great! Here are some ads for coffee. That’s a harmless example, but in today’s world there are also more serious implications. Do you really want Meta to know about the health clinic you visited six months ago?
Instead of building a system to store and share Wi-Fi history, Apple has opted for this approach in the EU.
iOS 26.2 is currently in beta testing. It’s expected to be released to everyone sometime next month.
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