iOS 26.3 Adds Notification Forwarding Option for Third-Party Wearables

Monday December 15, 2025 12:06 pm PST by Juli Clover

iOS 26.3 adds a new "Notification Forwarding" setting that allows incoming notifications on an iPhone to be forwarded to a third-party device.

ios 26 3 notification forwarding
The setting is located in the Notification section of the Settings app under a new "Notification Forwarding" option. Apple says that notifications can only be forwarded to a single device at a time, so if Notification Forwarding is enabled with a third-party wearable, the Apple Watch won't able to receive and display notifications.

Users can choose to have a device receive notifications only from selected apps rather than all apps, and notifications will include the name of the app and all content contained in the notification. This is a feature that is only available to those living in Europe.

Apple is adding this feature to relieve regulatory pressure that it is facing. The Digital Markets Act in the European Union requires Apple to provide third-party smartwatches and other devices with access to notifications and features that are normally reserved for the Apple Watch.

Update: This article was updated to clarify that Notification Forwarding is only an option in the EU, even though it shows up on iPhones worldwide in iOS 26.3.

Related Roundups: iOS 26, iPadOS 26

Related Forum: iOS 26

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Top Rated Comments

Fraud Goblin

10 months ago

If this is just another step to allowing me to use a Pebble again, I’ll take it.

Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Dr McKay

10 months ago

Sounds good!
The more of this sort of stuff, the better.

I'd also not that we have EU and US opposition to where Apple is at here.
(bold emphasis below is mine)

Clearly Apple should pull out of the USA and the EU! 😡

Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

ItsASpider

10 months ago

Apple has supported ANCS ('https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/CoreBluetooth/Reference/AppleNotificationCenterServiceSpecification/Specification/Specification.html') for more than a decade(not sure how much more... but a LONG while). ANCS doesn't require any app on the phone and will just forward notifications after getting approval when pairing with the Bluetooth device.

Apple is being required by the EU to open up ALL information about notifications, this is part of that. ANCS doesn't send images and longer text to bluetooth devices. It seems the EU also wants apps to be able to directly read notifications from other apps... which is ****ing dumb and really really creepy.

Come on now... the EU doesn't require any such thing. They require Apple to provide APIs to allow their competition to, well, compete. Apple is completely free in implementing safe ways to do that, and no, not every apps must have direct access to notifications from other apps, that's just bs.

And I'll just assume you are already well aware that you are greatly misrepresenting what ANCS can do.

Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)