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As expected, Apple announced the next version of its smartwatch operating system at WWDC today. WatchOS 11 will go beyond the stats and figure out how tough or easy your workout was as you train for your next big event, offer new ways to check your vitals, and offer assistance in picking a picture and making your watch face personal. Apple’s latest update to its smartwatch operating system will launch as a free update this fall for the Apple Watch Series 6 and later paired with an iPhone XS or later running iOS 18. We will try out the public beta for watchOS 11 as soon as it launches next month, but in the meantime, here are the most exciting new features announced at the company’s developer conference.
Apple Recap: WWDC 2024 in 20 Minutes
1. Training Mode
(Credit: Apple)
The Apple Watch will currently monitor and track a variety of criteria while you work out. Training Mode goes a step further by interpreting this data and gauging your level of effort and amount of strain. The idea is to help you build strength or endurance over time if you’re working your way toward a big event like a marathon, while also warning you if you’re pushing too hard and in danger of burning out.The Watch will automatically rate the effort of popular cardio workouts on a scale from one to 10, based on your age, height, and weight, alongside gathered data like elevation changes and heart rate. After the workout, you can adjust this number if you think you exerted more or less effort than your watch is giving you credit for, and you can manually insert a number if you’re doing a workout where an automatic estimate is not provided.Your Apple Watch will graph this information over time and show if you’re holding steady, making progress, or under or overexerting yourself. The graph will compare your results over the last seven days with a longer 28-day period.2. Customizable Activity Rings
(Credit: Apple)
If you need a day off, you can customize your goals on watchOS 11 accordingly. Pause goals when you’re on a relaxing beach vacation or recovering from an injury or illness and resume paused goals and continue where you left off as far as your streaks. You can even set weekly schedules if you know Sunday is the day where you like to chill and want a lower activity goal to match. 3. Vitals App
(Credit: Apple)
The new Vitals app gives you a spot to check on the health metrics gathered by your Apple Watch, such as heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, and sleep duration. The app will also gather and chart your metrics over time. It’ll note if any are particularly high or low, and you’ll get a notification if multiple metrics are outside of their normal range.4. New Smart Stack Features
(Credit: Apple)
The Smart Stack feature from last year lets you scroll through widgets relevant to your day on your watch. WatchOS 11 will now suggest widgets based on the time of day, your location, and other factors to supposedly make it more useful from moment to moment. For example, you might see a precipitation or severe weather alert warning you of an incoming storm. WatchOS 11 also expands the options for your Smart Stack with additions including Shazam and Photos.5. Translate App on Your Wrist
(Credit: Apple)
If you’re traveling, your Smart Stack could prompt you with a widget for the Translation app, new to watchOS 11. The app supports 20 languages at the moment, and the Smart Stack widget will prompt you with the right one depending on the predominant language where you are traveling.6. New Pregnancy Info
(Credit: Apple)
To access this update, a user will need to log a pregnancy in the Health app on iPhone or iPad. Then, the Cycle Tracking app on the Apple Watch can show gestational age. Users can review the high heart rate notification threshold (as heart rate can increase during pregnancy) and log symptoms. The Health app can prompt a pregnant user to take a mental health assessment monthly and the iPhone can gauge walking steadiness to alert users to potential fall risks late in the pregnancy.7. More Personalized Watch Faces
(Credit: Apple)
With watchOS 11, you can ask your watch to search through your photos and help you find one that works as your watch face. The watch will be able to customize the photo, the layout, the font, and the style so it all works together, after selecting a picture based on framing, aesthetics, and facial expression.8. Expanded Double TapAnother expansion of a 2023 feature, the double-tap gesture will now work with more apps. It allows you to select or scroll just by touching your thumb to your forefinger twice, without touching the screen of the watch. In watchOS 11, you’ll be able to use the gesture to scroll through any app.9. More Workout App OptionsWatchOS 11 adds support for soccer, American football, Australian football, downhill skiing, cross country skiing, golf, lacrosse, outdoor hockey, outdoor rowing, snowboarding, and more.
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Plus, you can now customize your workout for swimming to set intervals and receive haptic feedback based on your desired interval schedule.You can now also use the Check In feature to automatically notify friends when you get home from traveling or after a late-night workout. 10. Turn-by-Turn Walking DirectionsApple Maps will offer guidance through hiking trails in all US National Parks, and you can save your favorites to your watch for precise directions during your adventure. You can also create your own route and save it, and leave your phone behind in either case.11. Summarized NotificationsApple spent a lot of its keynote talking about its new AI coming to iPhones, iPads, and Macs, dubbed Apple Intelligence. The Apple Watch was for the most part left out of this big unveil. That said, the AI will be able to filter and summarize notifications for you, and those summarized tidbits can be automatically forwarded to your Apple Watch.Everything Else From WWDCWatchOS 11 has lots of exciting new features that we’re excited to try, but Apple Intelligence was clearly the star of the show. Also check out the news on iOS 18 and macOS, and stay tuned for our hands-on impressions of watchOS 11 and all the rest.
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