All the New WatchOS Features Apple Announced at WWDC 2024
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The newest update to watchOS is coming soon, bringing a ton of new features to your wrist. Many of the most important features revolve around monitoring your health, as Apple strives to give you new ways to keep tabs on how your body is working.
Vitals is a new health monitoring app.
These updates include a new app called Vitals , which will give you an overview of your vital statistics in the moment and over time. You’ll be able to view your health metrics like heart rate and sleep data right in the app, and track how you’ve been doing over the past few days, weeks, or months.
Training Load helps you plan your workouts
Apple Watch running watchOS 11 will also allow you to take advantage of a new feature called Training Load . This feature gives you more control over how you evaluate your training program and how it can impact your overall recovery. It analyzes data like your pace, heart rate and altitude, then combines all of that with your height and weight to rate your training effort on a scale of 1 to 10.
You can even adjust this rating depending on how you feel. Your watch will detect a 28-day training load and then average the user’s effort and training duration over that period to produce a detailed data set.
Apple says all of this can help you better calculate how your training is going, which should be useful for users training for competitive events like marathons to ensure they don’t overtrain or undertrain. Apple will also allow users to pause their activity rings or even adjust them from day to day to help create a more personalized activity tracker without losing the rewards you’ve accumulated by closing your rings in the past.
More fitness features
Custom workouts now support pool swimming by providing work and recovery routine options, as well as tactile cues to help you keep up with ongoing interval changes. Pregnant users will also be able to use Apple Watch to get more health-related information, and the iOS 18 Health app will have more advanced options.
Use your watch for live translation
Apple also briefly showed off the new live translation feature in watchOS 11. It appears to work similarly to AI translators on Android phones like the Galaxy S24 Ultra , but the tech giant didn’t go into detail about what exactly it will do. be capable, in addition to the fact that it will support 20 languages and will appear in the Smart Stack when you travel.
A smarter smart stack
By the way, Apple has updated the Smart Stack with a new series of smarter features that show up when you need them, like information about upcoming storms before they actually hit. Smart Stack can now also offer widgets that you might find useful, such as the new Photos, Distance, and Shazam widgets. Live events will now also appear in your Smart Stack, giving you up-to-date information about your online orders and other time-sensitive data.
Meet friends and family
Apple’s previously launched Check In feature will also come to Apple Watch with watchOS 11, allowing you to check in with friends and family to let them know you’ve arrived home safely after an event, for example. This is a great safety feature, and it pairs nicely with the new turn-by-turn navigation for hikes that watchOS also offers, which will work even when your iPhone isn’t nearby.
More versatile double taps
The tech company is also expanding the API for the double-tap gesture, allowing more apps and features to take advantage of the functionality that was originally introduced on the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra Watch 2 . Double tap will now work to scroll through any app such as Calendar, Messages, Weather, etc.
Click to cash out for payments
With the release of watchOS 11, sending money through Apple Cash will also become easier with Tap to Cash , which lets you keep your Apple Watch next to another Apple Watch or iPhone to send money directly to that device, without having to share your phone. number.
Integration with Apple Intelligence
Users with an Apple Watch paired with an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max will also be able to access consolidated notifications right from their wrist. Apple hasn’t announced an exact release date for these AI-powered features, but testing is expected to begin this summer.
Other updates
Finally, watchOS 11 includes updated versions of the Photos icon , as well as improved concert and event ticketing features. Now, when you attend an event, your watch can activate the live feed and automatically display information such as your seat number.