Update June 26 below: This post was first released on June 25, 2020.
Apple Watch Series 5 is a tremendous smart watch. And this fall, you’ll receive a software update, watchOS 7, which adds many new features. The same applies to Apple Watch Series 4 and Apple Watch Series 3, which are also supported. In other words, if you have an Apple Watch released in 2017 or later, you are golden.
Of course, the older Watches will still work, but they won’t get all of the newer extras that come with watchOS 7. These are the top seven newly announced features.
Sleep tracking on Apple Watch
June 26 Update: In the last few hours, more details have come up about the headline update: Sleep Tracking, about which, below. One of the first reports on how it works comes from Chance Miller in 9to5Mac who has been testing it. As expected, there is a new Sleep app on Apple Watch (so you’re no longer tied to third-party apps). This is where you set up your schedule, check how your sleep analysis results are going, and change things like your Sleep Goal or how you want the Clock and iPhone to help you relax before bed in terms of reminders etc. Wind Down also allows you to choose particular podcasts or playlists if that can help you prepare for your dreams.
There are sophistications here, such as the ability to set different times for weekdays or weekends, for example. Wind Down is also the stage that helps dim your iPhone lock screen to make it appear a little more relaxed. The idea is that this will discourage you from overuse of smartphones late at night.
Since you’ve already set up your bedtime, things happen when you hit it. The watch goes into sleep mode, replacing the watch face with a dark, digital dial while the iPhone screen just says “sleep well”!
Interestingly, if you wake up at night, the clock display will remain dimmed. Touch the screen and you will see the time, dimly lit. But to escape sleep mode, you must rotate the digital crown, a mechanism that was previously only seen as a way to get out of underwater mode.
During the night, the battery drain was between 12% and 22%, well, we already know that if your watch has a charge of 30% or less, it cannot do sleep mode, so it fits.
I’ll be reviewing Sleep Mode soon, but in the meantime, Miller’s excellent article is a useful introduction.
1. Sleep tracking
Regular readers (and most Apple executives) will know that I’ve been asking for this feature in an increasingly urgent voice since Apple bought Beddit, the sleep monitor company in May 2017. Well now I can shut up.
With watchOS 7, Apple introduces sleep tracking so you don’t have to rely on third-party Watch apps to measure your sleep.
You need to set certain parameters: how long ideally you want to sleep and when you want to wake up.
This creates a time for you to lie down and the Clock will remind you ahead of time that you should start relaxing now. That’s it, you don’t have to say you’re going to bed or anything like that, it will work.
If, when you retire, your battery level is less than 30%, you will be informed or reminded before bedtime to charge it.
In the morning, the Health app on your iPhone will tell you how long you slept.
As I understand it, divide the night into the time you were in bed and the time you slept. Some monitors divide their dreams into light, deep and REM sleep, but Apple has opted for something lighter and more accessible.
In the morning he will greet you when you wake up.
Some other products, such as various Fitbits, can also configure smart alarms, where in the half hour before the alarm time, the device begins to watch to see if it goes from deep to light sleep and, if so, it will wake you up. shortly before. It is the optimal time in the sleep cycle.
Apple’s alarm, a gentle touch on your wrist, is pushy enough to wake you up, but it will only do so at the set time.
Despite all that, this is a brilliant update.
The handwash app on Apple Watch
2. wash your hands
We all know that hand washing is crucial right now. But Apple has been working on its new handwashing app for a long time before Covid-19 was known.
It’s been in development for a long time, years, in fact. As this is Apple, and because this application involves machine learning and data, it has taken time to build models, test them, etc. The impetus came from wanting to see how the Guard can support people during their day. When Apple realized that nobody, really nobody, washed their hands long enough, the opportunity to make things better became irresistible.
The watch detects when your wrist moves in a manner that corresponds to handwashing and listens to the sounds of soap and water squeezing. Gives you credit for the second you’ve already been washing before showing off the animated hand-washing animation and guides you through the experience. It even asks you to continue if it stops.
When you’re done washing your hands with Apple Watch
Other smartwatches have handwashing apps, but they’re basically just timers. This is something different and it’s great.
3. There is a public beta version of watchOS 7
Maybe I should have put this as number one. This is the first time that there has been a public beta for Apple Watch and it means we don’t need to wait until fall for the public launch to test the features. By the time the public beta releases arrive, the software is a bit more stable, though Apple will no doubt still suggest that we don’t put the new software on our primary device.
To get the public beta on Watch, you’ll also need to sign up for the public beta of iOS 14 on the iPhone it’s associated with.
The new face of the Apple Watch chronograph.
4. New clock faces
Two new watch faces are coming, an updated oversized face and a chronograph with a built-in tachymeter. They both look great, but just as important as the new faces is the fact that the hassles, the little little apps that you can put on the watch face have changed.
Glow Baby Complications on Apple Watch
Previously, you could only have one instance of a particular complication on your face, now you can have multiple. The example Apple gave was Glow Baby, so instead of a baby related complication, you can have multiples. One for tracking bottle feeding, one for naps, etc.
Or if you like to surf, then the complications of Dawn Patrol can adorn your watch face.
Share faces from Apple Watch or download them from websites.
5. It is good to share
The other great innovation for Watch faces is the arrival of those who can be shared. If you see a watch on a friend’s Apple Watch, it can be shared with you in a very simple way. Simply by holding down the watch, selecting Share, and selecting a contact to share.
There will be Watch faces that you can also download from websites, which is a radically different way of doing things. It will be especially interesting to see where this leads.
The new dance option in Workout.
6. Dance, dance, dance
The Workout app is quite good and there are many types of exercises. If your favorite isn’t there, you can add it, but custom workouts only offer the same caloric credit as walking. When Apple creates carefully researched workouts, things change. So for example, the yoga workout I created gave me a lot more active calories than the much more accurate official yoga workout when it arrived.
If you like to dance to exercise, the new Dance workout can inspire you. Use the watch’s accelerometer, gyroscope, and heart rate sensor to precisely control your exercise while tossing a few shapes. It was tested with four types of dance: Bollywood, cardio dance, hip-hop and Latin. Although, in reality, just dance as if no one was watching you and you’ll be fine.
Other new workouts are Basic Training, Functional Strength Training, and Cooldown.
Headphone audio on watchOS 7
7. Hearing
Apple Watch can already alert you when you’re exposed to noise that is so loud that it is potentially harmful. Now, there are headphone audio notifications that monitor your listening and inform you when you have reached your full weekly listening amount, as recommended by the World Health Organization. The amount of exposure to high decibel levels is recorded in the Health app.
There is much more
I could have focused on Maps improvements including hooray, detailed bike routes, using Siri to translate languages on the wrist, sleeping complications, shortcuts, and the camera remote control.
I will go back to some of the other innovations in the coming weeks and check when the public beta is released to find out if there are any more changes and how to install it.
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