It’s not often I think to myself, “Wow, this operating system update is packed with features tailored to the dystopia we are currently living in.” However, that’s something that keeps rolling through my mind when I use the watchOS 7 beta, which is now available for the public to try.
The Apple Watch software upgrade, which will roll out this fall as an official update to the air, includes a handwashing feature, which begins a 20-second countdown as the watch’s sensors and microphones detect movement and running water. That is to remind you to scrub your skin properly in case you picked up covid-19 while you were out and about. Then there is a sleep tracking feature, which helps you before going to bed and logs how long you spend there. That’s to soothe your mind, which probably runs from trying to figure out how to make sense of the hellscape that is 2020, and maybe help you get some rest. There are four new workouts for tracking dance, strength and core training, and coal downs – all of which you can easily do indoors. There are now cycling directions in Maps, because outside cycling is safer than commuting in a volume metro. (As a relatively new Angeleno, I missed public transit from New York – until now.)
These are all features that would be useful in another time, but there is no denying that they are different at this particular moment.
I spent about six weeks using the betaOS developer beta on an Apple Watch Series 4. I already had some issues with it – for some reason the first two versions of the beta made the GPS of my watch completely non-functional – but beta 4, which is similar to the version just released to the public, has been stable for me so far. As always, you take a risk by installing beta software on a device you trust, and this is doubly true for the betaOS beta, which requires you to run the iOS 14 beta on whatever iPhone it is paired with. And this is not a complete review as a comprehensive overview of each new feature, just early impressions based on my time I live with the software. After all those caveats, if you still decide to dive in, here’s something to look forward to.
This could be a sleeper
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When Apple announced watchOS 7 would finally include built-in sleep tracking, I was excited. Sleep and activity are closely related, and a full overview of both would give you a deeper insight into your health. But after weeks of using the new sleep tracking feature, my overall feeling is extreme: meh.
Setting up sleep tracking is easy – there’s a new Sleep app on the watch, which you use to set up your daily sleep plans. My schedule on weekdays, for example, is 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. You can set a goal if you want and let the watch recommend a bedtime and a waiting time for you, but my routine is pretty set. You can also switch to a setting that disables your watch 45 minutes before bedtime, which activates Do Not Disturb. And then the watch wakes you up in the morning with a lil alarm and some haptic feedback.
That’s all good. But my iPhone does the same thing (minus tapping me on the wrist). For sleep tracking on the watch to be useful, I want data. Do I throw and twist when I’m in bed? What is the correlation between my workouts and sleep quality? What about my period, where the watch also follows? How do all these things relate to each other? I think Apple Watch, with the combination of its sensors and the data I enter, should give me a complete overview of my health.
But it does not have to. Instead, I need to open the Health app on my iPhone, where I can watch times in bed and spend time asleep. The latest beta also shows resting heart rate while sleeping, which is a useful metric. But if you look at this data in the Health app on a granular level, it’s a little … well, useless. You see general trends if you’ve been using the feature for a while, and the watch told me I get a little more than seven hours of sleep a night. But using the new feature of the Apple Watch, I would venture that you will not invent anything you did not already know about your sleep. I know I do not have that.
Apple’s drag feature is intentionally basic, said Apple Watch software manager Kevin Lynch CNBC. The company finds that the features of Wind Down are the more useful aspect because it encourages you to practice behaviors that lead to better sleep, such as ignoring your phone and meditating. And I love Wind Down, but I also want more use of a sleep tracker. I already use Wind Down on my iPhone, and there it’s actually useful, because I find my phone far more distracting than my watch.
Aside from its limited capabilities, the thing most people have asked me about is the impact of sleep tracking on battery life. If you wear the full watch, the battery takes 20% low, you need to charge it, right before bed or when you wake up in the morning. If you forget, your breakfasts will have a dead watch. Engaging in this habit was difficult for me, to be honest, but it is not unreasonable. And in iOS 14, your iPhone will tell you when your watch is charged and ready to set up again, which is handy.
Don’t forget to wash your hands – seriously
The hand wash countdown is perhaps the most dystopian feature in any device this year, and also perhaps the most useful. The 20-second time limit recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to kill coronavirus germs begins as soon as the sensors and microphone of the watch detect hand movement and running water. You’ll feel a vibration wash after a few seconds, but do not worry, the watch gives you credit for those first few seconds – it’s always at 4pm when I feel the buzz and look at my wrist.
Maybe you have perfected your singelong with hand washing and you know exactly how long 20 seconds is – congratulations. I discovered that I wash my hands for longer than necessary, which may not hurt, but explain to me incredibly dry hands.
Setting it up is easy – you can do it in the Health app on the watch or your iPhone, under a new section called Handwashing. You can switch over both the 20-second timer and hand wash reminder, which use your location to hug you to wash your hands when you return home.
New workouts
Apple has added a few new workout tracking options in watchOS 7, but they are very underwhelming. Core training, functional strength training, and coal downs are hot, and although Apple said dance tracking was new to watchOS 7, that’s not exactly the case – the algorithm is precisely tuned to track calorie burning more closely by keeping track of drives. of upper body and lower body.
I take the same live-streamed, cardio-based dance class twice a week, and the calorie burn reported after the workout in the Activity app is similar to those classes in sawOS watchOS 6 and watchOS 7. The core training and strength training -workouts follow reps or sets, just calorie source and time expired. That’s good; at least the watch now gives credit for those specific workout types, but watchOS 7 just isn’t the fitness-oriented update we’ve seen from Apple Upgrades past.
More options for viewing faces
Apple Watch owners are always calling for more customization of watch faces, and while you may not be able to design your own yet – at least not from scratch – there are a few more options in watchOS 7.
The new face of Chronograph Pro uses an integrated tachymeter to display distance or speed over time – handy if you are an aviation enthusiast or car enthusiast. (I’m not one of those things, so this is not my preferred face.) The extra large watch face now places both the time and one gigantic complication in the center of your display to eliminate the distraction of multiple complications (and I assume to for accessibility this face will be useful for people with low vision). You can now apply different filters to the face-choose-your-own-photo-watch, to remind you of happier times before the world was on fire.
But the biggest change to seeing faces in watchOS 7 is face sharing. The Watch and iPhone App stores will see the custom faces you can install for yourself, and you can share your own with friends via text or with a link on the web. However, these are not new watch faces, and you can actually not design completely new faces for yourself. The adjustments are colors and complications that you might not have thought to combine. I have yet to test this, but as someone who rarely thinks about changing their complications, I’m envious to see what the compound combos will look like.
These are the Little Things
The biggest change in how I use my Apple Watch with watchOS 7 is the lack of Force Touch, which Apple phased out in its latest software. This is awesome: Force Touch is how I delete notifications (replaced by a Delete All option at the top of your notification bar), change edit faces, and unlock specific features within apps that Force Touch has used as way to navigate since the Apple Watch launched. And that made sense – the Apple Watch has a very small screen, and it can navigate more easily to navigate different touch methods.
But Apple is slowly moving away from Force Touch leading to this move, away with Force Touch to end a workout and change a watch face. Now that it’s gone forever, the biggest thing I’m missing is pushing hard to clear notifications. I’m sure it will eventually stick, but I find myself just missing Force Touch a bit.
Great expectations
All in all, watchOS 7 is a more basic upgrade than I had hoped, especially at the forefront of sleep tracking, but it also includes features that are currently unexpectedly relevant.
Mostly, I’m envious of the hardware that Apple will release this fall alongside official release of watchOS 7, which may provide even more significant improvements – improved battery life and more advanced health features are at the top of my list. What do you want to see from the next Apple Watch? Sound off in the comments.
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