I mentioned last month that I have always avoided betas from OS, and that remains my firm and unusual policy as far as macOS is concerned. However, testing the public beta of iOS 14 on my iPhone, and iPadOS 14 on my iPad, did not reveal any nasty surprises, so I hope to have the same experience with watchOS 7.
The majority of you are doing the sensible thing and waiting for the official release. This is especially smart with the Watch, as there is no way to remove the beta: once you’ve on watchOS 7, you’ll be stuck with it. But I think it’s a relatively low risk for two reasons …
First my positive experience of the betas of the iPhone and iPad. Second, any glitches with my Watch would be nothing short of a mild inconvenience, as I currently do not spend much time on my mobile. Even if the battery life proves terrible – in general the most likely pain point with a beta – I can always recharge it before I go out.
The main watchOS 7 features highlighted by Apple are:
- New watch faces
- Included in the App Store
- More than one complication per app
- Share face (via text, email or link)
- Sleep tracking, and sleep mode
- Remember to recharge before bedtime as needed
- Four new workouts
- Cycling in maps (but not in London)
- Hand wash memories when you get home, and 20-second monitoring
- Translation by Siri
- On-device dictation
- Siri Shortcuts on the Watch (and even as complications)
- More features for listener health (incl. Max volume for headphones)
The obese are the ones who appeal to me, so let’s talk about these.
More than one complication per app
I can not think of much use for it, but I have one – and that’s a particularly handy one. As for the weather, I care about two things: temperature, and the chance of rain. I can now have both things constantly visible, with hourly predictions for one or one tap away.
Sleep tracking
I generally aim to be in bed most nights midnight, and to wake up at 7am, so I should get a fair amount of sleep. But in times that do not lock up, there are some variations. On nights when I have to dance to tango at night, I may not get to bed until 2 o’clock, and I also have late nights sometimes when I eat with friends, or when I come back from the theater (when we often walk home and for a while after that). I then try to compensate for the late nights by having one early night a week – like lay-ins on the weekend.
But even though I think this should all work out pretty well, I’m not sure how much sleep I average on a weekly basis, so it would be good to check.
Of course, all this is rather academic during the lockdown: there is no dancing, no theater and no dinner with friends. However, it will at least be interesting to test the feature.
Four new workouts
Regular readers will know that I am not a gymrat. I do a bit of abs and balance work, but prefer mostly to get my exercise organic: dancing, and running or cycling around London.
The lack of a dance workout on Apple Watch has been a notable shortcoming for me, so it’s great to see that added. How well it handles tango remains to be seen. Although there are currently no real dance events in London, I do have a weekly lesson and a separate practice session, so I will be able to test this out this weekend.
Additionally, having a specific abs workout can encourage me to do this more often!
Reminders wash by hand
We have a dispenser for hands with sanitizer right next to the front door, so we already have an automatic visual reminder to do this every time we enter. However, I have an indirect interest in this: I want to see if another automation of home arrival has applied for further refinement of presence detection.
We live on the 18th floor of an apartment building, so Home Automations are usually offered when I reach the lobby (if at all), not when I approach the apartment. This makes it useless for things like automatically opening the front door, because I absolutely do not want this while I am still riding an elevator.
So let’s see if there’s any improvement in iOS 14 and watchOS 7. I’m not holding my breath, but a man can hope.
Translation by Siri
Again, I do not exactly have a lot of demand for this during lockdown, but it can potentially be a very handy feature when traveling, so I will definitely test this out. I was helped by having a French girlfriend who also speaks Spanish.
Siri hotkeys
I’m a big fan of these, though mostly for actual speech mastery.
For example, our Neato D7 robot vacuum cleaner is not HomeKit compatible, but it does support Siri hotkeys. It usually works on an automated schedule, every morning at 07.45am, but for the weekend we do not want it to wake us up, so it is convenient to have an easy means to start a manual clean. I made two shortcuts here, Start Jeeves and Stop Jeeves.
However, I do have some keyboard shortcuts that I activate from the iPhone app, so I will look through them to see if one space justifies it as a Watch complication. I like the idea in principle at least.
Improvements in accessibility
I recently described some of the ways Apple technology helped a man who is quadriplegic, such as some gaps in accessibility, and he also gave me some early positive feedback on watchOS 7.
Siri shortcuts mean I can now open and close my front door with my hands free and close with only the watch on my wrist. Previously, I always had to ask a mantle caregiver to put the iPhone in the side compartment of my wheelchair. This job will no longer be needed in advance. It means much more independence.
The other big development is Announcing Messages with Siri. I was just walking in the beautiful sunshine in London today and was able to announce my mom messages with Siri with only the Watch on my wrist and my Airpods. Again, rather, I would always need the iPhone with me for this functionality. No more.
These two features are really something to perform in terms of accessibility. They will make a big difference to my life going forward.
What about you?
Those are then the watchOS 7 features I look forward to trying – what about you? If you used the developer beta, what features did you find most useful? If you are visiting the public beta, or awaiting its official release, what features are you most likely to try? Please let us know in the comments.
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