At the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2022 Apple previewed watch OS 9, which brings new features and enhanced experiences to the world’s leading wearable operating system. The new watch operating system os9 update includes improvements to the watch faces, Workout app, sleep stages, a primary-of-its-kind AFib History, and medication tracking.
watch OS 9 introduces four new faces:
- Lunar
- Playtime
- Metropolitan
- Astronomy
Lunar, which depicts the link between the Gregorian calendar and lunar calendar, is employed in many cultures like Chinese, Islamic, and Hebrew;
Playtime, a dynamic piece of art that’s unique to the Apple Watch and created together with artist Joi Fulton;
Metropolitan, is a classic, type-driven watch face where the fashion changes as the Digital Crown is rotated.
Astronomy is an original face that has been completely remastered and features a new star map and current cloud data.
Workout App Updates
The Workout app, one of the foremost popular apps on the Apple Watch, has been updated to provide richer metrics for measuring performance, in addition to new training experiences to assist users to reach fitness goals.
For triathletes, the Workout app now supports a brand new Multisport workout type that automatically switches between any sequence of swimming, biking, and running workouts, using motion sensors to acknowledge movement patterns.
Ground Running
Apple Watch is already a strong tool for runners, and watchOS 9 brings more data and features to assist track how efficiently users run. New running form metrics, including Stride Length, Ground Contact Time, and Vertical Oscillation, can all be added as metrics on Workout Views.
Swimming Enhancements
Using sensor fusion on Apple Watch to automatically detect when users are swimming with a kickboard and classify the stroke type within the workout summary together with distance swam.
Sleep Insights
The company said that watchOS 9 brings sleep stages to the Sleep app and a brand new FDA-cleared AFib History feature that gives deeper insights into a user's condition.
With watchOS 9, users who are diagnosed with Afib can activate the FDA-cleared Afib History feature and access important information, including an estimate of how frequently a user's heart rhythm shows signs of AFib, providing deeper insights into their condition.
Medications
The new Medications experience on Apple Watch and iPhone helps users manage and track their medications, vitamins, and supplements, allowing them to make a medications list, founded schedules and reminders, and examine information on their medications within the Health app. The Medications app on Apple Watch makes it easy for users to conveniently and discreetly track medications anytime, anywhere.
Availability
The developer beta of watchOS 9 is obtainable to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today. A public beta will be available to watchOS users next month at beta.apple.com. watchOS 9 will be available this fall as a free software update for Apple Watch Series 4 or later paired with iPhone 8 or later and iPhone SE (second generation) or later, running iOS 16. Some features might not be available in all regions or all languages, or on all devices.