José Adorno, a tech news reporter, recently had hands-on experience with the exclusive new Watch Faces in watchOS 11. Apple introduced these faces during its recent event, initially announcing only one new face. However, with the Release Candidate version of watchOS 11, two more options have been unveiled.
The Photos Face has evolved over the years, with the latest version allowing users to cycle through chosen photos or a synced album. Users can select up to 24 photos of people, places, pets, and cities from their photo library, with a new photo appearing each time the wrist is raised or the display is tapped. There are three different styles to choose from.
The Reflections Watch Face features a metallic sunburst dial that changes appearance based on wrist movement, reflecting Apple’s attention to materials. It is available in multiple colors and includes four customizable complications, enhancing both aesthetics and functionality. The Flux Face blends typography with color and movement to represent the passing of time.
Color gradually fills the face from the bottom as seconds pass, with numerals shifting forms at each minute. Both colors and numerals are in constant flux, providing a dynamic time-keeping experience. After experimenting with these faces throughout the beta testing of watchOS 11, Adorno found that they offer diverse benefits.
The Photos Face and Reflections options provide personalized and elegant displays, while the Flux Watch Face stands out for its vibrant and ever-changing graphical representation. These new watch faces, with their unique features and customizations, enhance the user experience, catering to personal preferences and styles, whether using a standard Apple Watch or the Apple Watch Ultra. watchOS 11, the next big software update for the Apple Watch, is set to release on September 16.
This update brings several new features to enhance the user experience on all compatible Apple Watch models, including Series 6 and later, as well as the SE (2nd generation). One of the most anticipated new fitness features is the ability to pause your Activity Rings. This is particularly useful for days when you’re sick, injured, traveling, or simply taking a break.
To pause your Active Rings, you just tap on the Activity Rings and select “Pause Rings,” allowing you to mute coaching notifications for a chosen period. With watchOS 11, you can now easily adjust your activity goals for different days of the week. This means you can set different targets for Move (red), Exercise (green), and Stand (blue) goals based on your daily schedule.
Adjusting the goals is straightforward; similar to pausing your Activity Rings, you select “Change Goals” and modify as needed. For those training for specific events, a new feature called Training Load will be a valuable addition. This feature measures the intensity of your workouts and allows you to compare them with past activities.
apple’s latest watch faces unveiled
The Apple Watch will provide an “effort” rating for each workout based on various data sources, such as age, height, weight, GPS, heart rate, and elevation. This helps in making informed decisions about future workouts to either ramp up, ease off, or maintain the current routine.
The Remote app on the Apple Watch gains enhanced functionality with watchOS 11. Beyond its existing capabilities, the Remote app now allows you to mute/unmute, turn on captions, and even turn off your Apple TV completely with a simple tap on the new ellipsis button in the top-right corner. For users who track their sleep, watchOS 11 introduces the Vitals app, which simplifies viewing overnight metrics directly from your wrist.
The app provides key statistics like heart rate, respiratory rate, and wrist temperature, alongside comparisons to previous nights’ data. This eliminates the need to check your iPhone’s Health app for the same information. For Apple Watch Ultra users, watchOS 11 brings the ability to customize the Action Button directly from the watch.
Long-pressing the Action Button now prompts a screen that allows for quick changes to its functionality, making it easier to switch between starting a workout, turning on the Flashlight, or starting a Stopwatch. watchOS 11, Apple’s latest wearable operating system, arrives today with a slew of new features for the Apple Watch Series 6 and beyond, as well as the Ultra. Unveiled with a significant focus on health and wellbeing, this update marks a shift from communication to a health-centric approach for the Apple Watch.
The new Vitals app tracks several key metrics while you sleep. The Apple Watch will monitor your heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, sleep duration, and blood oxygen levels. Any irregularities across these metrics will trigger notifications, offering insights into the potential impacts of lifestyle factors like alcohol consumption, illness, or even elevation changes.
If you log a pregnancy in the Health app on your iPhone or iPad, cycle tracking on Apple Watch will show gestational age and allow you to log symptoms frequently experienced during pregnancy, such as nausea. watchOS 11 will also review high heart rate notifications and provide quicker alerts regarding potential fall risks using Walking Steadiness. A new feature called Training Load insight helps you understand the impact of your workouts on your body over time.
Workouts will be measured on a scale of 1 to 10, incorporating data such as age, height, weight, heart rate, and elevation. This 28-day training load readout assists in planning workouts, preventing injury, and monitoring progress. Responding to user feedback, watchOS 11 introduces customizable Activity Rings and rest days.
Whether taking a day off or recuperating from an injury, you can now pause your rings without losing your award streaks. The workout app receives notable enhancements, including the ability to track distance using GPS across a range of sports such as soccer, American football, skiing, snowboarding, and golf. Beyond the health and fitness features, watchOS 11 introduces several additional updates, such as the Smart Stack with new widgets that can suggest content based on time, date, and daily routine, the Photos Watch Face that uses AI to pick your best photos for display, the Check In Safety Feature now available on the watch, including during workouts, the Translate App now on Apple Watch, Apple Maps featuring hikes for all U.S. national parks, accessible offline, and Tap to Cash, which allows sending and receiving Apple Cash funds using your Watch (available in the US).
This comprehensive update reaffirms Apple’s commitment to health and fitness, ensuring the Apple Watch continues to be a pioneering device in personal health technology.
