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The newest update for watchOS is coming, and bringing a lot of new features to your wrist. Many of the most significant features have to do with monitoring your health, as Apple is aiming to give you new ways to keep tabs on how your body is doing.
Vitals is a new health monitoring app
These updates include a new app called Vitals, which will give you an overview of your vital statistics in the moment and over time. You’ll be able to review your health metrics like heart rate and sleep data directly in the app, and track how things have been going over the past few days, weeks, or months.
Training Load helps you plan your workouts
Apple Watches running watchOS 11 will also let you take advantage of a new feature called Training Load. This feature gives you more control over how you measure your training routine and how it might affect your overall recovery. It looks at data like your pace, heart rate, and elevation and then combines all of that with your height and weight to estimate your training effort with a score of 1-10.
You can even adjust this score based on how you feel you did. Your watch will establish a 28-day training load, and then average out the effort ratings and duration of user workouts throughout that period to provide a detailed data set.
Apple says all of this can help you better calculate how your workouts are going, which should be helpful for wearers training for competitive events like marathons, to help ensure they aren’t under- or overtraining. Apple will also allow users to pause their activity rings or even adjust them from day to day to help create a more customized activity tracker, without losing the rewards you’ve built up by closing your rings in the past.
More fitness features
Custom workouts will now support pool swims, providing options for sets of work and recovery, as well as haptic signals, to help you keep up with your current interval changes. Pregnant users will also be able to use the Apple Watch to keep up with more health-related information, with more additional options appearing in iOS 18’s Health app.
Use you watch to live translate
Apple also briefly showed off a new live translation feature in watchOS 11. It seems to work similarly to the AI-powered translators on Android phones like the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but the tech giant didn’t go too in-depth on what it would be capable of, beyond sharing that it will support 20 languages, and will appear in Smart Stack when you’re traveling.
A smarter Smart Stack
Speaking of, Apple has updated Smart Stack to give it a new series of more intelligent features that appear when you need them—like information about incoming storms before they actually start. Smart Stack can also now suggest widgets you might find useful, like the new Photos, Distance, and Shazam widgets. Live Activities will also now appear within your Smart Stack, giving you up-to-date information about your online orders and other time-sensitive data.
Credit: Apple
Check In with friends and family
Apple’s previously launched Check In feature will also come to Apple Watch with watchOS 11, allowing you to touch base with friends and family, for example to let them know you’ve arrived home safely after an event. This is a great safety feature, and it pairs nicely with the new turn-by-turn hiking navigation watchOS will also offer, which will work even when your iPhone isn’t nearby.
More versatile Double Taps
The tech company is also expanding the API for its Double Tap gesture, allowing more apps and features to take advantage of the functionality, which originally launched on Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra Watch 2. Double Tap will now work for scrolling through any app, like Calendar, Messages, Weather, and more.
Tap to Cash for payments
With the arrival of watchOS 11, sending money through Apple Cash will also become easier, with Tap to Cash, which allows you to hold your Apple Watch near another Apple Watch or iPhone to send money directly to that device, without having to share your phone number.
Integrate with Apple Intelligence
Users who have their Apple Watch connected to an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max powered by Apple Intelligence will also be able to access summarized notifications right from their wrist. Apple hasn’t shared an exact release date for these AI-powered features, but they are expected to begin testing this summer.
Other upgrades
Finally, watchOS 11 with include newly redesigned versions of the Photos face, as well as enhanced ticketing features for concerts and events. Now, when you attend an event your watch can activate a live activity and automatically display information like your seat number.
