Next up on Apple’s docket for WWDC 2018 is the Apple Watch or more specifically watchOS. With the new and improved watchOS 5, you’re getting more fitness features, more to do w/ Siri, new ways to communicate w/ other Apple Watch users, and more.
- So w/ the health & fitness side of things, you can now challenge your friends to competitions lasting up to a week at a time. You’ll also get new workout support for yoga, hiking, and better tracking for runners. The biggest addition is the new automatic workout tracking that prompts when it detects you working out. It will even go back to track the beginning of your workout if you don’t track it yourself.
- The new update gives your Apple Watch the Nextel PTT ability w/ their new walkie talkie feature. This will allow you to tap a button and speak to another Watch user and they can respond back as well. This is more or less a clever way to send audio clips to each other w/ good UI behind it all.
- The Siri watchface now adds sports, maps, heart-rate info, shortcut to the new Siri action from iOS 12, and 3rd-party app support. You will also no longer need to say ‘Hey Siri’ to wake it up as you can just raise your wrist to talk.
- Notifications get more ways to reply to make responding to messages or get rid of them – all from your wrist.
- The Apple Wallet app will support student IDs from select universities.
- You’ll be able to access the new Podcast app from your Watch.
- You can now play background audio.
- You’ll have an customizable Control Center.
And just like iOS 12, watchOS 5 is due later this fall. Good to see Apple adding some more useable feature to their smartwatch OS. Which new feature are you looking forward to using on your Apple Watch?
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