Apple has officially announced upcoming new watchOS 9 features for Apple Watch smartwatch users, which include a new medication appointment reminder app, additional, more customizable watch faces, and improved health, fitness, and sleep tracking features.
What are the new watchOS 9 features coming to Apple Watch users?
These are the new watchOS 9 update features for Apple Watch users:
New Apple Watch faces in watchOS 9
The upcoming new update for Apple Watch users, watchOS 9, introduces many new watch faces, as Apple used to with each new operating system update, which includes the new lunar face of the Lunar watch, which links the Gregorian calendar and the lunar calendar, with the ability to choose between the Chinese calendar or the lunar calendar. The Hebrew or Islamic Hijri, as well as a new watch face called Playtime developed by Apple in collaboration with artist Joi Fulton, and the new Metropolitan watch face, which offers a classic watch face with a style change through the circular crown button on the side of the watch.
The new update also provides an Astronomy clock face that displays the time through a continuously updated 3D model of the Earth, Moon and Solar System.
Apple said that more watch faces will support the complications feature to display more information directly on the watch face, with the portrait effect now applied when using a picture of a dog or cat as the watch face, with the ability to color the background of the image through new editing tools, in addition to support for customizing the watch face. A wide range of colors to suit each user.
Reminder of medication appointments directly via Apple Watch
One of the best features added by the new watchOS 9 update for Apple Watch smart watch users is the ability to remind you to take medications, so that users can track their commitment to taking medications, vitamins and nutritional supplements, by creating a list of medications and adding their dates, period and number of times, with the ability to add Medicines easily through the health application on iPhone phones and get information about these medicines, including the active substance, side effects, and others.
Sleep tracking improvements
In addition to the previous features provided by Apple to track sleep quality based on Apple Watch watches such as Apple Watch 7 and others, watchOS 9 offers more features that help the user track his sleep in order to improve sleep quality, including the ability to track sleep stages to identify sleep times. Deep sleep, light sleep, stable sleep and awake periods, as well as the ability to view sleep comparison charts in the new Health app for iPhone phones, which allows recognition of metrics such as heart rate, respiratory rate, and how it changes throughout the night or during sleep.
Important statistics for people with atrial fibrillation disorder
The new watchOS 9 update also offers Apple Watch smart watch users an important feature that helps people with atrial fibrillation disorder (AFib), a heart rhythm disorder that may lead to the possibility of stroke and heart failure, and Apple Watch smart watches were previously able to alert users when they detect signs of a disorder. Atrial fibrillation, but watchOS 9 offers a new feature called AFib History, a feature that allows you to see an estimate of how often the heart has an arrhythmia, linking periods of disturbance with other factors such as sleep, periods of exercise and weight, and displaying it through the Health app on the iPhone, In addition to being able to recognize the time of day or week when AFib is most common, as well as making it easier to share this data with your doctor in a PDF file, Apple said the new feature has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
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New metrics to track your running
Apple said that the next update for the Apple Watch smart watchOS 9 helps users to practice running better, based on the presentation of new measures to track running, including step length, contact time with the ground, and vertical oscillation (the amount that the torso moves vertically with each step while running), This is to help understand how well they are running, in addition to the Running Power feature, which provides an instant meter of effort that helps the user run at an endurable level.
The features related to running coming for Apple Watch users later in 2022 also include obtaining immediate feedback that encourages the user to achieve his goal, in addition to the possibility of challenging the user himself when running in the same path, so that the user competes against the last or best result that he previously achieved. , while receiving instant updates to help the user achieve this.
Improvements to Workout
The upcoming new update for Apple Watch, watchOS 9, also provides many improvements to the Workout app, most notably:
- View more information during the exercise: Rotate the side button Crown to view more metrics such as activity rings, heart rate zones, power and altitude.
- Heart Rate Zones Feature: which can be set automatically or manually, a feature to measure or track exercise intensity.
- Custom Workout Feature: Which allows the user to create an exercise plan that can include periods of work and rest, with the ability to customize to receive alerts about speed, strength, heart rate and others to guide during the exercise.
- Multiple exercise support: It is a feature that helps athletes track a series of various exercises such as swimming, cycling and running exercises, with the ability to switch between tracking these exercises automatically based on motion sensors.
- View a post-workout summary in the Fitness app that includes interactive charts for more accurate analysis.
- Improvements to track athletes’ activity while swimming.
Follow, discover and listen to podcasts through the watch
Apple added a new feature to the podcast application for users of its smart watches, so that users can discover and follow new podcast programs directly through the watch, while supporting the provision of the application to children who use the watch only without an iPhone through the new parental and family control settings.
Control the clock options through the iPhone screen
And based on the new Apple Watch Mirroring feature, users can view the Apple Watch screen on the iPhone screen, so that people with disabilities can easily control options based on touch or voice control.
More options for sharing with the family
With the new version, watchOS 9, parents can give their children the ability to control smart home devices directly through their Apple Watch, and they can also share home, hotel and other keys through the wallet application, so that children use them directly through the watch.
Create calendar events with your Apple Watch
With the new watchOS 9 update as well, the user can create new events in the calendar directly through the Apple Watch, with the ability to easily move to specific days or weeks.
New features of the Reminders app
So that Apple Watch users can add more details to the reminders directly, including date, time, geographical location, and add tags and notes.
New measure of fitness tracker Cardio Recovery
It is a measure that Apple says is useful as an indicator of cardiovascular health, so that Apple Watch watches with the new update watchOS 9 provide fitness estimates for the user after a walking or running exercise, even when the exercise does not reach the required intensity, with the ability to track the new measure over time. Through the Health app.
Which Apple Watch will get the watchOS 9 update?
Apple has confirmed that the following watches will get the watchOS 9 update:
- Apple Watch Series 4.
- Apple Watch Series 5.
- Apple Watch Series 6.
- Apple Watch Series 7.
- Apple Watch SE.
But the update requires an iPhone 8 and later up to iPhone 13 running iOS 16.
When is the watchOS 9 update available for Apple Watch smartwatches?
The new watchOS 9 update is available for Apple Watch users as a free update later this fall 2022, but the preview version for developers is now available, and the beta version is available during July 2022 through Apple beta site.