watchOS 10, Apple’s latest annual update to its Apple Watch operating system, has arrived at WWDC 2023 today (June 5), and it was one of the more comprehensive updates revealed during Tim Cook's keynote speech.
Featuring updates to specific activities such as cycling and hiking, new physical and mental health features, new watch faces (including Snoopy!) and perhaps most importantly, widgets galore, it's safe to say watchOS 10 has completely redesigned the Apple Watch experience.
Other updates, with the possible exception of MacOS Sonoma, weren't quite as extensive as this. Perhaps the limited scope of the Watch makes every change feel like a major one, but this truly did feel like the most innovative in years. Let's dive into the new features coming to your best Apple Watch this year.
watchOS 10: Cut to the chase
- What is it? The latest Apple Watch operating system
- When's it out? Unspecified, probably September
- What's new? Interactive widgets, better cycling and hiking features, new watch faces, redesigned apps.
watchOS 10: New features
Interactive widgets are by far the biggest, most transformative new feature added to the Apple Watch. Apple have gone big on widgets this year with iPad and Mac, but none more transformative than here. From your watch face, simply twist the digital crown to access a list of your favorite widgets, including weather, a stock ticker, workout metrics, calendar, and a Complications widget you can customise with your favorite Complications, for example a timer. Hit the timer or your workout, and it will play at the top of your watch face even while it's locked.
This is the feature that will completely revolutionise the way you use your Watch, transforming it from a Where's Waldo-style spot-the-app into a usable list of widgets.
Apps that have been redesigned include World Clock, now sporting a dynamic background that moves with a sunrise-sunset bell curve accessible via a finger drag. Activity now includes full screen views for each of your Movement rings: Move, Exercise, and Stand. Third-party apps like Streaks can also use these features to make use of your entire display.
Two new watch faces are introduced: palate, which offers pastel colors changing with the time, and Snoopy, which features animated versions of Snoopy and Woodstock on your lock screen reacting to the weather, activity and time of day. Cute!
Elsewhere, two activities getting big revamps are cycling and hiking. Cyclists can now pair their Apple Watch with cycling computers and other specialist output monitors via Bluetooth to get a new metric, functional threshold power or FTP - the highest level of cycling intensity you can maintain for one hour.
Cyclists can split their performance into FTP zones, which basically work like Heart Rate Zones. Cyclists can also turn their Apple Watches into basic cycling computers, if you don't have one, by streaming metrics and offering a full-screen readout
Hiking is also getting new features, with your compass automatically generating emergency waypoints based on the last place you got reception - a Cellular Waypoint. A three-dimensional view of the compass also shows you elevations, but what's really exciting is that, if you're in the US, you get topographical maps of your routes, with no downloaded GPX files needed to do so. Eat that, Garmin.
Health stuff is also getting new stuff, with an overhauled mindfulness app allowing you to log how you're feeling with a sliding scale of Unpleasant to Pleasant at any time, discreetly, and you're able to add notes about why you're feeling this way from your iPhone. You'll also be able to stake standardized assessments used in clinics which can add more information and will let you know if you should talk to someone, and based on your watch recordings, your Mindfulness app on your phone will link you to articles and relevant information online.
Finally, the phone can use the watch's ambient light sensor to determine if you, or your child, have spent enough time outdoors. Myopia, or near-sightedness, is increasing, and Apple have allowed parents to see how much daylight their children are getting to help mitigate myopia development in their family Health app, even if the children have APple Watches without iPhones of their own.
watchOS 10: Release date
based on previous years, we believe watchOS 10 will launch in September, although no date was given on the stream. it was also unclear if any older Apple Watch models would be incompatible. For now, we have to assume like watchOS 9, that watchOS 10 will be available to users of Apple Watch 4 or younger.
watchOS 10: Old leaks and rumors
Below, you can see our thoughts on the watch leading up to Apple's WWDC 2023 keynote presentation. Some of this information is no longer accurate.
Bloomburg's Mark Gurman seems to think we’re getting an overhauled UI among other big changes to the watch’s software, with the reporter claiming that 2023 will be a “modest” year for new Apple Watch models. What these supposed big changes might be remains to be seen.
Last year spelled the end for the Apple Watch Series 3’s compatibility with modern software, and it might be the turn of the Series 4 watches with watchOS 10 – although they could be hanging on for another year, depending on the size of the update. The SE 2 and watches from Series 5 and newer will be definitely compatible, with Series 4 devices the only ones to have a question mark over them.
At present, rumors are somewhat scant about the capabilities of watchOS 10, but there are a few tidbits. According to a MacRumors report, widgets are set to play a key role, with the digital crown opening up the sort of widget menu you might get on the best Garmin watches rather than the traditional home screen.
Speaking of, another unverified Twitter leak reported by BGR claims the home screen will be getting a significant redesign, with specific apps stored in folders to make the most of the watch's relatively small screen real estate.
We’re looking for features which didn’t appear in the watchOS 9 update, and which seem to be egregiously missing from the Apple Watch. We would love it if Apple introduced the ability to pair a watch with an iPad or Mac as well as with an iPhone, which would increase the usefulness of the watch for potential wearers who don’t own an iPhone, while still keeping the watch tethered to Apple’s digital ecosystem.
Watch faces with the option to incorporate multiple fitness statistics, such as step counts and weekly activity minutes, rather than simplified rings, would be great for health-minded wearers, and uncoupling stats like VO2 max from specific activities like running would allow people to measure their fitness during other activities, such as indoor exercise classes.
Opening the floor up to fully customizable or even third-party-designed watch faces, instead of just official Apple ones, would greatly improve the variety and creativity of watch face options. The possibilities are endless, and no two Apple Watches need look the same!
Elsewhere, the success of the Apple Watch Ultra, with its emphasis on adventuring and triathlons, might mean we’ll see new outdoor-focused features. watchOS 9 already has Backtrack features to help you retrace your steps while on a run or trek, and several apps available on the watch’s App store offer topographical maps, but Apple’s standard Workout apps won’t support GPX file routes. Apple might truly embrace topo maps if it believes there’s an appetite for adventure at a lower price point than the Ultra.
watchOS 10 should improve our gym workout features too, but it probably won't. At least, not to the level we want.
Given the timing of the rumored mixed reality headset release, perhaps watchOS 10 will allow Apple Watches to interface with the headset, in the same way Watch models do with Apple Fitness Plus, showing heart rate and movement data in your heads-up display, as the current watchOS does on your smart TV or Apple device. A swipe of the watch-hand might even function as a simplistic control gesture. Such a move would go a long way towards making a headset more integrated into Apple’s current device lineup.
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