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The Apple Watch 10, and watchOS 11 finally brought rest days to an Apple Watch near you, but there is more to it than that. The watch operating system has a range of upgrades coming, mostly centred around personalisation and customisation.
Throughout this running guide, we'll look at what to expect from the update bit by bit. For the best overview, keep up to date with the iOS 18 updates too.
watchOS 11
I don't know what it is about the Apple Watch and Snoopy, but there is another Snoopy themed watch face available in the beta. It uses adaptive animations to show the changing of the seasons, and well Snoopy is also there.
In watchOS 11.0 users didn't need to do anything to force quit a range of apps. Then, it was a bug, but now there is a new feature. The mechanism to force close an app used to be a quick press of the crown, and side button, but now the two need to be pressed and held instead.
Personalisation in the Fitness app has extended with this upgrade. It now has shortctus that allow users to access workouts and tasks quicker.
Some watch faces now include real-time second hand movements. Thats right! Users can now watch time tick by, just like an analogue watch. Neat.
Vitals gives users a space to quickly see overnight health metrics, and how they are tracking compared to their norms. These include resting heart rate, temperature, sleep duration and quality, and blood oxygen levels. It uses an Apple developed algorithm to identify changes to the user's usual trends, and give detailed descriptions on what may be effecting these. Ie, your Apple Watch could now tell you to lay off the booze if your heart rate has been high overnight, and your sleep is more restless than usual.
Tracked over a 28-day period, Training Load uses the length and intensity of workouts to help users get a better insight into how their workouts effect them over time. Some workouts, like cardio, automatically generated an effort estimate from 1-10, while others like Pilates or strength training are self-reported.
On the Apple Watch, the week's Training Load is compared to the user's 28-day average, ranking it as either well below, below, steady, above, or well above. This gives a better indication as to how much stress and strain the body is under, so that users can make more informed training choices.
If users do find themselves tracking well above for too long, the Apple Watch now supports rest days! Not just rest days, but other activity ring customisations. Users can now set varied activity goals across the week, and pause their rings at any time without breaking their streak.
The Smart Stack is now more personalised, drawing suggested widgets based on the time of day, location, and the user's daily routines. New interactive widgets such as Photos and Shazam are also available, along with Live Activities.
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