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As expected, Apple presented watchOS 9 during its WWDC. Expected for next fall, the new Apple Watch operating system will notably bring improvements in terms of sport and health.
The Apple Watch 8 will not arrive alone this fall. It will be accompanied by the ninth version of watchOS, the new features of which were revealed during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). A new version that is not content with ergonomic and cosmetic innovations, but goes further in the fields of sport and health to better establish itself in a market already dominated by the Apple Watch.
With watchOS 9, the connected watches of the fruity brand will first gain more customization of their dials watch faces. In particular, we can change the color of the background for certain watch faces, but also take advantage of new complications and pin an app that you would like to open more quickly. Four new dial presentations are also announced: Astronomy, Lunar, Playtime and Metropolitan.
The Siri interface is reviewed, as is the display of notifications. © Apple
Party running
Ergonomic novelties as an appetizer, since the most interesting lies in the improvements made to activities and in particular to running. We will thus benefit from new metrics for running, in particular the vertical oscillation, the length of the stride and the duration of contact with the ground. So much data calculated from the analysis of the only movements of the Apple Watch thanks to machine learning algorithms which must in particular learn our way of running.
Alerts can be issued to help us maintain our heart rate within a certain zone. © Apple
The Apple Watch will also be able to manage heart rate zones, in particular to alert the user by sounds or vibrations when it passes from one zone to another. Alerts are also provided to indicate pace, cadence, heart rate and power. Practical for adapting your run to the type of training (aerobic, high intensity, etc.). Cardiac recovery will also be analyzed at the end of the exercise for running, walking and hiking activities.
Runners here at the party will be happy to see the arrival of more advanced training options, such as automatic recognition of past runs to track their progress over time. The creation of personalized workouts is also planned.
Apple is also aimed at swimmers who will benefit from swimming type detection and the famous Swolf score associated with swimming efficiency. Triathletes who use Apple Watch will appreciate being able to follow cycling, swimming and running activities on their watch.
Ever-increasing health monitoring
Another area dear to Apple, health will take another step forward with watchOS 9. Medication management is introduced in order to take advantage of reminders on the Apple Watch. The Health app will thus make it possible to create lists of medications with the associated administration frequencies. Alerts in the event of dangerous interactions are also planned (in the United States initially). It will also be possible to monitor the medication taken by a loved one and more generally their physical condition thanks to the sharing of data from the Health app.
Renowned for its ability to detect signs of atrial fibrillation (AFib), the Apple Watch will be able with watchOS 9 to measure the duration of episodes and provide a history to be transmitted to the general practitioner or cardiologist, for example.
AFib histories can be correlated to activity. © Apple
New also for sleep monitoring with fine detection of the different phases (light, deep, awake, REM).
Sleep phases will be more accurately detected. Further analysis will be provided in the Health app. © Apple
watchOS 9 for all Apple Watches from Series 4
The new features of watchOS 9 will obviously not be reserved for the next Apple Watch 8, because all watches from Series 4 will benefit from them. The Series 3, released in 2017 and less efficient, will however be left on the floor.