Another announcement done at WWDC19 was watchOS 6. This wasn’t as big an announcement as in previous years but there were a few notable points. With there being so few I might as well jump straight into them.
One of the major points, which is going around mostly, is the cycle tracking feature. This is for women being able to keep track of their menstrual cycles with apple watch. Being a guy I'm not sure how impressive, needed or cool this feature is. I mean its great that they’re thinking about other sides to health and health especially for women. This tracking is not only available on the apple watch but there is also a feature for it in iOS 13 and on the health app where women can keep track of cycles and notifications can be made for when you’re likely to be on your cycle and fertility windows. This seems really cool and handy for women, but again, being a guy I'm not sure exactly what is out there before this. All health things in one app are cool so its a good thing I guess.
Cycle tracking on watchOS 6
With the health app, there is a new feature where you can keep track of trends in your personal exercise and health. As a data nut, this is an awesome thing for me. So I can see how I’m improving (or not) and it gives me a better insight into how I’m doing. I do love my personal data trends.
Health trends
Keeping with the health theme, apple also announced that with watchOS 6, the watch can track and detect noise levels in your general area. Giving warnings if you are in an area with high and even dangerous levels of noise for extended periods of times. This can also be shown on the health app and there are ways to keep track of your hearing health as this can often be overlooked. With this, the software can even track how loud headphones are so I bet a lot of people will be flagged as being at risk of hearing loss later in life. I personally love having music loud in headphones.
Noise Levels can be detected now
For the first time on watchOS and the apple watch … THERE WILL BE AN APP STORE!!
There will be a number of apps that you can install on your watch without having to have your phone close by or connected. This is quite good as it can open up the apple watch to non iPhone users. Granted they will have to have an account so they can download the apps but for the ones who are anti-iPhone, this can be a step in the right direction for more people having an apple watch. This also means that apps will be stored locally on the watches internal storage so whether a watch with increased storage will be announced in the fall is yet to be seen.
As with other watchOS updates, there are a number of new watch faces made for the new OS but personally I'm not a fan of them. I love the ones that have all the information I need and complications for weather, exercise , etc. Another update is the inclusion of voice memos on the watch so you can easily make a memo without having to grab your phone. Also there will now be a calculator on the watch. Back come the days of the Casio calculator watch which also includes a tip calculator with an additional split the bill part so you know exactly how much to pay each.
One of the new faces (sun tracking)
Calculator with Tip button
There are a few other smaller updates mentioned like the ability to stream music through the watch but whether this will just be apple music or whether Spotify will use this is yet to be seen. When the 4 was released there was a gym kit integration and watchOS 6 has more compatibility, but I guess my gym is cheap as I’ve never seen any equipment that has this feature. I hope to one day have it but then I guess I need to go back to the gym for that.
As mentioned before the watchOS update was fairly small this year with not much announced. This makes me think that there might not be a new watch announced this fall but I’m not one to make guesses or wagers like that.
This is blog 2 of my WWDC2019 blogs, you can catch my first on iOS 13 here,
My Others are here.
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