Over three months after Apple launched it at WWDC 2024, watchOS 11 is formally right here. The 2024 Apple Watch replace, which provides the brand new Vitals app, widget enhancements and sleep apnea detection, is now accessible to put in in your smartwatch.
Apple’s sleep apnea detection characteristic, which the corporate highlighted in its Apple Watch Collection 10 reveal, can even work with a few year-old fashions. Should you personal the Apple Watch Collection 9 or Apple Watch Extremely 2, you possibly can attempt the characteristic earlier than the brand new mannequin makes it into prospects’ fingers later this week. Sleep apnea detection will ship you an alert if the watch’s sensors detect in a single day respiratory disturbances. The well being characteristic, just like one Samsung included with the Galaxy Watch 7 earlier this 12 months, acquired FDA approval final week.
watchOS 11 additionally introduces a brand new Vitals app, additional beefing up Apple’s health-tracking options on its wearable. For many who put on their Apple Watch to mattress for sleep monitoring (and a helpful alarm within the morning), Vitals collects your in a single day knowledge in a single place. The app establishes baselines in your well being metrics. It lets you already know if any fall exterior your typical vary, probably helpful for recognizing irregularities like oncoming sicknesses or monitoring the results of alcohol use.
Equally, the brand new Coaching Load characteristic measures the depth of your exercises over time. After establishing an depth baseline over 28 days, it exhibits how exhausting you’re pushing your self in your exercises — evaluating it along with your normal averages. At launch, it helps 17 exercise varieties, together with walks, runs, biking, rowing, swings and extra. You’ll discover your Coaching Load within the Exercise app in your Apple Watch and the Health app in your iPhone.
Apple added a long-requested characteristic this 12 months: the power to pause and customise Exercise ring objectives. It hardly is smart to maintain pushing your self (at your watch’s prodding) for those who’re sick or want relaxation. The wearable now allows you to take a break for a day, week, month or extra with out dropping your award streaks. As well as, you possibly can set totally different Exercise ring objectives for every day of the week and customise the information you care about most within the iOS 18 Health app.
The Apple Watch’s Sensible Stack (the pile of widgets you see whenever you scroll down out of your watch face) now exhibits widgets mechanically primarily based on context. (For instance, rain alerts.) As well as, Reside Actions, which arrived on the iPhone two years in the past, can be coming to the Apple Watch within the new replace. You’ll discover Reside Actions for issues like sports activities scores you observe or an arriving Uber within the watchOS 11 Sensible Stack.
Verify In is a brand new characteristic that permits you to notify a buddy whenever you attain your vacation spot. You possibly can start a Verify In from the watchOS Messages app by tapping the plus button subsequent to the textual content area, selecting Verify In and getting into the place you’re going and whenever you anticipate to reach. Equally, when exercising, you can begin a Verify In from the exercises app: Swipe proper from the exercise display and select Verify In from the controls. You possibly can then decide a contact to share your train routine with.
Different options embrace new being pregnant monitoring within the Cycles app and a Double Faucet API that lets third-party builders incorporate hands-free controls.
To obtain watchOS 11, you’ll first want to put in iOS 18 in your paired iPhone. After that, open the Watch app in your cellphone, then head to Common > Software program Replace. It ought to then immediate you to replace to the 2024 software program.