Apple announces watchOS 11 with improved health and fitness insights

At WWDC 2024, Apple announced the next version of watchOS, the operating system powering Apple's wearable devices. It is now available for developers, and a public beta will be released in July 2024. With watchOS 11, Apple promises more health and fitness insights alongside better personalization and connectivity.

With watchOS 11, your Apple Watch can deliver more insights about sleep. It analyzes key metrics, such as heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperatures, sleep duration, and blood oxygen, to deliver glanceable information and detect pattern changes.

The Cycle Tracking app now supports additional pregnancy information, allowing users to log symptoms and receive notifications about heart rate, mental health assessment, and other vital metrics.

The Workout app now has a Training Load feature, a new insight that can measure and estimate how workouts strain your body to help you better understand and tweak your workouts. Besides automatic estimation, you will be able to adjust the estimate manually to account for additional factors like stress or soreness.

Apple is finally making activity rings more flexible, allowing users to take a day off without losing their activity streaks. Also, watchOS 11 will let you set custom activity goals for each day of the week and specify what is shown on the main tab of the Fitness app on your iPhone.

Other changes in watchOS 11 include a redesigned Apple Fitness+ app, more information in the SMart Stack, a reworked Photos watch face, the Check-in feature for workouts (iMessage will notify your friend or relative that you have finished your workout), the Translate app, and double-tap gesture improvements, including support for third-party apps.

watchOS 11 will be available for all users this fall. Supported Apple Watch models include Series 6 and newer, Apple Watch SE 2nd generation and newer, and the original Apple Watch Ultra and newer. With watchOS 11, Apple dropped support for Apple Watch Series 4 and Series 5. You can learn more about watchOS 11 here.