Today, Apple unveiled their next Apple Watch OS, watchOS 2. The new watch OS was announced at Apple's WWDC a mere six months after the Apple Watch's debut.
The watchOS 2 keynote was broken down into three areas of focus: timepiece, communication, and WatchKit. For the next release of watchOS, Apple focused on making the experience better and giving developers more access to the watch.
- Timepiece - Currently, the Apple Watch offers very few watch faces for customization. For the next OS update, Apple will add more ways to customize your Apple Watch to make it unique to you. Although Apple did not show off its complete arsenal of new faces, they did show off a new watch face that will allow you to set photographs as watch faces. WatchOS 2 will allow for developers to make their own 'complications' (widgets) on watch faces. Borrowing from the 'Pebble Time', watchOS 2 will introduce 'Time Travel', a feature that will allow you to go forward on your watch to see your upcoming schedule. This is accomplished by rotating the digital crown, allowing to scroll through the day checking on upcoming events. A new night stand mode will also be introduced that will allow you to place the watch on its side, rotating the display.
- Communication - watchOS 2 will allow you to add more friends and expand beyond the 12 that are currently available. Apple's unique 'Digital Touch' will expand to new colors, making painting graphics a bit more fun. Siri will now be able to enable workouts for you and monitor the workout. Apple Pay will now offer more functionality using 'Wallet'. 'Transit' will also be supported on the watch, showing suitable means for public transportation.
- WatchKit - Improvements by Apple will allow for App Logic to run directly from the watch. This will free the watch from the phone and will allow developers to create and run native apps on the watch. HealthKit will be accessible directly from the watch and developers will now have access to the accelerometer, Taptic Engine, and Digital Crown.
Apple Watch watchOS 2 will be available to developers immediately and will be available to the public some time this fall
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