The first day of Apple’s 33rd Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) was packed full of software announcements and the new MacBook Air powered by the Mac M2. The Cupertino-based tech firm has announced the newer version of watchOS, fondly known as the watchOS 9. And it is a feature-packed update for the Apple Watch; bags a flurry of new features and enhancements, read along to know more details on watchOS 9 release date, compatible devices, features, and more.
Before moving ahead, Apple also unveiled the iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS 13 Ventura, and tvOS 16 at WWDC 22 along with the watchOS 9. If youโre interested to know more about the iOS 16 features, release date, and eligible devices, then you can head over to this page.
watchOS 9 Release Date and Beta
For launch, Apple follows the same pattern seen in recent years. Yes, the watchOS 9 goes live for the developers. At the time of writing, the first developer beta is available for testing purposes, if you’re a developer you can install it easily on your Apple Watch, here’s a guide on it. The company has confirmed that the public beta will be released in July. Whereas the public stable build will be available later this fall, most probably be announced with iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Series 8.
watchOS 9 Compatible Devices
For compatibility, Apple drops the Watch Series 3 for the support of watchOS 9. Yes, the newer version will come to Apple Watch Series 4 and newer models. Make sure you have an iPhone 8 or newer running iOS 16 or newer. Here’s the complete list of watchOS 9 supported devices.
- Apple Watch Series 4
- Apple Watch Series 5
- Apple Watch Series SE
- Apple Watch Series 6
- Apple Watch Series 7
- Apple Watch Series 8 (upcoming)
watchOS 9 features
watchOS 9 boasts a slew of new features, the list includes a bunch of new watch faces, new health features and apps, new workouts, refreshed Siri UI and notifications UI, enhancements to the health and fitness features, and more. Below you can check out the complete list of features coming with the watchOS 9.
A few days back, Apple unveiled new accessibility features that are coming later this year. These new accessibility features are coming with the watchOS 9 later this fall to the Apple Watch. These list includes features such as Door Detection, Apple Watch Mirroring, Sound Detection, and more.
More new health features
The next iteration of watchOS will bring a handful of health features to the Apple Watch. watchOS 9 sports an enhanced workout app with three new running form metrics, including Stride Length, Ground Contact Time, and Vertical Oscillation. It also brings custom workouts, Swimming enhancements, Sleep Stages, and a few more enhancements.
watchOS 9 comes with Atrial Fibrillation (Afib) history feature to access important information including an estimate of how frequently a userโs heart rhythm shows signs of AFib, as mentioned byย Apple.
New Watch Faces
With every watchOS release, Apple added some new Watch Faces to the Apple Watch. And the same is going with the new watchOS 9, it comes with four new customizable watch faces, including, the Astronomy face shows cloud coverage around the world, Lunar face with Chinese, Hebrew, and Islamic Calendar, Playtime with animated numbers, joined by the Metropolitan watch face with lovely color combinations and font customization. Not only this, but Apple also extends portrait watch face to dogs and cats.
Other features
Apart from these features, the upgrade brings Sleep Stages feature for better sleep tracking, new medications app to track medications with reminders, 6 keyboard language support, and more.
So these are the features that may come with the watchOS 9, if you’ve any queries, then tell us in the comment section. Also, share this article with your friends.
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