Apple Reveals watchOS 8: First Look at New Features

[MacRumors]

Apple today revealed watchOS 8, the next major version of its watchOS operating system, with brand new features, including enhancements to health tracking including a new Mindfulness app and improvements to the way users interact with their Apple Watch.

Referring to the Apple Watch face, watchOS 8 now supports using portrait mode photos in the watch face, using data from the image to layer the date and time behind a subject in the photo. watchOS 8 also gains support for Find Items, a new standalone app on the Apple Watch that will allow users to locate and find item part of the Find My network.

Introduced in iOS 15, Focus, which provides users with a powerful set of tools to reduce distractions during work, downtime, and more will also be coming to the Apple Watch.

watchOS 8 supports Focus, a powerful set of tools available in iOS 15 to help users reduce distraction and be in the moment. Apple Watch will automatically align with any Focus set on iOS, so that notifications from people and apps are filtered based on what a user is currently doing. Focus uses on-device intelligence to make suggestions based on usage patterns — for example, when starting a workout on Apple Watch, the Focus for fitness is suggested

watchOS 8 also features a redesigned Music app that makes it easier to share songs, albums, and more through iMessage. watchOS 8 now also allows users to set multiple timers, features expanded support for the Always-On display in Apple Watch Series 4 or later for more apps such as Maps, Mindfulness, Now Playing, Phone, Podcasts, and more.

Article Link: Apple Reveals watchOS 8: First Look at New Features

 

[applesque]

why didn't they expand on find my support on WatchOS 8????

 

[JackieTreehorn]

I love enchantments

 

[_Spinn_]

The new breathing tracking for sleep sound interesting.

 

[Brandon42]

The new breathing tracking for sleep sound interesting.

Apple acquired Beddit years ago. The beddit device tracked breathing and I wouldn’t be surprised if they used the data to calibrate a watch based method of tracking sleep breathing. If you can accurately track breathing you can then use the microphone to detect snoring (and avoid detecting the snoring of others).

 

[Howard2k]

Multiple timers! Excellent, that will actually be handy.

 

[mavis]

I was really hoping for new watch faces (the portrait one is useless for me because I need a watch face that displays time with seconds). So, kinda bummed.

 

[WeatherWeasel]

I thought they would have something about features other than "this is the best we could could come up with, and for a narrow audience." Obviously someone is getting a new desk away from the window.

 

[markgpearse]

I still don’t understand why deleting texts on my iPhone or my iPad or my MacBook don’t cause those same texts to be deleted from my Apple Watch. Why is this so difficult?

 

[Apple_Robert]

Not much of a WatchOS update.

 

[otternonsense]

Not so much of an update after another year that was already not so much of an update.

 

[User 6502]

Really underwhelming update…

 

[applesque]

why didn't they expand on find my support on WatchOS 8????View attachment 1788302

like, will there be precision finding with series 6 which includes the U1 chip?
also, how does the precision finding that they previewed work for AirPods which don't carry the U1 chip?

 

[applesque]

like, will there be precision finding with series 6 which includes the U1 chip?
also, how does the precision finding that they previewed work for AirPods which don't carry the U1 chip?View attachment 1788325

Actually, it seems that this is not really a presicion find. It looks like it just uses the bluetooth signal

 

[Splutterbug]

As long as they can make it small enough to fit on an Apple Watch 3......

 

[Deliro]

I really think why this year is underwhelming across all their products was due to the pandemic, especially at the beginning with all the fear and uncertainty. Plus, I know I’ll get disagreements with me on this, working from home does cut overall productivity. A lot of companies had to pivot and adopting such a radical shift would lead to loss of productivity.

Then there’s the infrastructure considerations, although Apple is in a lot better position than most companies in this regard.

 

[jz0309]

Not a whole lot of exciting new features, for me at least ... watchOS has been rather table for me so hopefully this will continue and unless there is a AW7 with significant new feature, I'll probably update my AW4 to watchos 8 (I was not sure about that before)

 

[SegNerd]

So far the new watchOS does look like a fairly modest update, but let’s not forget that most new AppleWatch features are generally hardware-based, so the “big news” might have to wait for S7.

 

[WeatherWeasel]

I agree, if the watch does handoffs, then i should be able to erase messages and emails on my iphone or mac and they disappear on my watch, it wastes so much time deleting them. Oh I suppose I could do it manually, but still there needs to be more available for the little tasks like this.

 

[sjsharksfan12]

No updates on their monthly challenge issue and no variety. For being heralded as the best workout device, the Apple Watch has become a little boring.

 

[Zahni]

Handoff support in Apple Musich between Watch and Iphone?

 

[Tuba]

Plus, I know I’ll get disagreements with me on this, working from home does cut overall productivity.

You absolutely will, because it’s a ridiculous blanket statement.

I’m not with Apple, but I do work at a (large) company where overall productivity didn’t suffer, and where productivity in some departments (including mine) went up by quite a margin.

Whether WFH hurts productivity or not is entirely dependent on what you do and who you employ to do it.

For Apple specifically, I suspect that all projects requiring development of or access to unreleased hardware suffered quite a bit.

 

[Deliro]

You also have to figure there was quite a lot of adjustments and downtime. Especially in the beginning. Some peoples minds were not on work, more on the empty store shelves. With all the fear and uncertainty at the onset there was no doubt downtime.

The WFH of course impacted output this year. No question. When you radically have to pivot the way your company works and how employees communicate there will be adjustments made. A tech company, especially Apple, no doubt had an easier time making these adjustments then other companies. Some companies had to make substantial investments in infrastructure and tech to accommodate wfh. Along with that goes training and deployment etc.

So while some people smugly claim Apple is “underwhelming” this year just think back to what occurred in 2020 and we all made huge changes.

 

[KyleLyles]

I really think why this year is underwhelming across all their products was due to the pandemic, especially at the beginning with all the fear and uncertainty. Plus, I know I’ll get disagreements with me on this, working from home does cut overall productivity. A lot of companies had to pivot and adopting such a radical shift would lead to loss of productivity.

Then there’s the infrastructure considerations, although Apple is in a lot better position than most companies in this regard.

Working from home is demonstrated to increase productivity in knowledge positions at an enterprise level. Perhaps not for those living in Mom's basement, but for everyone else.

 

[joecomo]

Interesting, they mentioned glucose monitoring for some time - would be a great feature for the AppleWatch 7