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watchOS 6 > What features are you most excited about?

These:

  • A new cycles app for tracking menstrual cycles
  • New watch faces
  • Independent apps (including improved streaming capabilities to thirdparty apps), and a standalone App Store
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The third one (independent apps) is very exciting. I think it's the beginning of a potentially great future for the Watch. Mid-term, I can't wait for some of my favorite workout apps to finally not require the phone anymore (Zombies, Run! for example, my news streaming app, and a few others). Apps are the last thing that tether me to my phone when running or biking, and it's getting old.

Audiobooks is also nice, although I have to check about the cost of the books (Audible is WAY too expensive to ever make sense for me, and I hate subscriptions). I do like listening to books when I run.

Not listed:
  • Activity trends. Probably not hyper useful, but nice to have when I need a kick in the butt.
  • Siri finally being able to search on the web and give you results on the Watch. It might finally be a little more than a fancy timer for me.
What I want to see but Apple apparently doesn't want me to have:

  • Activity App functionality improvements, for example the ability to create your own workouts, set up intervals, custom alerts, or customize the information shown further. Also, custom move and exercise goals for each day of the week.
  • Custom Watch Faces, at least a freaking color wheel instead of a list of fixed curated colors, and the ability to change the color of each complication in the basic faces.
 
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In case anyone was wondering. No new watch faces for Series 2 on WatchOS 6 beta 1.

EDIT: I restarted my phone, what I said above is not entirely true.

Numerals Duo and Numerals Mono are available.
 
Harvey Zoltan said:
Does the Now Playing app now show the elapsed track time in a circle around the stop start button?
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Notifications seems to be borked on my Apple Watch Gen.4 with watchOS 6 installed. Nothing shows on my Apple Watch, I does start to rumble when I get incoming calls but there is no information being displayed. Regular notifications such as e-mail, messages etc doesn't show at all.
 
Not running the watch beta myself but I can see ‘Stand Minutes’ in the health app on iOS 13. I also spotted this in the keynote slide with Activity Trends. This is obviously different to Stand Hours. Curious to know if this is working in the current WatchOS beta? Thanks

Edit: After reading feedback I decided to install the beta and can confirm this does work. Pretty cool and accurate in my limited amount of testing
 
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The Game 161 said:
Nothing has jumped out to me with watch os6 I must admit.
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Using watchOS beta for the past couple days... 3 additions stood out. New watch faces, improved AirPlay support, and the AppStore.

As of now, I’m using the Solar Dial new WatchFace and I have a few Libratone speakers. At first, I had to connect it to Bluetooth in order to use them with the Apple Watch. Now, I can finally use AirPlay.

And I’m hoping that having a Stand-alone AppStore would entice developers to build for the platform.
 
Rebooting my phone seems to have fix the notification issues. Seems to be running solid so far. Have to say that all the BETA's have been surprisingly good. Running macOS 10.15, tvOS 13, iOS 13, iPadOS 13 and watchOS 6 and they all feel snappy, fluid and without any major bugs that I have encountered so far. Can't really remember any BETA1's of a new major releasing being this good.
 
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Being able to install an app without the phone has little use to me. Will it do updates to the watch OS without the phone?

If they could just make the process up updating faster!!!

No giant leap here but still love my AW.
 
Can't really verify until the next BETA get's released so I actually have a update to update to, but you can now initiate software updates directly on the Watch so it seems like you will be able to do it directly over WiFi.
 
Have they changed DND to work as it does on iOS?

On 5 and below DND will stop all notifications from even appearing in the notification centre meaning after you’ve finished you need to pull out your phone to check.

I don’t understand why they just can’t be sent to the notification centre silently like how it works on iOS.
 
I have installed Apple Watch OS 6 on my Apple Watch Series 4 and it’s totally unresponsive, seems not to be connected to my iPhone. None of the buttons is working right now, the only thing I can do is to change faces and that’s all. I’ve already tried to hard reset my iPhone and Apple Watch with no success, also unpair several times also not getting resolved this issue. Is someone who knows how to fix this? Tia
 
Can anyone with the Beta say if “Find My Friends” is still a thing on the AW? I use it on the AW all the time and believe I read somewhere that Siri support would be coming to the AW for “Find My Friends.” Was really hoping the new “Find My” app was there instead but haven’t seen any evidence of it. Would be nice to locate my phone from the watch as well in case I lose it since my phone and watch are the only 2 devices I carry on a regular basis.
 
Ludatyk said:
As of now, no. Find My App is only on the iPhone, iPad and Mac.

It might be available in future betas, but not at this moment on the Apple Watch.
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Thanks.... Bummer. Not everyone carries around an iPad and/or Mac, or has access to one at any given moment. Lost phone recovery is very time sensitive and nothing sticks to you like a watch.

Is “Find My Friends” still on the watch?
 
I've always wondered why you need an iPhone to use Apple Watch.... I mean yeah it's to sell more iPhone's but is there any reason why you couldn't use it with an iPad instead? Especially the cellular watch.

Seems like everything in the Watch iPhone app could be done on an iPad?
 
MrGimper said:
I've always wondered why you need an iPhone to use Apple Watch.... I mean yeah it's to sell more iPhone's but is there any reason why you couldn't use it with an iPad instead? Especially the cellular watch.

Seems like everything in the Watch iPhone app could be done on an iPad?
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Until the cellular watch existed (and even now with the current gen non cellular watches) the watch relies on the phone for its internet connection. Many iPads aren’t cellular and don’t have an always on internet connection. Additionally people tend to always have their phone with them so it will always or nearly always be available for the watch to use. iPads are often left at home when people go out rendering all but the cellular watches nearly useless.

It certainly looks like they are moving away from this phone dependency with the App Store and software updates on the watch itself, especially with the cellular watch, but for the older non cellular watches I think that the experience is better with a phone as the companion device.

I’m sure there are some people with cellular iPads and people who carry those iPads with them all of the time and that would work with a watch as well as a phone does but that’s not a typical use case.
 
thunder025 said:
In case anyone was wondering. No new watch faces for Series 2 on WatchOS 6 beta 1.

EDIT: I restarted my phone, what I said above is not entirely true.

Numerals Duo and Numerals Mono are available.
Click to expand...


Same with Series 3
[doublepost=1559750326][/doublepost]Installed last night, don’t see calculator or noise app or complications. Cycle tracking and Rain complications are there though. Runs smooth overall on Series 3
 
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