watchOS 9 is available today
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UPDATE September 12, 2022
New watch faces, an enhanced Workout app, sleep stages, a first-of-its-kind AFib History feature, a redesigned Compass app, and an all-new Medications app are here
watchOS 9 brings new features, enhanced apps, and more personalization to Apple Watch.
Apple today launched watchOS 9, which brings new features and enhanced experiences to the world’s leading wearable operating system. Apple Watch users now have more watch faces to choose from, with richer complications that provide more information and opportunity for personalization. In the updated Workout app, advanced metrics, views, and training experiences inspired by high-performing athletes help users take their workouts to the next level. The Sleep app includes sleep stages, and for users diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib), the new FDA-cleared AFib History feature provides deeper insights into a user’s condition. The new Medications app makes it easy for users to conveniently and discreetly manage, understand, and track medications.
New and Expanded Watch Faces
watchOS 9 introduces four new faces: Lunar, which depicts the relationship between the Gregorian calendar and lunar calendar, used in many cultures such as Chinese, Hebrew, and Islamic; Playtime, a dynamic piece of art that’s unique to Apple Watch and created in collaboration with artist Joi Fulton; Metropolitan, a classic, type-driven watch face where the style changes as the Digital Crown is turned; and Astronomy, an original face that has been completely remastered and features a new star map and current cloud data.
The update brings enhanced and modernized complications to some of the most classic watch faces, such as Utility, Simple, and Activity Analog, along with background color editing for Modular, Modular Compact, and X-Large for additional personalization. The Portraits face showcases the depth effect on more photos, including cats, dogs, and landscapes, while Chinese scripts have been added as options for California and Typograph watch faces. For the first time, any Apple Watch user running watchOS 9 — even those without a Nike model — will be able to access all the Nike watch faces, including the fresh colors coming to the Bounce face.
Focus now allows users to select an Apple Watch face to automatically appear when they start a specific Focus on iPhone, such as the Photos face during a Personal Focus, helping users stay in the moment.
Workout App Updates
The Workout app, one of the most popular apps on Apple Watch, has been updated to provide richer metrics for measuring performance, as well as new training experiences to help users reach their fitness goals. The familiar in-session display now uses the Digital Crown to rotate between easy-to-read Workout Views, so users can see important metrics for different training styles. Heart Rate Zones, utilizing personalized Health data, can be used to monitor the intensity of a workout. For interval training, the Workout app introduces Custom Workouts, which can be used to create a structured workout that includes work and recovery intervals.
