Last year’s WWDC brought major updates to the Apple Watch’s hardware, including the introduction of the extra-durable Apple Watch Ultra. This year, it’s software, with WatchOS 10.
During today’s WWDC keynote, Apple revealed that 2023 will bring similarly major updates to the wearable’s software when watchOS 10 arrives in the fall.
Apple WatchOS 10 features
Before we drill in, here are all the new WatchOS 10 features.
Watch Widgets provide more info at a glance
The Apple Watch has always offered several highly-configurable watch faces for those wanting to stay on top of upcoming appointments, the weather, missed messages, and their level of physical activity, all without having to reach for their iPhones. With watchOS 10, Apple is going to make it even easier for Apple Watch users to quickly access information besides what time it is.
Widgets are coming to watchOS 10, but instead of cluttering up the home screen as enlarged complications where users may have pictures of family or even a pet, they will be available through a Smart Stack that’s accessible by simply turning the Digital Crown while on the home screen, which previously did nothing. Using machine learning, the most relevant widgets will come up first in the Smart Stack, such as a running countdown timer, or an impending calendar appointment.
The widgets stack will also feature shortcuts for commonly used complications that some users already regularly use on the home screen, like timers, the stopwatch, and music playback controls. The idea seems to be to help declutter the Apple Watch’s home screen, which will undoubtedly also serve to improve battery life.
Redesigned apps for bigger screens
Like the ever-growing iPhone, the screen size on the Apple Watch has been slowly increasing over the years, both via physically larger wearables like the Apple Watch Series 8, and by the shrinking size of the bezel around the display. Apple Watch Ultra users have been particularly frustrated with apps and user interface elements that don’t yet take advantage of its 1.92-inch display, but that’s slated to change with watchOS 10. Apple is promising a redesigned interface for apps like Weather, Stocks, Maps, and Messages that provide more information on screen at a glance, which will also be available to apps from third-party developers, like the NBA’s app, which is able to squeeze more information about the current games being played on screen.
Improved Fitness and Health tracking
Apple has found a lucrative niche with positioning its devices as ways to improve a user’s health, with the Apple Watch leading the way. So it comes as no surprise that watchOS 10 will introduce several fitness and health tracking improvements including the ability to sync its Cycling app to Bluetooth biking cadence sensors while the cyclist sees real-time information about their power output and heart rate. The Apple Watch’s Hiking app is getting updates for its compass and map features, showing the last known location the device had cellular connectivity as an automatic waypoint, and a Last Emergency Call Waypoint showing where the SOS emergency rescue feature can be activated.
For activities not already tracked by the Apple Watch’s included apps, Apple is introducing new APIs for workouts with watchOS 10, giving developers access to the high-frequency motion data captured by the Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Utlra’s motion sensors.
The Apple Watch will track mental health, too
To date, Apple’s devices have mostly focused on tracking a user’s physical health, but with watchOS 10 and iOS 17, a new Mindfulness app is being introduced to help track a user’s mental health. There are no sensors that can automatically detect a user’s mood or feelings, so the Mindfulness app will do so using manual feedback from the user, having them answer specific questions using sliders that emphasize how they’re feeling and the strength of their emotions, instead of just yes or no responses. Designed to be discreet, the app also allows Apple Watch users to “turn the Digital Crown to scroll through engaging, multidimensional shapes to choose how they are feeling, select what is having the biggest impact on them, and describe their feelings.”
New Watch Faces featuring an iconic very good boy
Apple Watch users are more or less forced to rely on Apple for new watch faces, but thankfully the company throws its users a few new options with every update. For watchOS 10, two new watch faces are being introduced, one called Palette which “depicts time in a wide variety of colors using three distinct overlapping layers, and as the time changes, the colors on the display also shift,” and one featuring another iconic cartoon character: Snoopy. The Peanuts star, along with his sidekick, Woodstock, interact with each other and the hands on the watch face, and they’ll even react to the weather conditions, or get active when the user starts a workout.
Watch FaceTime video messages without your iPhone
As part of the upcoming iOS 17 update, iPhone users will soon be able to record video voicemail messages after trying to FaceTime a contact who doesn’t answer. With watchOS 10, Apple Watch users will be able to watch those FaceTime video messages right on their wrist.
Head over here to see a summary of everything Apple announced at WWDC 2023.
This article has been updated since it was first published.