Tomas Chlebek Today's watchOS 4 will be an evolution—incremental, but essential to the overall evolution of the platform. It will bring new watch faces, deepen Siri integration and expand the capabilities of the Activity, Exercise and Music apps.
New dials
watchOS 4 will expand the range of watch faces by another five. Three of them are very similar to the well-known faces with Mickey Mouse and Minnie, but this time they have characters closer to Apple from Toy Story – Woody, Jessie and Buzz the Rocketeer. Another one, also focused on looks rather than functionality, is the Kaleidoscope, whose name says it all.
But the most interesting new watch face is undoubtedly Siri. This once again expands the concept of a watch as a tool for orientation in time, because not only the hours and minutes, but also information about the user's daily schedule are continuously changing on it. In the morning, for example, it will display information about transport and, based on it, the time required to get to work, in the afternoon an arranged meeting for lunch and in the evening the time of sunset.
The list of applications, of which Siri will display the most important on the watch face in clear tabs, includes Activity, Alarms, Breathing, Calendar, Maps, Reminders, Wallet and News (news, still not available in the Czech Republic).
There will also be new complications such as Now Playing and Apple News.
Activity and Exercise
The Activity app focuses more on coaching users in watchOS 4. It recommends ways to reach the set goals or meet the same ones as the previous day, continuously informs them about the activities needed to close the circles for daily physical performance and suggests individual monthly challenges. It will also be better to listen to music during exercise, or more precisely, it will be more in line with the user's momentary desires, since his most recent playlists from Apple Music will be automatically uploaded to the Apple Watch.
The update of the Exercise application will please more demanding users the most, as it contains new heart rate and movement measurement algorithms for high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and the ability to quickly switch between several exercises, for example for triathlon preparation. Also improved is swim monitoring, which tracks different styles, sets and rest between them.
A very interesting new feature in watchOS 4 is also GymKit, thanks to which it will be possible to connect the Apple Watch via NFC with compatible fitness devices such as treadmills, elliptical trainers, exercise bikes and climbing trainers from manufacturers such as Life Fitness, Technogym, Matrix, Cybex, Schwinn, etc. This will enable both devices to more efficiently and accurately record and process data on the user's physical performance
P2P payments and new straps
As Apple Pay is not yet available in the Czech Republic, this function is currently rather an interesting prospect into the (perhaps near) future. Both watchOS 4 and iOS 11 will make it possible to send money using Apple Pay to anyone with an Apple Pay account either through the Messages application or by transferring directly from one device to another by bringing them closer. The money in the Apple Pay account can be used either for other Apple Pay payments or, of course, transferred to the classic bank account of the given user.
watchOS 4 will be available for any Apple Watch connected to an iOS device running iOS 11, i.e. iPhone 5S and later, coming out in the fall.
Apple didn't reveal it during the presentation, but several new Apple Watch bands have also appeared in its online store. New sports straps in fog blue, dandelion and flamingo are available for 1 crowns. Only at Apple can you buy the Pride Edition iridescent nylon strap, and the sunflower variant with the classic buckle is also now sold. In the Apple Online Store, new colors from the Nike edition were also introduced some time ago: light purple/white, purple/plum, orbit/gamma blue and obsidian/black.
tvOS
Apple TV did not receive a major update this time, but perhaps more interesting than that is the announcement of the establishment of Apple's cooperation with Amazon and thus the arrival of the Amazon Prime Video streaming service to Apple TV. Tim Cook only added to the announcement: "You'll be hearing a lot more about tvOS later this year."
Until I can add and set my own watch faces, which is one of the three useful things about the iWatch, arrogant Apple can keep their watch.