Last week, Apple presented new versions of operating systems for its devices at its opening Keynote for this year's WWDC. As usual, immediately after the end of the Keynote, the developer beta versions of all these systems were released, and not only the developers themselves, but also a number of journalists and ordinary users started testing. Of course, we also tried the new watchOS 7 operating system. What impressions did he leave on us?
You can find reviews on the Jablíčkára website iPadOS 14, macOS 11.0 BigSur, now the operating system for Apple Watch is also coming. Unlike this year's versions of other operating systems, in the case of watchOS we did not see any significant changes in terms of design, Apple only came with one new watch face compared to the previous version of watchOS, which is Chronograf Pro.
Sleep tracking and sleep mode
As far as the new features are concerned, most of us are probably most curious about the sleep tracking feature – for this purpose, users had to use one of the third-party apps until now. Like these apps, the new native feature in watchOS 7 will give you information about the time you spent in bed, help you better plan your sleep and prepare for sleep itself, and offer customization options for each day. To help you sleep better, you can, for example, set Do Not Disturb mode and display dimming on your Apple Watch before going to sleep. This feature serves its basic purpose perfectly well and is basically nothing to fault, but I can imagine that many users will remain loyal to tried and tested third-party apps, whether for features, information provided, or user interface.
Hand washing and other functions
Another new feature is the Handwashing function – as the name suggests, the purpose of this new feature is to help users wash their hands better and more efficiently, a topic that was discussed very intensively at least in the first half of this year. The Handwashing function uses the microphone and motion sensor of your watch to automatically recognize hand washing. As soon as it is detected, a timer will start that counts down twenty seconds for you - after that, the watch will praise you for washing your hands well. Some users report that the feature doesn't activate 100% of the time, but it worked reliably in our testing - the question is more how much users will actually find it useful. Smaller improvements include the addition of dance to the native Exercise app, the ability to monitor battery health, and the ability to use optimized battery charging, along with a 100% battery notification.
Force Touch
Some Apple Watch users, including our editors, are reporting that Force Touch has completely disappeared from watchOS 7. If you are not familiar with this name, it is 3D Touch on the Apple Watch, i.e. a function that allows the display to respond to the force of pressing the display. Apple decided to end Force Touch support most likely due to the arrival of the Apple Watch Series 6, which most likely will not have this option. However, some users, on the other hand, report that they have not lost Force Touch on their watches - so this is most likely (hopefully) just a bug and Apple will not simply cut off Force Touch on older watches. If he did, it certainly wouldn't be pleasant - after all, we didn't get to remove 3D Touch on older iPhones either. Let's see what Apple comes up with, hopefully it will benefit users.
Stability and durability
Unlike last year's watchOS 6, even in the developer version, watchOS 7 works without any problems, reliably, stable and fast, and all functions work as they should. Nevertheless, we would recommend especially less experienced users to wait - this year, for the first time, Apple will also release a public beta version of its operating system for the Apple Watch, so you won't have to wait until September.
The Handwashing function is only suitable for showing to friends and then turning it off in a hurry, otherwise it is annoying. He doesn't know if I'm washing my hands or the coffee spoon and constantly reminds me that I should wash the spoon for 20 seconds.
:))
And any news, for example, in "Exercise"? E.g. it would be nice if the pause feature, which is only available for running, was also possible for cycling. Most third-party applications allow this, they do not measure, for example, when the speed drops below 5 km/h. And maybe add downhill skiing with recognition of when I'm going down (and applying power) and when I'm going up the cable car. And then distinguish this as a result, similar to, for example, the "Slopes" application.