ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Apple is slated to announce new {hardware} subsequent month.
- Notable Apple Watch updates may very well be coming, in keeping with rumors.
- Blood strain monitoring and sleep scores may very well be on the way in which.
We’re a month away from Apple’s annual September {hardware} occasion, the place the tech large publicizes its newest releases, from iPhones and iPads to AirPods and, my favourite, Apple Watches.
Rumors are swirling about what’s to return on the following era Apple Watch, the Apple Watch Sequence 11.
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Apple’s newest smartwatch software program, WatchOS 26, offers us just a few glimpses at what the Sequence 11 is able to. A brand new Exercise Buddy function guides Apple Watch customers via their exercises with encouragements, private file bulletins, and progress stories. Apple’s new Liquid Glass show makes widgets, messages, and apps seem clear on the watch and mimics the show of Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional headset. Exterior of these software program updates, I am protecting my eyes and ears open for rumors, murmurs, and whispers on Apple’s subsequent Apple Watch.
Here is what we have heard up to now.
Launch timeline
Apple traditionally unveils its new merchandise across the second week of September, and we anticipate this yr’s occasion will likely be no totally different. After the corporate’s product bulletins, we will anticipate a subsequent rollout and cargo of the brand new gadgets round per week or two later, as has been the case previously.
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Sleep scores, finally
Your sleep may very well be getting graded quickly if Apple provides sleep scores to its subsequent Apple Watch. MacRumor‘s Steve Moser discovered a “Watch Focus Rating” and Apple Watch icon with an “84” rating inside the code of WatchOS 26 that hints at Apple’s first foray into algorithmically monitoring and rating time spent and high quality of sleep.
That is one function I have been ready for on the Apple Watch and have loved utilizing on a number of different smartwatches and rings. The difficulty with sleep scores, I’ve realized via testing a number of sleep trackers myself, is the truth that it is not an goal datapoint and may differ based mostly on the system. Once I was testing out three wearables directly, I might typically obtain three totally different, albeit intently associated, sleep scores, which proved to me {that a} sleep rating function cannot be completely and fully goal.
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As a result of most of the well being options Apple launches are backed by a bevy of medical analysis or cleared by the FDA — Apple’s sleep apnea detection function, for instance — I am curious how a sleep rating function would look and work on the smartwatch, and the way Apple will give it its personal voice or twist.
New processor
We are going to in all probability see a brand new processor on the Sequence 11 and Extremely 3, given the truth that Apple upgrades its processor with each smartwatch launch.
Satellite tv for pc connectivity for Extremely 3
In line with serial Apple leaker Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, satellite tv for pc connectivity and 5G help may very well be coming to Apple’s rugged Apple Watch Extremely 3, although they might skip the Watch 11.
Revamped Well being app
Apple has been engaged on giving its Well being app a facelift.
In line with Gurman, Apple has been engaged on a serious Well being app revamp, code-named Mission Mulberry, that may convey AI suggestions and actionable well being and health insights to customers. Essentially the most notable addition comes within the type of an AI well being coach that would “replicate, no less than to some extent, an actual physician,” Gurman writes. The well being coach would use the information it collects from Apple’s wearables or third-party apps to offer suggestions and insights. The AI agent is being educated utilizing knowledge from physicians on employees, Gurman stories.
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Apple has leveraged AI already for Exercise Buddy, a function that gives stats, exercise metrics, and encouragement when a person logs a exercise on the watch.
Blood strain monitoring
The Apple Watch might see a extremely coveted function applied, however whether or not it is applied in each the Sequence 11 and Extremely Watch 3, or one or the opposite, is unknown. Rumors a couple of new blood strain monitoring sensor for simple monitoring with out an armband are swirling. Gurman wrote that Apple was ramping up the rollout of the function, nevertheless it looks as if blood strain monitoring has run into many hurdles.
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