Apple announces watchOS 11 with a new training mode and live activities

Apple just announced watchOS 11, the latest version of its smartwatch platform, at WWDC 2024. Developers will be able to start tinkering with it starting today, while a public beta will arrive sometime next month. As in past years, a final public release is expected for sometime this fall alongside the new Apple Watches.

As always, each version of watchOS comes with new health features. This year, we’re getting a training mode that takes personal data and metrics to see how the intensity and duration of workouts impacts your body over time. You’ll also be able to include an “effort rating” for workouts. This mode also gives you insights into whether you should push harder or maybe take a step back. And yes, that includes rest days.

Folks who have been clamoring for rest days on the Apple Watch will also be chuffed to know getting sick or injured will no longer break streaks. Specifically, you can now hit pause on Activity Rings. You’ll also be able to adjust your Activity Ring goals based on the day of the week.

There will also be a new Vitals app that gives you a glance at “important health metrics,” and new cycle tracking features for pregnancy, which can show you gestational age. The app will also highlight when certain metrics, like heart rate, are outside of your typical range.

With watchOS 11, Live Activities will also be coming to the Apple Watch. There will also be new safety features, so if you take late-night runs, your friends will be able to keep tabs on you. For workouts, this will happen automatically. This is similar to the safety features introduced on the Pixel Watch 2 last year.

Last year, Apple introduced the smart stack as part of a major redesign that put widgets front and center. watchOS 11 will add to this, surfacing translation or weather widget when it thinks you need it.

Surprisingly, there weren’t many new watchfaces this year. Instead, Apple emphasized a new redesigned Photos watchface.

This year will be the 10th anniversary for the Apple Watch, and there have been murmurs that Apple may go all out on a special “X” version like it did for the iPhone. That said, software updates aren’t always indicative of what hardware changes may be in store. For instance, Apple billed last year’s watchOS 10 as a “milestone” update after it revamped the UI to focus more on widgets, but it held little bearing on the Series 9’s actual hardware.