It’s been only a few days since the most recent watchOS update, but we’re already looking forward to its new version—watchOS 7. The Apple Watch is one of my favourite Apple products, so it probably comes as no surprise that I practically jump at any news about potential watchOS 7 features. If you share my enthusiasm, then read on because I’ve compiled all the exciting Apple watchOS 7 rumours I could get my hands on.
New Kids Mode
Something that’ll probably make parents ecstatic are the new parental control features we’re anticipating. For one, we finally might be able to connect multiple Apple Watches to the same iPhone and not be restricted to using just one at a time. This will help manage their kids’ Apple Watch without having to pair with a secondary iPhone. What’s more, a new feature called “SchoolTime” might be present, allowing parents to control which apps and complications their kids are able to access during certain times of the day.
Health & Activity Tracking
According to leaked iOS 14 code analysed by 9to5Mac, new watchOS 7 features will include new health features that will make tracking our health levels with our Apple Watches even easier. Similar to its heart rate detection and notifications feature, watchOS 7 will, for the first time, bring the ability to keep track of blood oxygen levels to our Apple Watches and send us notifications when they fall to dangerous levels.
We can also expect an update to the electrocardiogram (ECG) feature, which currently shows inconclusive results for heart rates between 100 to 120 beats per minute. What I’m most excited about, however, is that we might finally be getting an in-built sleep tracker—something we’ve all been waiting for!
Watch Faces
No watchOS update is complete without new watch faces, and honestly we have a lot to look forward to this time. For one, we might finally be getting the option to share watch faces between Apple Watches. Apparently, we might be able to AirDrop them to each other or share them as individual files. Just imagine the possibilities!
Apple also might be introducing a tachymeter in the new version of the Infograph watch face, Infograph Pro (real original name, by the way), an element that many analogue watches have to measure speed. Another thing you can anticipate is using shared photo albums for watch faces, so multiple users can contribute photos to one album and create a rotation of personalised photo watch faces.
Besides these, we might also be getting new Apple Watch apps with the update, such as a fitness app, as well as new toggles for sleep mode and noise detection in the Control Centre. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to explore these features already!
Still, there’s some bleak news on the watchOS 7 compatibility front, since rumours say Apple will drop support for Apple Watch Series 2 and earlier. But then, with the new Apple Watch Series 6 coming soon as well, it might just be time for an upgrade.