At the WWDC 2019 event held in San Diego, Apple announced the latest of its wearable operating system, the watchOS 6, which is coming to all compatible Apple Watches by the end of this year.
The new OS is revising the look of the watches and it comes with a number of new watchfaces such as a gradient face, a big numerals face, a new digital face, a California style, and solar face. It is up to you to customize those and add any complications that you may need.
In addition to the faces, the company is also bringing three new apps to the new OS. These are: Audiobooks, Voice Memos, and Calculator with Tips option. Audiobooks app allows you to directly listen to audios purchased on Apple Books on the watch; while the new Calculator app helps with tip calculations and splitting checks right from your wrist.
The interesting bit here is that these watch apps can run independently on the without a companion iPhone app. Apple is finally allowing developers to release similar independent apps which will be delivered via a special version of the App Store coming with the watchOS 6.
Apple is making new APIs such as Streaming Audio API available to developers. This will allow the Apple Watch apps to stream audio to a user’s wireless headphones, and there will be no need to have their iPhone around.
If you regularly use your watch for fitness and health functions, they are also getting updated. Apple is making activity trends available for your Activity app. There is also a new Hearing aid option which will use the microphone to listen for loud environments and warn you about harmful sound levels.
There is also a cycle tracking option coming as part of the Health app on both the watch and iPhone which can give women the ability to log important information related to their menstrual cycles and see predicted timing for their next period and fertile window.
