Connect Apple Watch to a treadmill at Planet Fitness, and other exercise equipment, for more accurate health data inside the Fitness and Health apps on your iPhone. After all, if you’re working out, you want to make sure your Apple Watch gives you credit for it.
Here’s how.
Apple took the wraps off watchOS 26 on Monday, showcasing its new Liquid Glass design and other key new features. The Workout app gets the biggest makeover, featuring a new Workout Buddy that delivers personalised attaboy messages when you need a little extra mojo.
Other apps get improvements in watchOS 26, too, and a long-missing app finally makes an appearance.
The upcoming version of watchOS reportedly will shake up the Apple Watch’s Control Center by adding support for third-party widgets. Right now, it only surfaces toggles for Wi-Fi, Battery, Focus mode, and other system settings.
However, like the iPhone, Apple supposedly will open the watchOS Control Center and allow for greater customization.
While your Apple Watch excels at measuring some fitness metrics, when it comes to calorie counts, it struggles and flails like me on a too-rare gym visit. A new study raises questions about how much trust you can place in data gathered by the smartwatch.
Basically, Apple Watch is great for measuring heart rate and counting steps, but not so much for tallying calories burned. It’s a common problem with consumer-grade health devices.
There’s less than a week to go until WWDC, the annual developer fest where Apple takes the wraps off its latest OS releases. While the rumor mill has mostly focused on iPhone this year, there’s plenty for Apple Watch fans to look forward to.
Rumor has it that the next big watch update — possibly dubbed “watchOS 26,” in line with Apple’s rumored naming convention shakeup — will get a fresh new user interface, Apple Intelligence, conversation transcriptions and a smart AI coach that delivers tailored health and fitness advice.
Let’s roll up our sleeves and take a closer look at what’s in store for Apple Watch.
A tiny new silicon micro-speaker could transform future wearables — like Apple Watch and other smartwatches — by dramatically reducing thickness while improving audio quality, xMEMS Labs said Tuesday. It unveiled Sycamore-W, an ultra-thin micro speaker engineered for wrist-worn devices. It could make more room in devices as new features like AI interactions become more prevalent.
“Sycamore-W redefines audio for smart watches, combining compact design with robust performance to meet the demands of next-generation wearables,” said Mike Housholder, xMEMS VP of Marketing and Business Development. “As the wrist becomes a key interface for ears-free, hands-free AI interactions, Sycamore-W empowers manufacturers to deliver premium audio in smaller, lighter more durable devices.”
The Apple Watch Translate app can help you quickly speak in a different language while you’re abroad, right from your wrist. Translate between 20 different languages by speaking out loud, play translations out of your Apple Watch speaker and build a list of favorite phrases you can play instantly.
Apple Translate doesn’t support as many languages as the more popular Google Translate — but Google doesn’t have an app for the Apple Watch. The fastest and most convenient way to speak another language from your wrist is with Apple’s app.
Keep reading or watch our video here.
May 2, 1995: Apple enters the wearables space with its first watch. However, the first Apple watch is a timepiece with no fitness-tracking tech, no on-screen notifications and a whole lot of 1990s styling.
The device comes two decades before wearables actually will become a thing. A regular wristwatch, the freebie gadget is available via a special mail-in offer to Mac OS upgraders.
You can manually add a workout to Apple Fitness+ if you need to log some exercise while you weren’t wearing your Apple Watch. Maybe your watch ran out of battery at the start of your run, or maybe you simply forgot to turn it on. By adding a missing workout, you can give yourself credit for the exercise you did.
This power could be used for evil as well as good. You could, hypothetically, say you ran a three-hour marathon every day last week. But you would only be fooling yourself.
To find out how to add a workout to Apple Fitness+, watch our short video or keep reading below.
Confused about which Apple Watch to buy? With Apple Watch Ultra 2, Apple Watch Series 10 and Apple Watch SE currently vying for your wallet’s attention, it all depends on what you want out of a smartwatch — and how much you’re willing to pay.
This buying guide breaks down what each Apple Watch does best, helping you match your needs (and budget) with the right device, whether you’re a fitness enthusiast, an outdoor adventurer or simply looking for a reliable, everyday smartwatch.
There are a few useful things you can do with an old Apple Watch after you upgrade to a new one. You might think of the Apple Watch as being a disposable product — because who would wear two watches? But there are actually quite a few surprising use cases for having a daily Apple Watch and a secondary watch.
Keep reading or watch our latest video.
The Apple Watch repeatedly saves lives around the world, thanks to its health monitoring features and emergency functions.
Here’s a comprehensive roundup of some of the most notable ways Apple Watch has saved people’s lives. From fit teenagers with undiagnosed health problems to car crash victims in danger of drowning, Apple’s smartwatch helps people cheat death in remarkable ways.
April 24, 2015: The original Apple Watch launch means consumers, who endured a seven-month wait after the device’s unveiling at a keynote the previous September, can finally strap an Apple wearable onto their wrists.
Apple CEO Tim Cook describes the smartwatch as the “next chapter in Apple history.” Behind the scenes, however, the first Apple Watch launch is a moment long in the making.
For the 10th anniversary of its launch, we compiled over a decade of Apple Watch history into a quick timeline. Starting with the original three collections — including models in solid 18 karat gold — all the way to today’s far more advanced (and sensible) Apple Watch Series 10 and Ultra 2.
The Apple Watch was the first major product introduction of Tim Cook’s reign as Apple CEO. There was immense pressure on Apple to prove that it could still innovate without Steve Jobs. While the Apple Watch wasn’t as flashy as the iPhone and iPad, it’s grown into an incredible business rife with breakthrough technology, in one of the most physically constrained form factors yet.
With Global Close Your Rings Day upon us, Apple Watch owners around the world showed off the pins they earned Thursday by participating in Apple’s fitness-oriented special event. The day marks a decade of Apple Watch Activity rings helping keep users active for their health.
“Apple Watch has changed the way people think about, monitor and engage with their fitness and health,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, in a press release Monday announcing the event. “A decade ago, we introduced Activity rings — and since then, Apple Watch has grown to offer an extensive set of features designed to empower every user. People write to us almost every day sharing how Apple Watch has made a difference in their life, from motivating them to move more throughout the day, to changing the trajectory of their health.”
Apple Watch does so much that it’s possible for some of its handy tricks to get lost. You can’t call these three Apple Watch tips marquee features. But they can make life just a bit more convenient.
Here’s how to turn on the flashlight, find your iPhone and silence alarms on your iPhone from an Apple Watch.
It’s time to break the habit of doing everything on your iPhone while overlooking what’s often a better alternative. Consider the Apple Watch pros: It’s a very capable little computer, and it’s right there on your wrist. Odds are you aren‘t taking advantage of half of what it can do for you.
Here are the simple tasks I used to do on my iPhone that are now easier because I do them on my Apple Watch. And all without needing any third-party software. The only apps required come preinstalled on every Apple Watch.
Closing your three Apple Watch Activity rings can become such an obsession that it’s easy to forget why you’re doing it. But what does it really mean to close an Apple Watch ring? The Stand ring seems obvious. We all know we shouldn’t sit around on our asses all day. But how about the Move and Exercise rings, which sound so similar?
Actually, no. The Apple Watch’s Move and Exercise rings are very different, and understanding that difference is massively important if you want to achieve your fitness goals.
Odds are, you’re not taking advantage of all the useful things your Apple Watch can do for you. That’s because we all tend to grab our iPhone, even when it’s not the best option. I started using my smartwatch much more after I began asking myself one simple question whenever I grab my iPhone: “Would this be easier on my Apple Watch?”
You should try it, too.
In a harrowing incident off the coast of Australia, an experienced swimmer’s routine morning body surfing session turned potentially deadly after riptides took him out to sea. Fortunately, 49-year-old Rick Shearman remembered the SOS feature on his Apple Watch Ultra. Using it led to a dramatic helicopter rescue that saved his life on July 13, 2024.
Update: Apple Australia’s YouTube channel posted a new video Thursday, below, dramatizing Shearman’s rescue. It recreates his desperate SOS call, his struggles amid huge swells and the dramatic relief when the rescue helicopter appears overhead. The video only lasts a minute, but by the end, with music swelling, it might bring you to tears.
We hear plenty of stories about Apple Watch saving lives, but they rarely if ever involve cancer — until now. According to news from down under, Apple Watch’s persistent alerts about an elevated heart rate helped save a New Zealand psychiatrist’s life, leading to a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia just hours before potential organ failure.
Apple Watch users can now install watchOS 11.4, an update that improves wake-up alarms and makes a few other tweaks.
Apple announced on Monday that the update was available, but didn’t actually release it until Tuesday.
Amazon is famous for its Prime Day and Black Friday deals, but it also runs the Amazon Big Spring Sale, on now. It ends Monday, March 31, unless extended. That wouldn’t be too surprising, given that the mega retailer often extends its sales. So it’s another chance for you to score savings on all sorts of Apple gear, including MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini, iPad Pro, iPad Air, Apple Watch, AirPods Pro 2 and more. Click on our posts to all the best deals, below.
Apple and the National Hockey League forged a partnership that puts Apple Watch at the center of game officiating, according to reports Friday. The collaboration introduced a custom-built NHL Watch Comms app designed specifically to assist on-ice officials during games, and it will see its first outdoor use Saturday.
“We wanted to make sure that the officials had really good awareness and were able to keep their eyes on play,” explains Andres de Corral, vice president of digital services at Presidio, the technology firm that developed the app. “So by enabling haptic responses, we were able to provide non-visual cues to the officials.”
Apple’s comprehensive new health study, its largest yet, investigates how its mobile devices and other technology can improve users’ physical and mental well-being, the iPhone giant said Wednesday. The Apple Health Study, now available through the just-updated Research app, comes in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a Harvard Medical School teaching affiliate.
“We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of how technology can improve our understanding of human health,” said cardiologist and Harvard Medical School professor Calum MacRae, M.D., Ph.D., the study’s principal investigator. “We are excited to be part of the Apple Health Study, as it will continue to explore connections across different areas of health using technology that so many people carry with them every day.”