Apple announces watchOS 11 and a new training mode

Apple just announced watchOS 11, the latest version of its smartwatch platform, at WWDC 2024. Developers will be able to start tinkering around 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 generally comes with new health features. This year, we’re getting a training mode that takes personal data and metrics to see how the intensity of and duration of workouts impacts your body over time. This mode also gives you insights into whether you should push harder or maybe take a step back. And yes, that includes rest days.

There will also be a new Vitals app that gives you a glance at “important health metrics” at a glance. There will also be new cycle tracking features for pregnancy, which can show you gestational age.

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. This is similar to the safety features introduced on the Pixel Watch 2 last year.

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.