Apple today introduced watchOS 5 with new updates including updated algorithms for health and fitness, a walkie-talkie feature, third-party app support, and a better way to talk to Siri.
Fitness updates: A new workout type for yoga including heart-rate monitoring and tracking, and another for hiking that helps to measure pace and heart-rate. Can also now set a custom pace alert, and runners will also get cadence so they can see current steps per minute. Watch will also detect when you’ve ended your workout and suggest you stop it if you’ve forgotten.
Walkie talkie: This new feature brings press-to-talk communication to Watch owners. When a user contacts a friend via Watch-to-Watch communications the recipient will feel a haptic vibration and hear a beep sound, instead of a phone call. Watch-to-watch connection works over wifi in real-time.
Siri update: The new watchOS 5 will support Siri’s Shortcut app, and users will no longer have to activate Siri with a voice prompt as lifting your Watch to your face will automatically cause Siri to listen for a command.
And, now for the first time you can use 3rd party apps on the official Apple Watch face. Speaking of Watch faces, today the Cupertino company also showed off a new one for pride month:
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