watchOS is the mobile operating system of the Apple Watch, developed by Apple Inc. It is based on the iOS operating system and has many similar features.[1] It was released on April 24, 2015, along with the Apple Watch, the only device that runs watchOS. Its API is called WatchKit.
The second version, watchOS 2, included support for native third-party apps and other improvements.[2] It was previewed publicly at WWDC 2015 in June 2015, and released on September 21, 2015,[3][4] delayed seven days[5] by a bug that took longer than expected to fix.[6]
The third version, watchOS 3, was released in beta to developers at WWDC 2016 in June 2016, and released on September 13, 2016. It emphasizes better performance and includes new watch faces and stock apps, including Reminders, Breathe, and Home.
UI overview
The home screen (rendered by and also known as "Carousel")[1] is composed of circular application icons, which can be zoomed in and out with the Digital Crown and dragged and launched by touching the display. Many of the apps are miniaturized, simplified versions of their iOS counterparts.
Prior to watchOS 3, Glances provided fast access to a summarized view of the most popular native or third party applications used on Apple Watch.[7] The Glances view was opened with a swipe up gesture from the watch face screen. With watchOS 3, Glances has been replaced by a redesigned Control Center - much like the one in iOS. The friends menu, invoked with the side button, now acts as a dedicated dock for apps.
Different actions and options appear depending on if the user taps or deep presses which an Apple Watch detects with its pressure-sensitive (Force Touch) Display.[8]
Version history: Apple Watch
Legend:
Obsolete
Discontinued
Current
Beta
watchOS 1.x
| Table of versions: watchOS 1.x - Apple Watch |
| watchOS version |
iOS version based on |
Build |
Release date |
Features |
|
1.0 |
8.2[9] |
12S507 |
April 24, 2015 (2015-04-24) |
- Initial release on Apple Watch.
- UI
- Free floating Circular app icons in home screen.
- Zoom in with Digital Crown.
- 9 watch faces:[10]
- Chronograph
- Color
- Modular
- Utility
- Mickey Mouse
- Simple, Motion
- Solar
- Astronomy
- 20 stock apps:[11]
- Activity.
- Alarm.
- Calendar.
- Camera Remote.
- Mail.
- Maps.
- Messages.
- Music.
- Passbook.
- Phone.
- Photos.
- Remote.
- Settings.
- Siri.
- Stocks.
- Stopwatch.
- Timer.
- Weather.
- Workout.
- World Clock.
|
|
1.0.1[12] |
8.3[9] |
12S632 |
May 19, 2015 (2015-05-19) |
- Display support for new Emoji characters.
- Notification screen UI tweaks.
- Improved performance:
- Free floating Circular app icons in home screen.
- Zoom in with Digital Crown.
- Siri.
- Measuring stand activity.
- Calculating calories for indoor cycling and rowing workouts.
- Distance and pace during outdoor walk and run.
- Accessibility.
- Third party apps.
- Wrist Raise (more sensitive to real-life wrist raises).
- Additional language support:
- Brazilian Portuguese.
- Danish.
- Dutch.
- Swedish.
- Russian.
- Thai.
- Turkish.
- Security fixes[13]
|
|
watchOS 2.x
| Table of versions: watchOS 2.x - Apple Watch |
| watchOS version |
iOS version based on |
Build |
Release date |
Features |
|
2.0[14] |
9.0[9] |
13S344 |
September 21, 2015 (2015-09-21) |
- Nightstand Mode
- Allows the Apple Watch to act as a nightstand/alarm clock when the watch is charging at night and is turned horizontally while being placed on a table or other surface. Users can look at the time just by tapping the Digital Crown. When an alarm comes on, the Digital Crown can be used to snooze the alarm and the side button can be used to dismiss it.
- New Watch Faces and timekeeping features
- New 24 Hour Time-Lapse videos of Hong Kong, London, Mack Lake, New York, Shanghai, and Paris. These watch faces allow users to set the backgrounds of different cities as the user's watch face. As the day moves on, the watch face represents a different time of day in the city. For example, if it is nighttime, the watch will show a skyline of the city at night.
- Users can also set a particular photo or their entire photo gallery as the watch face, including support for Live Photos.
- Time Travel
- A new mode called Time Travel is available in which a user can use the digital crown to scroll forward/backward in time. This allows the user to see upcoming or past calendar events and alarms they have set.
- 9 new colors to customize watch face, and a new multicolor Modular face.
- Third party complications.
- Complications will be available from third-party developers which allow users to do things such as check flight status or charging level of electric cars
- Siri improvements
- Start a specific workout, get transit directions, ask to see a glance, looking up a word in the dictionary, and calculating a tip.
- Support for FaceTime audio calling and replying to email
- Support for HomeKit to control supported devices in your home using Siri
- New support for Austria, Belgium (French and Dutch), and Norway
- Activity and Workout improvements
- Workouts from third party apps on the Watch can be included in your Activity rings
- Activity rings, workouts, and achievements can be shared from the Activity app on iPhone
- Interactive achievements
- On-demand weekly summary
- Mute Activity notifications for one day
- Workouts saved automatically
- Apple Pay and Wallet improvements
- Support for Discover cards
- Support for rewards cards and store credit and debit cards
- Add passes to Wallet directly from third party apps on your Watch
- Wallet app replaces Passbook.
- Adds support in the UK.
- Friends and Digital Touch improvements
- Add more than 12 Friends directly from Apple Watch
- Multiple Friends' groups that you can name
- Send sketches using multiple colors. While drawing, a user can select from 7 different colors.
- New options for animated emoji
- Maps improvements
- Transit view, showing transit lines, stations and intermodal connections in select major cities
- View the list of directions for your current
- View station placards with departure information
- Music improvements
- New Beats 1 button to start playing the 24/7 radio station
- New Quick Play button to play a variety of songs from Apple Music
- Other improvements
- Reply to emails using dictation, emoji, or smart replies customized specifically for email
- Make and receive calls using FaceTime audio
- Support for Wi-Fi calling without iPhone in proximity on participating carriers
- Activation Lock prevents anyone from activating your Apple Watch without your Apple ID and password
- New developer capabilities including
- Native SDK to build faster and more powerful apps running natively on Apple Watch
- Access to accelerometer to more granularly track your motion
- Access to heart rate sensor for use during a workout
- Access to microphone and speaker to record and play audio
- Access to the Taptic Engine with 8 different types of Haptic feedback
- Access to the Digital Crown for more precise controls
- Ability to play video directly on Apple Watch
- Support for running apps without iPhone in proximity, including access to networking capabilities when connected to known Wi-Fi networks
- Complications on the watch face
- Workouts from apps can be counted towards Activity rings
- Workouts from apps can be included in Activity app on iPhone
- New support for system language in English (India), Finnish, Indonesian, Norwegian, and Polish
- New support for dictation in Dutch (Belgium), English (Ireland, Philippines, South Africa), French (Belgium), German (Austria), Spanish (Chile, Colombia)
- New support for smart replies in Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong, Taiwan), Danish, Dutch, English (New Zealand, Singapore), Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Thai
|
|
2.0.1[14] |
9.1 |
13S428 |
October 21, 2015 (2015-10-21) |
- Update contains new emoji characters and performance improvements.
- Fixes an issue that could cause software updates to stall
- Fixes issues that were impacting battery performance
- Resolves an issue that prevented a managed iPhone from syncing iOS Calendar events to Apple Watch
- Addresses an issue that could prevent location information from properly updating
- Fixes an issue that could cause Digital Touch to send from an email address instead of a phone number
- Addresses an issue that could cause instability when using a Live Photo as a watch face
- Resolves an issue that allows the sensors to stay on indefinitely when using Siri to measure heart rate
|
|
2.1[14] |
9.2 |
13S661 |
December 8, 2015 (2015-12-08) |
- Added support for system language in Arabic, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Malay, Portuguese (Portugal), and Vietnamese
- Added support for Right-to-Left user interface
- Added ability to switch between Latin and Hindi numerals for Arabic
- Added a new complication for Islamic and Hebrew Calendars
- Added support for Siri and dictation in Arabic (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates)
- Added support for dictation in English (Malaysia), Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Portuguese (Portugal), and Vietnamese
- Resolved an issue that could prevent events from updating in the Calendar complication
- Fixed an issue that prevent the time from displaying in Power Reserve mode
- Addressed issues that could prevent third party apps from launching
- Fixed an issue that could prevent third-party app icons from displaying correctly
- Fixed an issue that could cause instability when changing the system language
|
|
2.2[14] |
9.3 |
13V144 |
March 21, 2016 (2016-03-21) |
- Adds support for pairing multiple Apple Watches to one iPhone
- Adds Nearby in Maps to browse for places around you by category, including Food, Shopping, and more
- Adds support for system language in Catalan, Croatian, Slovak, Romanian, and Ukrainian
- Adds support for dictation in Catalan, Croatian, Slovak, Romanian, Ukrainian, and English (Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Indonesia)
- Adds support for Siri in Malay, Finnish, and Hebrew
- Increases frequency of background heart rate measurements when you are stationary
|
|
2.2.1[14] |
9.3.2 |
13V420 |
May 16, 2016 (2016-05-16) |
- General performance and stability improvements.
|
|
2.2.2[14] |
9.3.3 |
13V604 |
July 18, 2016 (2016-07-18) |
- General performance and stability improvements.
|
watchOS 3.x
| Table of versions: watchOS 3.x - Apple Watch |
| watchOS version |
iOS version based on |
Build |
Release date |
Features |
|
3.0 |
10.0 |
14S326 |
September 13, 2016 (2016-09-13) |
- Initial Release on Apple Watch Series 1 (Dual-Core) and Apple Watch Series 2 (Dual-Core)
- Performance and Navigation
- Provides faster access to apps by creating a dock which can accommodate up to 10 apps which will keep running in the background for instant access.
- The dock can be invoked using the side button next to the digital crown.
- Control Center
- Provides support for an all-new Control Center which can be invoked by sliding up from the bottom of the screen.
- New Watch Faces.
- Adds new watch faces and adds support for switching between them by swiping left/right from the edge of the watch screen.
- Activity/Workouts
- Adds support for sharing activity with friends using iMessage or other messaging platforms.
- Adds support for tracking movement of people in wheelchairs, displaying a "Time to Roll" reminder rather than "Time to Walk" as watchOS 2 did.
- It is now possible to see 5 different workout metrics all at once. These include distance, pace, active calories, heart rate, and elapsed time.
- Adds support for pausing a workout when stopped at a stoplight.
- Support for a new Breathe app which will guide users through a set of deep breaths to help them be more relaxed.
- Messages
- Adds support for the all-new messaging app which will also be present in iOS 10. This includes features such as setting off fireworks, sticking stickers, sharing a secret with invisible ink, or replying in your own handwriting or scribbling letters on the display and letting Apple Watch turn it into text.
- HomeKit
- Adds support for an all-new Home app which is a centralized place to control all HomeKit accessories.
- SOS
- Adds support for a feature called SOS which allows a person to place emergency calls by holding the side button for 5 seconds.
- Mac Unlock
- Alongside macOS Sierra, the Apple Watch running watchOS 3 can now allow users to bypass the unlock screen on their Mac by allowing the Mac to detect their Apple Watch and unlock the Mac.
|
|
3.1 |
10.1 |
14S471 |
October 24, 2016 (2016-10-24) |
- New option to replay bubble and full screen effects in Messages
- Messages effects can play with Reduce Motion enabled
- Fixes an issue that could cause the notification for Timer complete to be delivered twice
- Resolves an issue that could prevent Apple Watch Series 2 from fully charging
- Resolves an issue where Activity rings may disappear from the watch face
- Fixes an issue that prevented Force Touch options from appearing in some third-party apps.
|
|
3.1.1 Beta 4 |
10.2 |
14S879 |
November 28, 2016 (2016-11-28) |
|
See also
References
- 1 2 "Apple Watch runs 'most' of iOS 8.2, may use A5-equivalent processor". AppleInsider. Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ "Apple announces watchOS 2 with third-party Apple Watch apps, new Timepieces, video playback, much more". 9to5Mac. Retrieved June 8, 2015.
- ↑ "watchOS 2 final version released for Apple Watch users". Retrieved September 21, 2015.
- ↑ "Apple's watch OS 2 is now live following bug delay - CNET". CNET. Retrieved 2015-09-23.
- ↑ Darren Orf (September 9, 2015). "Apple Watch's OS Update Is Coming September 16". Gizmodo.
- ↑ "Apple Delays Release Of watchOS 2 Due To Bug". September 16, 2015.
- ↑ "How To Use and Organize Apple Watch Glances". iPhoneTricks. Retrieved April 27, 2015.
- ↑ "Apple Watch – Technology". Apple. Retrieved December 26, 2014.
- 1 2 3 "Apple Watch Firmware". Retrieved May 19, 2015.
- ↑ "Apple Watch Timekeeping". Retrieved March 9, 2015.
- ↑ "Apple Watch Built-in Apps". Retrieved June 29, 2015.
- ↑ "watchOS 1.01 information". Apple Inc. Retrieved May 24, 2016.
- ↑ "About the security content of watch OS 1.0.1 - Apple Support". Apple. Retrieved June 29, 2015.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "watchOS 2.x information". Apple Inc. Retrieved May 24, 2016.
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