Apple Watch X Want Listing: Here is How Apple Might Enhance Its Smartwatch

On Monday, Apple will maintain its Glowtime occasion the place we anticipate the iPhone 16 and subsequent Apple Watches to be revealed. Apparently 10 years in the past on Sept. 9, Apple introduced the very first Apple Watch, which was extra targeted on style than it was on well being and health options.

The Apple Watch has come a good distance since that announcement — particularly lately. Apple’s smartwatch retains taking minor however vital steps ahead, as evidenced by its upcoming WatchOS 11 improve and the Double Faucet performance that debuted on the Apple Watch Sequence 9.

However the firm could have large plans in retailer for this 12 months’s Apple Watch, if a report from Bloomberg seems to be correct. Apple might break free from its typical naming conference and name its subsequent smartwatch the Apple Watch X (learn as 10) in honor of the gadget’s tenth anniversary, just like the iPhone X, in response to the report. 

The so-called Apple Watch X, which can debut this 12 months or in 2025, might reportedly have a thinner design, a brand new mechanism for attaching bands, a micro-LED display screen and blood stress monitoring, Bloomberg says. The brand new watch may be extra power-efficient because of a brand new kind of OLED show panel, in response to Korean information outlet The Elec. 

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There are many methods Apple might enhance its smartwatch. The corporate might flip its watch into a good smarter and extra useful well being assistant with extra synthetic intelligence integration. Since Double Faucet is comparatively new, there’s loads of alternative for updates and optimizations that make it extra handy than really tapping the display screen. Modifications like these might be notably vital as Apple faces contemporary competitors from Google’s Fitbit, which plans to launch new AI-powered options this 12 months, and Samsung’s Galaxy Ring. 

With WatchOS 11, Apple is beginning to tackle a few of the Apple Watch’s shortcomings by including options I have been wanting for years, corresponding to the flexibility to customise exercise objectives by the day. However listed below are nonetheless some further methods the Apple Watch might evolve in 2024.

Extra AI smarts, particularly for health-related options

Apple gave the Apple Watch Sequence 9 an AI enhance by making it the primary mannequin that may course of sure sorts of Siri requests regionally. Queries that do not require a solution from the web — corresponding to setting alarms or timers — may be carried out on the gadget itself with out pinging the cloud, rushing up the entire course of. Siri may also reply to health-related questions on this approach, enabling it to reply requests about your sleep from the evening earlier than and about Exercise Ring progress. 

However Apple might make its watch an much more intuitive well being agent, and it looks like this new Siri performance is only one step in that path. The rise of generative AI has opened up new potentialities for making information simpler to grasp by delivering solutions in a extra conversational approach. 

Google’s Fitbit, one in every of Apple’s rivals within the health-tracking house, is already experimenting on this space. In October, Fitbit teased a brand new program, known as Fitbit Labs, that’ll arrive this 12 months. It’s going to initially join the dots between sure information factors and use generative AI to reply questions corresponding to why you have been extra drained than typical after your morning run. The corporate additionally thinks AI can assist customers in setting reasonable health objectives, as Google’s Ajay Surie advised CNET. Samsung can be making an attempt to make extra sense of how sleep and exercise affect your present state with its just lately launched Power Rating metric within the Samsung Well being app. 

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All these insights transcend merely logging information and turning it right into a graph or chart. They make it simpler to really change your habits based mostly on the knowledge coming out of your smartwatch. The Apple Watch’s Exercise Rings already encourage you to stand up and transfer or take just a few further steps. And the upcoming Vitals app in WatchOS 11 will present you when sure well being metrics measured in a single day could also be out of whack. Now, think about how way more motivating and helpful info like that might be if Apple had it is personal kind of well being assistant.  

Future Apple Watches might certainly embody extra AI-powered well being instruments. Bloomberg reviews that the tech large is engaged on an AI-fueled teaching program that’ll present Apple Watch wearers with tailor-made recommendations and recommendation. Apple additionally simply introduced a bunch of upgrades to Siri, so it would not be stunning to see extra enhancements to Apple’s digital helper make their technique to the watch, too.

Extra Double Faucet performance

Apple ought to double down on Double Faucet by including extra customization choices. The movement, which includes tapping your thumb and index finger collectively twice, at the moment permits you to scroll by means of your widgets, reply a telephone name, snooze an alarm, pause a timer and extra. 

Double Faucet is not meant to be a substitute for touching your watch, so its performance is understandably restricted in contrast with different gestures like tapping and swiping. However I would like to see extra methods to personalize Double Faucet. You’ll be able to determine whether or not Double Faucet advances your widget stack or selects a widget, or whether or not it pauses music or skips to the subsequent observe. 

Whereas I admire this flexibility, I want there have been different choices. For instance, it is best to have the ability to choose whether or not to repeat a timer as a substitute of ending it, or snooze an alarm versus dismissing it. Proper now, Double Faucet merely dismisses timers and snoozes alarms, with no choice to determine to carry out the opposite motion. I want I might select, or maybe triple-tap, to carry out the opposite choice as a substitute.

Now that Apple is opening up Double Faucet in order that app builders can select particular actions inside their app that work with the characteristic, we could certainly see extra use sooner or later.

An up to date design

The Apple Watch has acquired just a few design tweaks through the years, however it’s the pricier Apple Watch Extremely that is gained extra vital bodily upgrades, like a much bigger display screen and extra sturdy construct. Although Apple should not stray too removed from the present mannequin’s look, I would prefer to see some modifications. Apple revamped the iPhone’s design for its tenth anniversary, so I might think about the corporate doing one thing particular for the tenth technology Apple Watch — like maybe a brand new end or shade. 

Bloomberg reviews that Apple could have some design modifications in its pipeline for the rumored Apple Watch X. The corporate is reportedly engaged on a slimmer case and microLED screens for the Apple Watch, which might make its tiny show look extra vivid. 

A brand new magnetic methodology of attaching wristbands may additionally be in improvement for a future Apple Watch, in response to the report, although it is unclear if it will debut on the Apple Watch X. Such a change would probably include benefits and drawbacks for Apple Watch homeowners, nonetheless. On the upside, it might make it simpler for Apple to slim down the watch’s case, since Bloomberg’s report says the present attachment methodology occupies loads of house. However it will additionally probably break compatibility with the previous decade of current Apple Watch wristbands. 

Design is not all the time an important ingredient in relation to tech devices. However smartwatches are the exception, contemplating they’re meant to be worn in plain view all day lengthy. It is one of many uncommon situations through which a contemporary design could also be sufficient to persuade folks with older watches to improve. 

An Motion button on the common mannequin

Ever for the reason that Apple Watch Extremely debuted in 2022, I have been awaiting the Motion button’s arrival on cheaper Apple Watch fashions. The Motion button turned out to be a helpful technique to rapidly launch a exercise or bounce between apps, and I’ve lengthy argued that it needs to be part of the default Apple Watch expertise. After I tried the Apple Watch Extremely in 2022, for instance, I beloved utilizing it to start out an outside stroll exercise with simply a few faucets. Utilizing the OnePlus Watch 2, which has a customizable shortcut button, additionally made me understand the worth of getting a devoted key for sure duties. 

Now that Apple has introduced the Motion button to the iPhone 15 Professional, I am hoping it’s going to trickle right down to different units, just like the anticipated Apple Watch X. Placing the Motion button on premium merchandise just like the Apple Watch Extremely and iPhone 15 Professional was start line, however it ought to turn into commonplace throughout the board — even on cheaper iPhone fashions.   

Since widgets play a much bigger position in how we typically navigate the Apple Watch’s interface because of final 12 months’s WatchOS 10 replace, there’s extra room for bodily buttons to shine in relation to particular focused circumstances, like shortcuts. And that is particularly vital on a display screen as small because the Apple Watch’s. The usual iPhone 16 fashions are additionally anticipated to get the Motion button, in response to Bloomberg and MacRumors, additional strengthening the argument that it ought to make its debut on cheaper Apple Watches too. 

The Apple Watch is actually way more than only a smartphone companion and health tracker, however I would prefer to see Apple push it to the subsequent degree by infusing extra intelligence into well being monitoring. Apple might additionally convey the Watch up to the mark with helpful options we have seen in different merchandise, just like the Motion button. And it might embrace the gadget’s roots as a style accent with a contemporary look.