Tag Archives: Apple Watch SE

Health, Lifestyle, News

watchOS 11 Puts the “Control” in “Take Control of Your Health”

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Apple Watch has become an indispensable tool for many users, offering fitness tracking, communication features, and a convenient way to stay on top of notifications. Each iteration of WatchOS has brought many enhancements that make the experience of Apple Watches a little better. This year’s watchOS 11 update promises a range of enhancements focused on personalization, improved health insights, and expanded functionality, solidifying the Apple Watch’s position as a comprehensive and versatile wearable device. Let’s delve deeper into the key features shared at WWDC 2024.

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Source: Apple

Taking Control of Your Activity Rings

watchOS 11 introduces a new level of personalization for Activity rings. Imagine needing a break from your fitness routine due to an injury or a busy schedule. With watchOS 11, you can now pause your Activity rings for a day, a week, a month, or even longer. This allows you to maintain your award streak while taking a necessary break, ensuring a more flexible approach to fitness goals. Additionally, users can customize their Activity ring goals by day of the week. Imagine setting a more ambitious move goal for weekdays when you have more time for exercise, while setting a more relaxed target for weekends. This customization empowers users to tailor their Activity rings to their individual schedules and fitness aspirations.

The Vitals App: A Holistic View of Your Health

watchOS 11 introduces the Vitals app, offering a centralized location to view key health metrics. Imagine glancing at your watch and seeing your overnight heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, blood oxygen level, and sleep duration displayed conveniently in one place. The Vitals app provides a holistic snapshot of your overall health and well-being, empowering you to make informed decisions about your health and fitness routines.

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Source: Apple

For expecting mothers, watchOS 11 integrates seamlessly with the Health app on iPhone. The Cycle Tracking app on Apple Watch can display gestational age and allow users to log pregnancy symptoms, providing valuable insights throughout their pregnancy journey.

Smarter Stacks for Enhanced Functionality

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Source: Apple

Smart Stacks, a feature that groups relevant watch faces together for easy access, receives an upgrade in watchOS 11. Imagine a Smart Stack that automatically displays the weather forecast in the morning, your workout routine during exercise hours, and upcoming calendar events throughout the day. This functionality leverages on-device intelligence to display the most relevant information at the most opportune time, eliminating the need to manually switch between different watch faces.

Live Activities: Staying Connected in Real-Time

watchOS 11 introduces Live Activities, a new feature that allows users to stay updated on events happening in real-time directly from their wrist. Imagine following the live score of a sporting event, monitoring the progress of a ride-sharing service, or tracking the status of a food delivery order, all without needing to unlock your iPhone. Live Activities provide a convenient way to stay connected to ongoing events without interrupting your workflow.

Introducing the Translate App

watchOS 11 expands communication capabilities with the introduction of the Translate app. Imagine travelling abroad and needing to translate a phrase or sentence on the fly. With the Translate app, you can simply type or dictate a phrase in one language and view the translated text on your watch screen. This functionality can be particularly useful for navigating unfamiliar places, ordering food, or simply breaking down language barriers during your travels.

Enhanced Workout Tracking with Expanded Options

The Workout app on Apple Watch receives an upgrade in watchOS 11. Imagine having access to more structured workout options beyond running, walking, and cycling. With watchOS 11, users can create custom workouts for activities like swimming, strength training, or yoga. Additionally, the ability to set target-based and time-based intervals within workouts allows for a more personalized and goal-oriented fitness experience.

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Source: Apple

watchOS 11 also introduces Training Load, a new metric that calculates the intensity and duration of your workouts, providing insights into your overall training effectiveness and recovery needs. Imagine understanding how your workouts are impacting your body and adjusting your training plan accordingly to optimize your performance and prevent injury.

A More Personalized Watch Face

watchOS 11 introduces a redesigned Photos watch face that uses machine learning to automatically curate photos that it thinks will look best as a watch face. Imagine having a dynamic watch face that showcases your favourite memories throughout the day. Additionally, users can customize the watch face with different font and colour options to further personalize their Apple Watch experience.

Beyond the Headline Features: Minor Enhancements

While personalization features, the Vitals app, Live Activities, and the Translate app take centre stage in watchOS 11, there are additional enhancements worth mentioning. Users can now send and receive Apple Cash by holding the Apple Watch near another watch or iPhone with Tap to Cash, eliminating the need to carry physical cash or a debit card for small transactions. Additionally, offline turn-by-turn navigation for custom walking routes and hikes is now available for all U.S. national parks, allowing users to explore these natural wonders without relying on a cellular connection.

Health, Lifestyle, News

The Apple Watch Series 9 & Apple Watch Ultra 2 Unleashed with 100% Carbon Neutrality

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Apple is pushing the boundaries with their new lineup of Apple Watches with the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2. The latest additions bring along with them several new features including a new processor – the S9 SiP, enhanced Siri capabilities, Precision Finding for iPhone with UWB and a brand new double tap gesture.

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Source: Apple

At the heart of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 lies the custom Apple silicon in the S9 SiP, representing Apple’s most advanced watch chip to date. This chip not only boosts overall performance but introduces novel features like the double tap gesture and on-device Siri with secure health data access. The Series 9 also incorporates a 4-core Neural Engine, capable of processing machine learning tasks twice as fast as its predecessor while maintaining an 18-hour battery life.

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Source: Apple

Navigating the Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 has become even more intuitive with the introduction of the double tap gesture. By tapping the index finger and thumb of their watch hand together twice, users can perform a range of actions with ease. This includes stopping timers, controlling music playback, answering phone calls, and even capturing photos using the Camera Remote. The gesture, enabled by the faster Neural Engine, will be available in a forthcoming software update.

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Source: Apple

Apple has pushed the display capabilities further, increasing the maximum brightness of the Series 9 to 2000nits, double that of its predecessor. The Ultra 2, on the other hand, has a higher 3000 nits brightness. This should mean that the two watch models should be legible even in bright sunlight, and the display can dim to just one nit in low-light environments.

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 introduces the Modular Ultra watch face that takes full advantage of the larger display. It provides real-time data, including seconds, altitude, or depth, and offers an unprecedented level of customization for outdoor activities, sports, and water adventures.

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Siri can now process requests directly on the device, eliminating the need for internet connectivity for certain tasks. This not only results in faster and more reliable responses but also maintains privacy. Siri can also access and log health data from the Health app, offering users more control over their health and fitness inquiries.

Both the Series 9 and Ultra 2 come with a second-generation Ultra Wideband (UWB) chip that enables Precision Finding for the iPhone 15 family which comes with the same chip. Your Apple Watch can literally guide you to your iPhone 15 with its visual, haptic and audio guidance.

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Source: Apple

The Ultra 2 continues to be the more rugged Apple Watch. Complete with an app ecosystem to support it, the Ultra 2 will be able to handle high altitudes and deep waters.

100% Carbon Neutral – If you choose correctly

Of course, as Apple progresses towards its 2030 environmental goal, the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 now come with carbon-neutral options for straps. In fact, with these two models, the right pairing of the Watch and strap will mean that your Apple Watch is 100% Carbon Neutral.

This is thanks to a 78% reduction in emissions when it comes to transport and production as well as a sleeker, more compact box that allows for more Apple Watches to be transported. Apple has also empowered its partners to work towards being carbon neutral. As such, certain bands, like the new sports band are made completely of Carbon neutral and eco-friendly materials.

Apple Watch SE

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Source: Apple

Also along for the ride is the new Apple Watch SE which continues to offer core Apple Watch features at an affordable price. This year, the Apple Watch SE is being updated with support for low heart rate notifications, Fall Detection, Emergency SOS, Crash Detection, and watchOS 10.

Pricing and Availability

The Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch SE are available on the official website and Apple Store app. The Series 9 starts at USD$399 or MYR1,899, and the SE begins at USD$249 or RM1,199.

The Apple Watch will be priced at USD$799 RM3,799. It is available in a sleek 49mm size and becomes carbon neutral when paired with the new Trail Loop or Alpine Loop bands. These bands are available in various colours, offering both style and sustainability.

Accessories, Health, iOS, Lifestyle, Mobile, News

Apple Launches the Watch Series 8 and Watch SE – The Better Best-Seller

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Unfortunately for Android Wear fans, the Apple Watch is the best-selling smartwatch to date. There is a good reason for that though. Apple’s Watch just works, and it does that very well. Every iteration of the Apple Watch is even better than ever before. That case is also true for the latest Apple Watch Series 8 and the new Apple Watch SE.

watchOS 9

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    Source: Apple
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    Source: Apple
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The latest Apple Watch 8, Watch SE, and even Watch Ultra come with Apple’s latest watchOS 9. There are no fundamental change in terms of its fundamental interface and looks. The added features for watchOS 9 includes international roaming that allows the Watch to be constantly connected to a network even when you are travelling abroad. Users with AFib conditions can also turn-on the AFib History feature if it is available in their region. The digital Compass App has also been redesigned to show even more information than before. There is a new Workout app too in watchOS 9 that allows in-session views with segments, splits, elevation, and even more precise workout data. Sleep tracking on the new operating system (OS) is also even better than before with more accurate and more comprehensive sleep data on tap. There is even a new Medications interface on the Apple Watch that helps users manage and track their medication schedules via the Health app.

Crash Detection

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Source: Apple

Apple has pioneered safety technology on the smartwatch with fall detection in their previous Apple Watch. Now, the Apple Watch is even better than before with Crash Detection. The gyroscope and accelerometer on the latest Apple Watch is even more powerful than before. Apple also had to develop entirely new algorithms to allow the Apple Watch to understand car crashes better and to detect when users are in one. They had to simulate various car crashes in test labs to ensure that the Apple Watch can detect when users are involved in a head-on collision, rear-end impact, side-impact, and even rollovers just based on the gyroscopic, acceleration, barometric, GPS, and sound data. After the fact, Apple Watch will check in with its users, like when it detects a fall. If the user does not respond within the next 10 seconds, emergency alert will be sent out to relevant services and even your emergency contacts. Of course, it works best with iPhones.

Even Longer Battery Life

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    Source: Apple
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    Source: Apple
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    Source: Apple
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One of the bigger complaints about the older Apple Watches is its dismal battery life. For the new Apple Watch Series 8, Apple has said that the device can last up to 18 hours, technically an entire day. Apple has also included a new Low Power Mode that is supposed to extend the device’s battery life to up to 36 hours (Watch Series 8) by limiting selected sensors and power-hungry features like always-on display.

More Health Centric Sensors

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    Source: Apple
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    Source: Apple
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    Source: Apple

You still get all the sensors that are previously found on the Apple Watch Series 7. There is a brand-new sensor that is mainly used to monitor women’s health though. It is a dual sensor that detects body temperature. The two sensors measure two different temperatures at two different points of the watch, one at the back of the watch and the other right under the display. This way, Apple Watch can capture its users body temperature whilst reducing bias from outside environment.

The new added feature also improves sleep health detection by the Apple Watch. The Apple Series Watch 8 samples wrist temperature every five seconds and is so sensitive it measures changes as small as 0.1oC. The Health App allows the users to monitor their sleep health and changes due to exercising, jet lag, or even sickness.

Apple Watch SE

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    Source: Apple
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    Source: Apple
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    Source: Apple
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The Apple Watch SE, while is the most accessible Apple watch, is no less powerful than the new Apple Watch Series 8. It still packs the latest S8 SiP processor found in the Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra. You also get International Roaming alongside Crash Detection features that the Series 8 and the Ultra gets. The only visual difference is that the SE gets a back case made with nylon composite material alongside the aluminium case making it the lightest Apple Watch available currently. The Apple Watch SE also only comes in 40mm and 44mm variants.

Price and Availability

The Apple Watch SE will be available in select regions from the 16th of September 2022 onward. You can choose between midnight, starlight, and sliver colour options. The new Apple Watch SE will set you back US$ 249 (MYR 1,199*) onward. For more information on the Apple Watch SE, you can visit their website.

The Apple Watch Series 8 will be available in select regions also from the 16th of September 2022 onward. You can choose between aluminium (Starlight, Midnight, Silver, PRODUCT RED) and stainless steel (Silver, Graphite, Gold) cases and various band, including the NIKE and Hermès edition bands for the Apple Watch Series 8. Prices start from US$ 399 (MYR 1,899*). If you want to know more about the Apple Watch Series 8, you can visit their website.

*Official Malaysian Pricing