Apple Officially Explains watchOS 9 Release: New Dial, Enhanced Physical Training, and Refreshed Compass

Updates to the Physical Training App

One of the most popular apps on Apple Watch, the Fitness App has been updated to provide users with more measurements and a new workout experience to help them reach their fitness goals. In the familiar training progress screen, users can now rotate the digital crown to switch between multiple easy-to-read fitness training views and view key metrics for different training styles. Heart rate intervals based on personal health data can be used to monitor the intensity of a workout, and the Fitness App in watchOS 9 introduces custom training plans for interval training, which can be used to create a systematic workout consisting of training and intervals of rest. Users can add new reminders including pace, running power, heart rate and cadence to guide their fitness training.

For triathletes, the Fitness App now supports a new type of multi-sport fitness training that uses motion sensors to identify movement patterns and automatically switches between swimming, cycling and running. The Fitness App on iPhone also provides more detailed information and interactive charts through a redesigned summary screen after each workout is completed, providing more accurate analysis of all workouts.

Each of the three Apple Watch Series 8 devices displays data from different moments in a multi-sport fitness workout, including swimming, cycling and running.

For triathletes and duathletes, the Fitness App now supports new types of multisport fitness training, automatically switching between swim, bike and run.

Updates for runners

Apple Watch has long been a powerful tool for runners, and watchOS 9 brings even more data and features to help track the efficiency of your runs. New running measurements, including stride length, touchdown time and vertical amplitude, can be added to the Fitness view. These metrics are also displayed in the Fitness App's Summary and Health App for users to view trends over time and get information from patterns.

In addition, the new pace feature allows users to select a distance and time goal for completing a run to measure the pace needed to reach the goal. During physical training, users can adjust their workouts based on the pace alerts and metrics provided by the watch. With the "race route" feature, which will be available later this year, users can race against their best or latest performance on the most commonly used routes and receive pace guidance as they progress through their workout.

Users can race against their best or latest times on their most-used routes and receive speed coaching as they progress through their workouts.

Swimming Enhancements

The Apple Watch sensor fusion automatically detects if a user is swimming with a float and includes that stroke in the fitness summary, along with the distance swum. Swimmers can now track their efficiency with a SWOLF value that is calculated as a combination of single stroke counts and seconds. Users can view their SWOLF averages for each set of training in the Physical Training Summary.

Redesigned Compass App

The completely redesigned Compass App displays more depth information and introduces new zoomable views, including a hybrid view that displays both the analog compass dial and the digital view. Rotate the digital crown to display another view, including latitude, longitude, elevation and slope information, as well as a directional view that shows compass waypoints and a backtracking feature.

The backtracking feature uses GPS data to create a route that the user has traveled, which is especially useful when the user is lost or disoriented and needs help finding a return route. This feature can also be turned on automatically in the background when the user enters a wilderness area. Users can use the Compass Waypoints feature to quickly and easily mark locations or important places directly within the app. Tap the Compass Waypoint icon to place a waypoint, and select a waypoint to see the direction and approximate distance to that waypoint in a targeted manner.