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

Other watchOS 9 updates

Low Power Mode is designed to extend battery life and keep core Apple Watch features like activity tracking and fall detection running, while disabling or limiting the use of specific sensors and features like background heart rate detection and all-day display.

Users can now stay connected to the cellular network while traveling abroad with international roaming packages.

Redesigned notifications will serve as alerts while being less intrusive to users, displaying only a thin banner when the user is actively using Apple Watch.

Later this year, Family Settings will support a Family App for you to invite your children to be part of the family and control HomePod and smart family devices. They'll also be able to use their home and hotel keys in Wallet.

With the new Quick Actions feature on Apple Watch, users with upper limb disabilities can use two-finger pinch gestures to do more, including answer or hang up a phone call, take a picture, play or pause media content in the "On" app, and start, pause or resume physical training.

For people with physical and motor disabilities, Apple Watch is more accessible than ever with Apple Watch Mirror. With the help of this feature, users can control their Apple Watch from a paired iPhone, and with Apple Watch Mirroring, they can use assistive features such as Voice Control and Toggle Control on their iPhone to use their Apple Watch - and they can do so with the Apple Watch Mirroring feature. With Apple Watch Mirroring, users can use Apple Watch with assistive features like "voice control" and "toggle control" on their iPhone - meaning they can use voice, voice commands, head tracking and external "Made for iPhone" devices as an alternative to "tapping" the Apple Watch display. Tap" the Apple Watch's display.

The QWERTY keyboard on the Apple Watch Series 7, Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra now supports French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish (Mexico, Spain, Latin America).

The refreshed Calendar App lets you create new schedules directly from Apple Watch. Users can access an updated list, daily and monthly views, in addition to a new weekly view that supports scrolling through more calendars.

Cardiorespiratory recovery is a useful health metric that can be used as a cardiovascular health indicator. Apple Watch now provides an estimate of cardiorespiratory recovery after physical training such as walking, running or hiking outdoors, even when that physical activity has not reached peak intensity. Users can track this metric over time through the Health App.

Launch date

Effective immediately, watchOS 9 will be available as a free software update for Apple Watch Series 4 and later, and will pair with iPhone 8 and later or iPhone SE (2nd generation) and later running iOS 16.

Some features may only be available in certain regions or languages, or on certain watch models.