Apple may have the best smartwatch on the market, but there are still areas where it lags behind the competition, especially in tracking exercise and sleep. With watchOS 9, the company offers a full range of training updates, as well as new watch faces, redesigned apps and the ability to detect sleeping areas. Now that the public challenge has arrived, we can see for the first time if the company can close these gaps.

To install the watchOS challenge, you need an Apple Watch Series 4 or after and an iPhone with the IOS 16 challenge. This means that if you don’t want to peril losing your data, you may want to wait for an official version before proceeding with the update.

Hearty changes in training

Some of the most impactful updates are related to workouts. Apple has added pages that show more data when you record an activity, so you can easily track things like your segments, divisions, or heights. Of these new screens, my favorite is the cardio zone view, while I found the activity rings page the least helpful.

It was satisfying to see where my heart rate was during a 45-minute HIIT session, and the Apple Watch clearly displayed this information. There were five different color ranges on the screen, and the one I was in was highlighted. Subsequently, I learned through the new fitness app overview page that I had spent most of my time (about 22 minutes) in zone 4, and Apple also helpfully displays the heart rate range for each zone.

The cardio view is supposed to be available for all workouts, but I haven’t seen it during activities like yoga, dancing or cooldown. However, they all support the new custom training feature, which allows you to create specific goals that you can focus on during your session. This is much more useful for distance or endurance-related activities such as running, cycling, rowing or HIIT, where Apple suggests patterns such as 8 x 400 m repetitions, 1 mile or 20 min repetitions of 20 sec. / 10 Sec. offer. You will receive haptic and audible alerts when you reach your target heart rate, distance, calories or time.

You can scroll all the way down to set up your own, but this experience is quite inconsistent in the middle the different types of workouts. For some activities, you have many options such as pace, distance, calories or time. For others, such as open water swimming or rowing, you will only see calories and time, as well as a custom option that allows you to set specific work and rest times.

Not all activities are compatible with distance or pace, so this inconsistency is understandable. Don’t expect the custom training function to behave the same for all your exercises.

However, runners will find many watchOS 9 tools useful. Apple has also added new common shape metrics such as stride length, ground contact time, vertical oscillation and something it calls performance. The latter measures your blind energy requirement and is displayed in wattage. These new metrics are calculated automatically and are only available during outdoor running training. You also need to use an Apple Watch Series 6, Watch SE or newer.

If you tend to run on the same routes or ride a bike, watchOS 9 also allows you to compete against yourself in the new “running route” feature. If you are doing outdoor running, outdoor cycling or wheelchair running, your iPhone will use the processing on the device to group similar routes. The next time you start one of these activities, the route view will let you know if you are ahead of your usual time or late, how much distance you have left, and will notify you when you leave your usual way. Apple has also added a new pacer mode, which allows you to set a target time to cover a distance you specify, and then guide you through the necessary pace to achieve this goal. Garmin and Samsung watches have similar features, so Apple is not innovating here, but it’s nice to see watchOS coming.

I’m not used to riding a bike, swimming and running in one session, but for triathletes, the new multisport training mode makes it easier to switch in the middle the three activities, so you don’t have to mess around with your watch. Apple has also added kickboard support as a running type, and swimmers can see a SWOLF efficiency score in their summaries.

New dials and interface

One of the coolest things about every watchOS update is the new faces that you can use to freshen up your device. This time, Apple has not only added the ability to change the background color of existing options such as Modular and X-Large, but also introduced new Playtime, Metropolitan and Lunar themes. The company has also redesigned the astronomy screen and is similar to the iPhone version, where you can choose in the middle views of the Earth, the Moon or the solar system. In the meantime, Lunar allows you to choose in the middle Chinese, Hebrew or devoted calendars to be displayed around the clock.