watchOS 11 announced with Activity rest days, custom ring goals, more – 9to5Mac

Last year brought watchOS 10, one of the biggest updates for the Apple Watch yet. Today during the WWDC keynote, Apple announced the successor and this year’s major Watch release: watchOS 11.

watchOS 11 isn’t as feature-rich as its predecessor, but it does come with a number of useful improvements that will make your experience with the Apple Watch even better, especially focused on health and fitness.

Here’s what Apple’s latest Watch software will bring when it’s released this fall.

Activity ring upgrades: Rest days, custom daily goals

watchOS 11 will finally enable taking a rest day with your Activity rings without losing track of an important streak. In the past, even if you had to take a day off because of an illness or some other factor outside your control, you would lose your Activity ring completion streak.

You can now also set custom activity ring goals for different days of the week. So you can push for higher goals on days you know you’ll be able to do more, and set more realistic goals for others.

Training Load for better workouts

Ready to upgrade your training regimen? Thanks to Training Load, Apple will now estimate your effort rating following every workout. This rating will use your vital readings during the workout session to help you understand where you could have perhaps pushed yourself harder, or eased up a bit.

The nice thing about Training Load is that you can also manually adjust it after a workout to better inform Apple’s system. This is useful because the system will intelligently make recommendations and predictions regarding your potential for performing in the future.

Photos watch face that does the work for you

Apple is upgrading the Photos watch face in watchOS 11 to make sure it always displays the best photos, but without making you do the work of finding those photos. Apple will now use watchOS’s intelligence to present the best photos to surprise and delight you.

Vitals app for improved health tracking

The introduction of a Vitals app is a brand new way to view your health data and make important decisions about your health and fitness.

Last year Apple gave watchOS widgets an upgrade by tying them to the side button, and now those widgets are becoming more powerful than before. watchOS 11 makes Watch widgets interactive, so they can offer helpful actions with just a tap. For example, the Home widget lets you turn your lights on and off with ease.