Apple Releases First watchOS 11 Public Beta With Vitals App and More

Apple today released the first beta of watchOS 11 to public beta testers, allowing non-developers to give the new features a try ahead of when the software launches this fall.

watchos 11 vitals
‌watchOS 11‌ can be downloaded after signing up on Apple's beta software website and upgrading your iPhone to the public beta version of iOS 18. You'll need to open up the Watch app on ‌iPhone‌, go to General, select Software Update, and choose the ‌watchOS 11‌ Public Beta option under Beta Updates.

With ‌watchOS 11‌, Apple added a new Vitals app that can be used to give you a daily overview of your health metrics, letting you know if anything is out of the ordinary. It compares information collected at night like heart rate, sleep, respiratory rate, and oxygen level to your levels over the previous weeks.

Smart Stack has new widgets like Translate and Shazam, plus it's smarter because it is able to suggest widgets based on time, date, location, and daily routine. Interactive widgets let you access app features from the Smart Stack, and it also supports Live Activities.

Training Load is a new way of measuring how the intensity and duration of workouts impact the body over time, with Apple providing an effort level for cardio-based workouts to help you know when to rest and when to push harder.

You can now customize your Activity Ring requirements for different days of the week, and Apple added support for rest days. Taking a break from activity will no longer ruin a streak because you can pause for a day, a week, a month, or more.

Other new features include more workout types, Check In for Messages, a revamped Photos watch face, improvements to Double Tap, and more, with additional information available in our watchOS 11 roundup.

Related Roundup: watchOS 11
Related Forum: Apple Watch

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Top Rated Comments

Dwalls90 Avatar
26 weeks ago

“Taking a break from activity will no longer ruin a streak because you can pause for a day, a week, a month, or more.”

Im sorry but that’s ********
I did all 442 days straight a few yrs ago either lifting or running /biking/skip rope and playing basketball
Only reason why it stopped is because I caught covid and was coughing blood the next morning after pushing myself through hell working out at basketball when covid hit me.

A streak is a streak if you don’t do it the next day then your streak ended.
This is some grade A coddling ********.
You have to proactively pause for the streak to not be ruined, so it's not automatic.

Modern fitness science supports taking at least one day off per week. It's nice people now have a choice. None of that choice impacts your streak or fitness habits.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Minato1990 Avatar
26 weeks ago
“Taking a break from activity will no longer ruin a streak because you can pause for a day, a week, a month, or more.”

Im sorry but that’s ********
I did all 442 days straight a few yrs ago either lifting or running /biking/skip rope and playing basketball
Only reason why it stopped is because I caught covid and was coughing blood the next morning after pushing myself through hell working out at basketball when covid hit me.

A streak is a streak if you don’t do it the next day then your streak ended.
This is some grade A coddling ********.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Minato1990 Avatar
26 weeks ago

You have to proactively pause for the streak to not be ruined, so it's not automatic.

Modern fitness science supports taking at least one day off per week. It's nice people now have a choice. None of that choice impacts your streak or fitness habits.
I took days off with alternating with either a cardio day or lifting day with some basketball as well. It worked pretty well.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DonkeyWonkey Avatar
26 weeks ago
Really interested to hear how autodetecting sleep works. If it's like auto sleep and you can set and forget I'd be over the moon!
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Beau10 Avatar
26 weeks ago

the macrumors photo of the vitals app screen shows (appears to show) an oxygen level reading.
so, is the vitals app only valid for non-USA users?
macrumors is always very careless when reporting details like this.
It still works in all US Apple Watches sold prior to Jan this year. It's not bound to a software release, Macrumors has nothing to report.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gigapocket1 Avatar
26 weeks ago

I would love to get a new Apple Watch with watchOS 11 this fall but I don’t want to give up the SpO2 sensor. I wish Apple would just settle with Massimo. Give them like a $1 for every Apple Watch they sell in exchange for access to any and all Massimo patents on health sensors and raise the price from like $399 to $400 or $799 to $800 for the Ultra.
I think the oxygen sensor is going to make a return this year in the new watches.. I think they've figured out how to work around the problem and the fix is usable
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)