Apple Watch

I think a lot about trying to find a healthy balance with notifications from the Apple Watch.

Some are useful because they reach you when your iPhone isn’t around. Others let you decide you can respond to something later without getting distracted by your phone. Many have no benefit and risk making you more distracted by your watch or numb to notifications altogether. Apple Watch alerts from iPhone are all on by default currently. You can turn them off app-by-app, but you’ll need to repeat this for every new app download.

I think notifications on Apple Watch should be off by default, even if they’re on for the iPhone app. With the current default, Apple should at least include a toggle to disable watch notifications and turn them back on individually. A new system could be much more sophisticated, allowing watch alerts for certain contacts and specific types of alerts from apps. In the meantime, reversing the current behavior or adding an off toggle for all apps would help.

The first Apple Watch was launched in stores in April 2015, but Apple had worked on the device long before. Now, thanks to rare Apple device collector Giulio Zompetti, we’ve been able to take a look at one of the earliest Apple Watch prototypes, built more than a year before its official launch.

The Apple Watch lineup is available in a number of different options and configurations, ranging from different case materials, colors, sizes, and more. One of the most important things to consider, however, is whether or not you should buy an Apple Watch with cellular connectivity.

An Apple Watch with LTE lets you go out in the world without your iPhone while still remaining connected. It’s a useful feature but one that comes at a cost.

After launching a fun glow-in-the-dark limited edition Apple Watch Sport Band in August, Nomad is out with its latest batch of rare bands. The new limited edition Strike Sport Apple Watch Band blends some of the previous limited edition colorways into a sharp two-tone design.

For years, John Hancock has made the Apple Watch available for (almost) free to customers participating in its Vitality Plus life insurance program. Now, this offer has been expanded to include the latest Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, and the Apple Watch SE.

The new Double Tap gesture is the hero feature of the Apple Watch Series 9, allowing users to control their watch ‘hands-free’ without needing to touch the screen. Apple is certainly pushing the feature aggressively with a new series of ads running on social media this week.

Before getting the new watch, it was hard to tell whether Double Tap would be a genuinely convenient gesture, or a rarely-used gimmick once the novelty wears off. A month in, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle …

With World Diabetes Day next week, we continue to learn interesting ways Apple Watch has helped users with diabetes. Las Vegas resident Josh Furman, who credits his Apple Watch Ultra with saving his life, is the latest to share their experience.

Apple Watch is equipped with a heart rate monitor and the ability to detect Afib, and sometimes those can lead to lifesaving discoveries. Ahead of World Diabetes Day on November 14, Judith Luebke of Oklahoma, who credits the Apple Watch with saving her life, has shared her story of how the watch helped lead to her diabetes diagnosis two years ago.

Apple has released watchOS 10.1.1 for Apple Watch. The software update addresses a battery drain and overheating bug that users have reported experiencing.

Last week, 9to5Mac reported on an increasingly widespread battery drain problem plaguing Apple Watch users. Following our report, Apple has confirmed the existence of the problem and says a fix is coming soon via a software update.

A new report based on interviews with insiders says the very first Apple Watch was originally supposed to launch with non-invasive blood sugar monitoring. Indeed, it says, this was intended to be the device’s headline feature.

The piece also reveals battles within the company over how far the company’s health ambitions should go, with some criticising it for targeting the “worried well” rather than those who most need health tech …

Seemingly coinciding with the release of watchOS 10.1, a number of Apple Watch users are complaining of abnormal battery drain issues. A number of 9to5Mac readers have reached out to share that their Apple Watches are facing this problem…

So there may not be an Apple Watch Ultra 3 in 2024? No problem. People only want one thing from the Apple Watch Ultra anyway, and a new version number ain’t it.

Apple Watch users have been facing an annoying bug since the release of watchOS 10, which has broken the Weather app’s complications for many people. Apple acknowledged the issue last month and shared some workarounds with users, but they weren’t a permanent solution. The company now says the bug has finally been fixed with watchOS 10.1.

With today’s release of watchOS 10.1, Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 users can officially use the new double-tap feature. This feature was announced at Apple’s “Wonderlust” event last month but wasn’t available until now.

Now that double tap is available, Apple has shared a few more details on how the feature works – and situations in which it might not work.

watchOS 10.1 is now available as a free software update for compatible Apple Watches. The latest version of watchOS delivers a flagship feature to the new Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2. The update also includes more features and bug fixes for watchOS 10.

After bringing more capabilities to Webex for iPad, CarPlay, and more in recent years, Cisco has announced its latest expansion for its video conferencing software. The two new devices you’ll be able to join Webex Meetings from “soon” are Apple TV 4K and Apple Watch.

Last month’s Apple event included the announcement of what the company claimed were two carbon-neutral Apple Watches, the Series 9 and Ultra 2. But that claim has today been rejected as “bogus” by the European consumer organization BEUC.

The European Union has proposed that it will in the future be illegal to claim that a product is carbon neutral when that claim relies on offsetting credits to balance out the actual greenhouse gas emissions involved in production …

Pickleball has been named the fastest-growing sport in America, combining elements of tennis, table-tennis, and badminton. But when it comes to tennis versus pickleball, which offers the greatest health benefits?

That’s a question a research study is tackling with the help of Apple Watch data, and the Cupertino company has shared some initial insights …

A range of Apple Watch apps get a redesign with watchOS 10 and one of those is the Heart Rate app. Coming with more than just a facelift, the new Apple Watch Heart Rate app includes a neat new capability.