Speaker 1: The apple watch will be getting new features in watch OS eight, including new messaging tweaks of photos, watch face with portrait mode images, a mindfulness app, and a focus mode. Just to name a few apple has just dropped the public beta of watch OS eight. I've downloaded it on the series six. So let's dive in and get a sneak peek of what's to come
Speaker 1: First [00:00:30] up some standard disclaimers. This is not the final release of what show S eight. It is a public beta. So that means there might be some bugs, and it's probably not the best idea to install it on your primary device, but I'm gonna take one for the team and put it on the series six. The only apple watch that I have, so fingers crossed and let's see what happens, but the good news is you don't necessarily need a series six to take advantage of watch show eight. Apple has confirmed that it will be compatible with all [00:01:00] apple watches from this series three onwards.
Speaker 1: If you are gonna try out watch OS eight yourself, you'll also need to make sure you have downloaded the iOS 15 public beta on your linked iPhone. Otherwise it won't work. And if you wanna check out all of the new features in iOS 15, please go ahead and watch the great video by my I's iPhone reviewer, Patrick Collins. And that's linked in the description below. The first thing you might wanna check out on. Watch eight is the new portrait mode [00:01:30] watch face. So let's go into the watch app and take a look so face gallery, and then you'll see new and watch OS is portraits. We'll tap into that and you'll see that I can't add it to the watch face just yet. I'll need to ch use the portrait mode photos that I actually want to sync to the watch face. So let's just add a couple and tap add.
Speaker 1: Now you'll also see in the app, if you wanna change the actual style of the clock face itself and add any complications [00:02:00] like the date or even things like, you know, activity rings your battery level and heart rate, for example, but let's just keep it simple now and sync this photo of me. And it uses segmentation data to actually work out the foreground and the background of your subject. And so when you do this thing, like turning the digital crown, you subject will kind of pop in and out of the frame. And you'll see that the time is kind of hidden, which is kind of cool. If you like to fidget, I guess, with the digital crown during the day, kind of [00:02:30] looks a bit different depending on the portrait mode photo that you have. You'll notice that it probably works better with subjects that have kind of a bit of headroom.
Speaker 1: And I haven't found it works as well on pets yet, but I do need to try some other photos and see, I, speaking of photos, the app is also completely redesigned. So you'll be able to do things like share photos through messages or mail much more easily. Now it'll also populate with memories and featured photos and sync that automatically to the watch, but because I've just installed it, I don't think it's gonna do it [00:03:00] just yet, but let's tap in and see what I mean about sharing one of those photos. Okay, here is a photo that I decided I wanna share this photo to friends and family. I'm gonna tap that share icon that appears and also select same messages or mail like that.
Speaker 1: There's also some new messaging tools in watch S eight and the app itself looks a little bit different too. So when you go and compose a message, you can now use the three tools to be able to [00:03:30] send a message all from the same place. So that's scribble, it's also using emojis and you can also hate your message. Like, so how are you going today? Question mark. You'll also notice that say, um, I make a mistake and I wanna change that word today. Well, you can actually select the word and then use the crown to actually change that word. You'll also be able to send gifts or I guess [00:04:00] gifs, if you like to pronounce it like that from the watch itself, there we go. Bit of a lane. Gotta love it. One of the features that actually really blew my mind when I heard it announced was assistive touch.
Speaker 1: Now this lets you control the watch without actually touching the screen so you can find it in settings and then accessibility. So we'll scroll down and see that. Okay. So it's down underneath motor and assistive touch. So I'm gonna turn that on. And it's basically [00:04:30] gonna take things like my hand gestures and movement in my fingers and my arms to be able to interact with the watch. So let's take a look at a couple of those hand gestures and L including the pinch that actually moves forward through the actual menus. That's really neat. The double pinch like that actually scrolls back through options are clench and that's recognized it and that's tapped the screen, essentially [00:05:00] without me needing to tap the screen.
Speaker 1: This is pretty wild and a double CLE. That's actually bringing up the action menu, which is really neat. If you can see at the top here, it's actually like I'm pressing the digital crown without needing to press it. So I can pinch to select that. And I'm scrolling through options, which is very cool that I'm not touching the screen, and this is all happening with just me pinching or clenching to select [00:05:30] a different action. But there are two new workout modes. There is a Pilates and there is also a Thai Chi as well. So the breathe app is now known as the mindfulness app. And this actually now has a new icon and a bit of a new look. There are two modes in here now, the breathe, which is probably what you're familiar with. If you did use that on previous versions of watch OS and the reflect app is, [00:06:00] I guess, think of it a little bit like your personal life coach. It's gonna give you a minute long session and give you kind of chances to reflect about things that have been going on. Take a moment to pause.
Speaker 1: So I need to now sit and consider the values that matter to me in something that I'm focused on. So I'm gonna hit begin and it's gonna have this animation for the next minute or so while I sit and contemplate life, all right, skip to the end. And when [00:06:30] you finish a session, it will give you a mindfulness minutes rating, uh, just to also show up in the actual or health app itself, and also your average heart rate during the session. So it was a little high it's cuz I'm standing up and crouching awkwardly to try and film this for you. So let's take a look at the focus app now, and this is really an iOS 15 feature that does carry over to watch OS eight and syncs it automatically. So you'll see that when [00:07:00] you are in iOS 15, you'll see this focus tab and it now holds do not disturb sleep and also two other sessions personal and work that you can choose.
Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and set up personal. Now this is basically going to set up the parameters where I don't want to be disturbed. So, so it will allow certain people's notifications to come through. Say, if I just want one person's notifications to come through, no one else is gonna be able to message me during the time that I have this [00:07:30] focus mode on. And then I'm gonna allow that one person I'm gonna also allow apps, certain apps to only come through, say like FaceTime, if someone really, really to get in touch with me and also my calendar. So then I'm gonna allow those two apps and then allow any time sensitive apps to come through as well. And my focus mode is ready. So I am basically going to now make sure that that focus mode is on for personal. It is on, on the phone itself and let's check if it automatically [00:08:00] sinks to the watch. Yeah, you'll see that there is that little icon at the top that has that focus mode with that personal icon. So pretty much every time you select it on the phone, the same settings will be applied on the watch itself.
Speaker 1: Now, some other new things to note in the actual interface itself or watch, shall I say, there are a couple new apps. First off is your contact app. You'll see that it's now finally on the watch, there was also now a split between the find my options. [00:08:30] You might remember previously, you'd just see, find my as the app and now it's devices, items and people. So if I wanna say, find a particular apple device that I have, that's also signed into the same apple ID. I'll be able to do that from the watch itself and find items is specifically for things like say the apple air tag. Oh, and Hey, it looks like the air tags that I used in the torture test are still working and I can find them within watch O S eight. I can also tap in [00:09:00] and then work out the directions of where they are located and also play a sound.
Speaker 1: Oh, and it's in the room somewhere. If you wear your apple watch to bed, the sleep interface looks pretty similar, but the one thing that the watch will now track is respiration rate during sleep. There are also some other smart features on watch O S eight that I can't show you just at the moment. This includes some more smart features like support for digital car keys. So using the ultra wide band ship on this series six, [00:09:30] you'll be able to do things like lock and unlock your vehicle remotely. Maybe even the engine pop the trunk, things like that. And it will know your proximity and location from your vehicle. Thanks to that chip. The other element that's not active yet, and won't be available until towards the end of 2021 is being able to use the wallet app to scan your digital ID, say your driver's license or state issued ID and go through things like TSA checkpoints, for example. So that's your first look at new features [00:10:00] on watch USA. Thanks for watching. And uh, I'll see you next time.
