Apple watch series 7 launched

The new Apple watch series 7 is the 18th replication in the series of smartwatches since its first generation in 2015. The Apple watch series 7 comes as a considerable upgrade over other series. It comes with a major redesign that mirrors the squared-off edges and its two speaker grilles are parallel to each other along the entire left side.

It delivers the largest ever display that comes in the 45mm size variant and 41mm size variant. For a seamless integration with the case, a subtle wraparound effect is created by refracted light at the edge of the display. The straps remain compatible with all the previous  Apple watch series bands . It is available in 3 materials Aluminium, Stainless Steel and Titanium. It is available in five all new aluminium colours Green, Blue, Red, Starlight, Midnight.

While barely changing the dimensions of the watch itself,  they have thinned down their borders to 1.7 mm to maximise the display area. It delivers 20% more screen than series 6 and 50% more than entry level models. It is crack resistant and comes with an IPX6 for dust resistance and WR50 for water resistance. The watch charges in no time with an updated charging architecture and fast-charging USB-C cable, it takes about 45 minutes to go from 0% to 80% charge and offers an 18-hour battery life on a single charge. The larger display allows it to offer a Full Keyboard with Quick Path, to make replies to messages easier. It has retained its always on retina display for a brighter view for the users.The users do not have to raise their wrist or touch the screen to see the time or other information and complication on watch because its display is always on and 70% brighter indoors when users wrist is down.

The health and fitness feature is the key USP of the Apple watch product. There is a feature that tracks your health and wellness while on the go. It offers blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) tracking using a built-in Blood Oxygen sensor. It can also detect atrial fibrillation (AFib) and can provide an electrocardiogram (ECG) report. It is also capable of tracking heart rate using an electrical heart rate sensor.The Workout app is one of the most popular apps on Apple Watch, and watchOS 7 brings 4 exciting new workout types supported by powerful heart rate and custom-built motion algorithms. The 4 new workouts are as follows: Core Training, Cooldown, Functional Strength Training and Dance.

Apple Watch introduces sleep tracking, taking a holistic approach to sleep by providing valuable tools to help users get the desired amount of sleep and later in the morning, the user will be able to see a visualisation of their previous night’s sleep, including periods of wake and sleep and they will also see a chart showing their weekly sleep trend.

There are some new features that will come with watchOS 8. The new operating system will come with an advanced breathe app which is known as Mindfulness which enhances the users wellness both mentally and physically. The software update will add Fall Detection to workouts, including cycling which will be able to detect when you begin a cycling workout and to help the user to keep its eyes on the road. Voice feedback announces workout milestones like distance, speed and more that are massively motivating. The motivation is from the beginning to the finish line. It lets users tap into dozens of workouts keeping a track to all the ways the users move.

The Apple Watch will be able to unlock your Mac and iPhone when a face mask is detected. Faces are central to the watch experience, providing customers with valuable information at a glance and the ability to personalise their Apple Watch, the watchOS 7 offers new ways to discover and share unique combinations to completely configure the watch face to suit any activity or lifestyle, from the new parent to the tennis player, surfing aficionado, photographer, etc. It comes with 2 unique watch faces like the Contour and Modular duo that are active dynamically when you raise your wrist.

Detailed Feature list of iOS 15

iOS 15 brings all the new powerful features and new ways to stay connected for the users to help them stay focused, do more with on-device intelligence and explore new things like Memoji, iCloud+, Live Text etc.

The key features of iOS 15 are as follows:

FaceTime

Share play helps the users to watch movies or tv shows or listen music together on different phones with same content with face time calls, share your screen to bring web pages and more in your conversation, to let everyone’s playback in sync you can pause, rewind, play, share your music queue, supports different devices, smart volume lets you hear your friends even during a loud scene or climatic chorus, it lets the user connect through videos, audios and texts depending on what users want to use. In Facetime you have a portrait mode that lets the users blur the background and focus on you. It has a grid view in which all the speakers are in the same size tiles and highlights the speaker who is talking and lets the users call 6 faces at a time. It blocks all the outside voice by recognising your voice by using machine learning which identifies ambient noises and blocks them. It has a wide spectrum mode. The user can share a web link anywhere to invite friends in a face time call and the friend must not necessarily have an apple device, it can connect via other browsers. An optical zoom control for your back camera helps you zero in on what matters when you are on a face time call.

Messages

This feature includes new ways to easily access content that people send you because the content sent you automatically appears in your new shared so you can enjoy it when it is convenient for you. Shared stacks will bring over content from messages to the news app and photo app. You can pin the things which are interesting to you in the messages which will be elevated and shared with you and later you can find. The photos sent to you over messages automatically appear in your photos app and the broader set of shared photos appear in new shared with different sections. The article that appear in new shared or in your safari start page can be enjoyed in both apps in either place. The apple music, apple podcasts, apple tv apps sent over messages automatically appear in new shared. Messages features on device intelligence that filters unwanted sms, organizing them in Promotional, Transactional, and Junk folders so the users inbox can stay clutter free.

Memoji

You can customize your memoji with 40 outfit choices reflecting your mood, style, season and three different colours. You can select a different colour for your left and right eye. You can send a lightbulb moment, a hand wave, a shake and many more with 9 new memoji stickers. To represent yourself with oxygen tubes, cochlear implants, or a soft helmet, three new accessibility options are available.

Focus

Focus, filters, notifications and apps based on what a user wishes to focus on at a certain time. The device matches your mindset with focus.  When a user’s Focus is blocking incoming notifications, their status will be displayed to others in Messages. Turn on Do Not Disturb to switch everything off. iOS 15  will suggest a Focus for different occasions, such as work hours, personal time, gaming, fitness or winding down for bed, using on-device intelligence, but users can also create a custom Focus. You can get intelligent notifications for different locations like time of the day, location, etc by selecting focus based on context. You can allow notifications that you want to see while you are working.

Notification

Notification comes with an all new look for larger icons for apps and contact photos for people. A notification summary collects notifications together for delivery at an appropriate time and arranges notifications by priority. You can mute notifications for a day or for the next hour. People across your communication apps now feature contact photos to make them easier to identify through notifications.

Maps

The maps offer a 3d view for an interactive globe. You can get a detailed experience of every city with precise landmarks, roads, buildings, lanes, crosswalks etc. The driving map highlights details like incidents and traffic, route planners let you decide your journey with preferable departure and arrival time. You can get step by step directions. The transit map shows you the key bus routes and lets you know when your destination arrives. The new place cards let you interact with important info for business, detail about cities. You can look for restaurants and places and filter your search accordingly and maps automatically update your search result.

Safari

You can swipe left or right  on the address bar to move between the tabs or swipe to see all your open apps with your fingertips with the help of the bottom tab bar. With the tab groups you can switch between tab groups in the tab overview and it gets sync across devices so you can access it from anywhere. You can customize your start page to make it your own. To prevent hackers from profiling your IP address, new intelligent  tracking prevention is available. Personalise Safari on iOS with web extensions and add functionality and features to Safari. It comes with tab overview grid view.

Wallet

Simply tap to unlock a compatible homekit door lock for seamless access to your home once you add your home keys. You can also add your hotel keys after making a reservation from the hotel provider’s app. You can add your car keys,office keys, archived passes and others in your wallet. You can add your ID like driver’s license, state ID, Personal ID to the wallet and present them securely when needed.

Live Text

You can use functions like copy, paste, translate and lookup in your photos with the live text feature available which lets the user completely stay interactive. Live text in ScreenShots, Safari, Photos and Quick look and in live previews with Camera. Swipe up or tap the information button on photos to highlight objects and scenes.

Spotlight

One rich result by bringing together all the information you are looking for. It uses information from Photos to enable searching your full photo library by scenes, locations, people, or even things in the photo. It is available with lockscreen access. It Quickly installs apps from the App Store without leaving the Spotlight.

Photos

Apple subscribers can add upto millions of songs from the Apple library to enjoy on their devices. It is available with song suggestions that can be personalized depending on your music preferences and photos and videos. It allows you to mix your memory. Memories come with a fresh new look including animated cards with adaptive tiles, smart, transition style and multiple image collages for a cinematic feel. It comes with interactive interface, browse view, new memory types, on device song suggestions, richer info pane, faster iCloud Photos library initial sync, people identification improvement, selection order in the photos image picker and suggest less options.

Health

Share your health data like heart health, activity, labs, vitals, medical Id, cycle tracking, and many more with people important to you or the ones who care for you. People you share your health data with can view your health alerts received, including high heart rate, rhythm notification etc. You can share your health data with your doctor with the health app provided by the health care provider. Trend analysis lets you see at a glance that the metric is increasing or decreasing over time. Walking steadiness uses custom algorithms that assess your balance, strength and gait to give you an insight into your risk of falling. It gives you Covid 19 immunizations and test results by scanning a QR code from your health care provider securely.

Mail

Mail Privacy Protection helps protect your privacy by preventing email senders from learning about your mail activity. It hides your IP address if you choose it to on or determine your location.

Privacy

You can see how often you have accessed your photos, microphone, location, camera and contacts during the last 7days. It allows you to securely paste the content. You can share your current location with a customizable button in their apps. Limited photos library improvements in third party apps.

Siri

The power of the apple neural engine enables speech recognition models with the same high quality as server based speech recognition.It is on device personalization that is understanding and improving as you use your device. It can now process many types of requests offline like alarms, sharing, audio playback, etc. It is fast on device processing. You can share your photos with Siri by commanding siri “send this photo to a name“ and it will send it to that person. It can maintain context and refer to contacts on screen. It announces your notifications. It is supported by Mixed English and your native language. 9 languages are supported like Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam and Punjabi.

Apple ID

You can choose one or more people you trust to become your account recovery contact to help you to reset your password and get access to your account. The digital legacy program allows you to get access to the account and personal information in the event of your death  to the person you have chosen as the designated person.

iCloud+

It comes with options like iCloud private relay, Hide my Emails, Homekit secure videos and Custom email Domain.

Other than the key features, more features are as follows:

Accessibility, App Library, App Store, Apple card, Apple Play, Augmented Reality, Books, Camera, CarKeys, CarPlay, Control Center, Dictionary, Find My Device, 5G connectivity, 5G preferred over Wifi, Gaming, Home, Inclusive Languages, Keyboard, Keyboard dictation, Lock Screen, Music, News, Notes, Other, Passwords, Podcasts, Reminders, Screen Time, Settings, Setup Experience, Shortcuts, System Fonts, Translate, TV, Voice memos, Weather and Widgets.

iOS 15 will be Available from 20th September 2021

The Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2021 revealed the next major version of iOS 15 and the users will be able to update the new iOS 15 from September. It has launched new ways to help users to stay focused, be more productive and connect with others.

The new operating system for iPhone will bring tons of new upgrades which includes multitasking, brand new look for Safari browser, FaceTime link for group calls with people outside Apple ecosystem, updated maps in apple maps, new details in messaging feature, new memojis, redesigned notifications, Live Text in photos, new focus, spotlights, universal control and many more.

With the iOS 15, Apple users can now do FaceTime calls beyond Apple devices. They can now create a link for an event and share it with others and the ones who have the access to the link can join it from their web browser-Windows devices and Android like any other video conferencing platform. Play feature helps the users to share experiences while connecting with friends and family.  It allows the FaceTime call participants to watch a TV show or movie in sync, share their screen to view apps together and to listen to songs together with Apple Music. FaceTime is set to get portrait mode,  Audio support, grid view for group calls and microphone modes.

Another new feature of the iOS 15 is ‘Focus Mode’. The users will be able to focus and reduce distraction. In addition to “Do not disturb,” you can configure various modes — you can choose people and apps which are your priority and  change your focus depending on what you’re doing. For instance, you can create a Workout mode, a Sleep mode, etc. To filter notifications and apps based on what a user wants to focus on the focus is developed. Notifications have been modified with bold icons for apps and contacts for effortless identification. A new summary is added which collects the  non-time-critical notifications for delivery at a more opportune time, such as in the morning, afternoon, evening and night.

Another new addition in iOS 15 is the Live Text. It uses its device intelligence to recognise text in a photo and allow users to take action. It scans your photos for text and The Called Live Text feature lets you highlight text in photos or copy and paste text in photos. IOS is going to leverage that info for Spotlight being a better accessibility feature as well. It will pull out relevant photos when you will search for the text in your photos directly in Spotlight. These features are handled on-device directly. To store driver’s licence information,state IDs and other personal IDs, Apple has provided the users with a new utility Apple Wallet. The iOS 15 has more privacy controls to help protect user information. The Identity Cards in Wallet are encrypted and safely stored in the Secure Element, the same hardware technology that makes Apple Pay private and secure. To process all Siri requests on iPhone, it has added an on-device speech recognition feature. To stop senders from seeing whether an email has been opened or not, and to hide the IP addresses so that the senders cannot learn a user’s location or use it to build a profile on them,  Apple has added a ‘Mail Privacy Protection’.

The iOS 15 will be compatible with iPhone SE (1st generation), iPhone SE (2nd generation), iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus,iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone XR, iPhone X, iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max, iPhone11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, and new iPhone 13, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max. Your iphone’s will be provided with a free software upgrade. When the system is ready for the update, the supported iPhones will automatically show a notification for the software upgrade. To begin the update for your phone, tap on the notification bar and then tap on the download button and if you want to manually check for the update, go to Settings> General> Software update and If you like your iPhone the way it is, Apple has also said that you don’t have to update to iOS 15. For the foreseeable future, the company will still update iOS 14 with security patches.