The Apple Watch is objectively one of the best smartwatches on the market. It offers support for fitness tracking, a wide range of health metrics, in addition to tight Apple ecosystem integrations. However, many of those using it to stay active have had a common complaint for years: its unforgiving ring system. Fortunately, watchOS 11 addresses this issue by introducing break days and more flexible goals, along with smarter features that further personalize it.
watchOS 11 won’t be available to the general public until later this year. Nevertheless, I installed developer beta 1 on my Apple Watch Series 9 to document the early experience. Given that watchOS 10 completely overhauled the system last year, version 11 expectedly doesn’t pack as many interesting changes, but below are the most notable ones I’ve found so far.