The Next Apple Watch Already Sounds Way More Useful

The Next Apple Watch Already Sounds Way More Useful

The Apple Watch’s launch was a shaky one. Yeah, Apple sold a ton of them (as Apple is wont to do) but a few hardware and software snafus provided painful flashbacks of Apple’s troubled history with gen one devices. Fortunately, some missing Watch OS features may be coming sooner rather than later.

According to this 9to5mac report, the biggest missing “no duh” feature is a , which would basically freeze a smartwatch with a passcode when the security precaution is activated. That way, smartwatch-stealing arseholes would be somewhat deterred from accosting Apple fans for their fancy wearables if they knew they’d just be getting a bricked watch. This works with what Apple’s calling “smart leashing,” which keeps track of the location between an Apple Watch and an iPhone.

In addition to this nifty security update, Apple is also accessing ways to bring a blood pressure monitor and sleep tracking features as well. Supposedly, the company was interested in tracking irregular heartbeats but ran into some obstacles with US government regulation.

That’s great news…for future Apple Watch owners. In the above report, 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman explains how it’s pretty much “Bummersville, Population: You” if you have a first generation Apple Watch:

“The source cautioned that the ‘Find My Watch’ and ‘Smart Leashing’ features could be further off that others in development, as they may require a more capable and independent wireless chip in a next-generation watch.”

The generation one curse continues.

But it’s not all bad news for you early adopters. The last bit of rumour centres around the Apple Watch’s “Complications,” those little software tidbits on the watch face that give you glanceable info like weather, battery life, and alarms. Those could be opening up to third party developers, with one example being a Twitter complication that displays how many unread tweets you have, or the text of a recent Twitter mention.

So… there’s that, at least. [9to5Mac]


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