Report: Apple Watch Series 12 may feature always-on heart-rate tracking, new Fitness app

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple has a couple new features in the pipeline for Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 that’ll make it much more appealing for health-conscious users. The company is also testing two finishes for the rumored ceramic version.

New health upgrades

These two key health upgrades will likely sound appealing if you’re someone who’s dissatisfied with the state of Apple Watch as a fitness tracker. The two features are always-on heart-rate tracking, and an all new app design. that’ll make it much easier to learn from your health data. Here’s how Gurman describes the new app:

Apple is also working on revamping its fitness and health app software to show more wellness-related metrics in a similar fashion to increasingly popular app offerings from Whoop and Oura.

As someone who currently owns a WHOOP, I will say my primary draw to it has always been the fact that I find it much easier to learn from my health data in the WHOOP app. It’ll show me all of the factors that make my sleep or recovery poor, whereas with Apple Watch it feels the only important thing is your activity rings. If Apple makes meaningful progress in this regard, I’ll be quite happy.

A key part of making the Apple Watch a more data-rich experience is well, having more data. Apple is reportedly testing the ability for the heart-rate sensor to record all day, rather than only during workouts and at random.

Two new finishes

We’ve already heard that Apple is weighing ceramic for the Apple Watch Series 12, though Gurman is now reporting that there’ll be two color options: the traditional white, as well as a dark gray color. There’ll also be “many new band colors and configurations.”

Redesign in the future

The current Apple Watch design language was introduced in 2024, with the Apple Watch Series 12. It was a relatively modest shift, with the company making the watch much thinner at the compromise of bezels. According to Bloomberg, we may see a new Apple Watch redesign next year with the Series 13, though it could shift to the Series 14:

Apple is pushing to have a big redesign for its watch ready by next year, but things could still slip to the year after.

I am quite excited to see what Apple cooks up here. It does feel like they’ve about peaked at what they can do with the rounded off design language, so maybe we’ll see a new shape entirely. Hopefully it doesn’t break backwards compatibility with older watch bands.

My favorite Apple accessory recommendations:

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