Apple is reportedly exploring a Whoop-like screenless fitness band, but no product, specifications, price, or release date have been confirmed.
Health
Apple’s newest Watches quietly drop handwashing support
Apple’s support list leaves Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 without automatic handwashing detection, although watchOS 27 still includes it.
Apple is reportedly fixing Readiness delays on Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Series 12
Apple is working on fixes for Readiness scores that are slow to update on Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Series 12, according to Ray Maker’s in-depth Ultra 4 review at DC Rainmaker, published September 17. After his watches took up to four hours to show a score, he writes: “Apple says they’re working on it,…
Apple Watch Series 12 heart rate nearly matched a chest strap in a new test
Apple Watch Series 12’s new heart rate sensor tracked almost exactly with a Polar H10 chest strap in the first round of testing by Rob ter Horst, who runs The Quantified Scientist YouTube channel. In his own testing, the watch scored correlations of a rounded 1.0 for indoor cycling, 0.98 for running and 0.97 for…
How to move your Apple Watch to a new iPhone 18 Pro and keep your Health data
Before you set up an iPhone 18 Pro, update your current iPhone and Apple Watch and make sure your Health data is backed up. Apple’s support document on moving a watch to a new iPhone, dated September 14, also asks for Wi-Fi on both iPhones and at least 50 percent charge on the watch and…
Series 12 and Ultra 4 hypertension alerts may not be available in 33 regions
Hypertension notifications may not be available on Apple Watch Series 12 or Ultra 4 in 33 countries and regions, including Canada, India, Australia and Japan. Apple’s watchOS feature availability page gives the reason in a footnote on each one: “additional regulatory clearances for these devices are in process.” Apple Watch Ultra 4. Image: Apple Apple…
Cycle Tracking Adds Menopause Support for the First Time, With Rules Apple Spells Out
Cycle Tracking is adding perimenopause and menopause support for the first time, a feature Apple has never previously built into the Health app. It arrives in watchOS 27 on Monday, September 14, and Apple has attached specific rules to it: an age floor, symptom logging, and two sentences the company is careful to include about…
Apple Watch Series 12 Reads Your Heart Every Five Seconds: What Apple Publishes About That Data
Apple says the Apple Watch Series 12 “measures heart rate every five seconds, all day long”, with 60x more frequent background heart rate readings and 24x more frequent HRV readings than Series 11. What Apple publishes about the handling of all that data runs to two sentences: health and fitness data in the Health app,…
Does the Apple Watch Series 12 Measure Blood Pressure? No, and Here Is What It Does Instead
No. The Apple Watch Series 12 does not measure blood pressure, and Apple has never said it does. There is no cuff, no systolic or diastolic reading, and no blood pressure sensor anywhere on the sensor list Apple publishes for the watch. The Readiness score is one of the features fed by the more frequent…
Apple Watch Sleep Tracking in watchOS 27: Every Confirmed Change for Series 12 and Ultra 4
Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 both list a sleep score and sleep apnea notifications, and both add an overnight vitals view that compares Recovery HRV with your personal baseline. What is easy to miss is where those changes live: Apple’s own watchOS 27 feature list does not name a single sleep…
Apple Watch Recovery HRV vs Overall HRV: What Apple Says Separates the Two
Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 measure heart rate variability every five minutes, and Apple reports the result in two named forms: Recovery HRV, which it ties to daily stress and recovery, and overall HRV. The difference is not the sensor. It is what each number is measured against. Heart health insights…
Wellness Feature or Medical Device? How Apple Labels Every New Health Feature for 2026
Apple draws a line through its 2026 health features, and it is the thing readers most often get wrong: the new ones are wellness features. Apple has claimed no regulatory clearance for anything it announced on September 9, and where it has written a label at all, the label says wellness. Readiness, a wellness score…
Apple's Movement Evaluations Record No Video: What Apple Published About the iPhone Camera Test
Apple says its new movement evaluations use the iPhone camera to assess flexibility, strength, balance, movement mechanics and VO2 max, and that the whole process runs entirely on device with no video recorded, stored or shared. That last part is the specific published claim, and it is the one worth reading closely. The redesigned Health…
Apple Watch Series 12 Heart Sensors: What Changes If You Are Not an Athlete
If you are not training for anything, what the new Health Sensing System on Apple Watch Series 12 changes is how often the watch measures you and where those numbers surface, not what the watch is able to tell you. Apple’s figures are precise: heart rate every five seconds all day, and heart rate variability…
Apple Says Series 12 Has the Most Accurate Heart Rate Sensing in a Wearable: What the 1,000-Person Study Claims
Apple says the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 have the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable, and it is pointing to a study of more than 1,000 participants run in July and August 2026 to back the claim. The study compared Apple Watch against what Apple calls leading competitors.…
Apple Watch Series 12 Step Tracking: The New Steps Complication and Apple's Accuracy Claim
Apple Watch Series 12 adds a Steps complication to the watch face, and Apple is claiming the watch now has the most accurate step tracking of any smartwatch. Both the complication and the accuracy claim also apply to the Apple Watch Ultra 4, announced the same day. Step counts have long been available in the…
watchOS 27 Cycle Tracking Adds Perimenopause and Menopause Support: What It Does
watchOS 27 adds perimenopause and menopause support to Cycle Tracking on Apple Watch. Users 40 and over will get a notification when changes in their cycle suggest perimenopause, and the app adds notifications for postmenopausal bleeding. The update arrives free on Monday, September 14, 2026, though Apple says the feature is not available in all…
Apple Watch Readiness Score Explained: What the 0 to 10 Rating Means and How to Use It
Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 add a Readiness score, a single daily number from 0 to 10 that Apple builds from recent activity, training load, vitals and sleep. Each score comes with one of four recommendations: Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready or Go For It. Keynote coverage described a new Readiness app,…
Apple Watch Series 12 Health Sensing System Explained: Heart Rate Every 5 Seconds, HRV Every 5 Minutes
Apple Watch Series 12 introduces what Apple calls the Health Sensing System: new optical and electrical heart sensors that measure heart rate every 5 seconds all day and heart rate variability every 5 minutes, which Apple says is 24 times more often than before. The same system is in the Apple Watch Ultra 4, and…
How to See Your Heart Rate Recovery on the iPhone
In this guide, we’ll help help you learn how to check your Heart Rate Recovery (Cardio Recovery) on your iPhone and Apple Watch.
How to Track Mental and Vision Health in watchOS 10
Arnold Zafra walks you through some of the latest improvements in the Health app, including vision and mental health features in watchOS 10.
Mental Health and Other Enhancements to Apple's Health App
Along with some major news at WWDC, Apple is making a ton of improvements to the Health app, including a focus on mental health.
Sobering Thoughts from TSMC's Founder - TMO Daily Observations 2023-03-17
The founder of Apple’s chipmaking partner TSMC struck a worrying note this week when assessing US/Taiwanese relations. TMO Managing Editor Jeff Butts joins Ken to talk about that. Plus – Adventures in Sleep in the Apple Health app.
Thoughts About the Future of AI Applications on Apple Devices and Their Impact on Public Health
Apple’s evolving adoption and development of AI could offer tremendous benefits to public health on a global scale.