Support for Multiple Watches

watchOS 2.2 adds support for pairing more than one Apple Watch with a single iPhone. To take advantage of this feature, each Apple Watch must be running watchOS 2.2 and the paired iPhone must be running iOS 9.3. To learn how to support this feature in your Watch app, see Watch Connectivity.

As a developer, you test multiple watch pairing by updating each Apple Watch separately—that is, for each Apple Watch, you install the appropriate profile, update the paired watch to watchOS 2.2, and then unpair the watch. After all watches are running watchOS 2.2, you can pair more than one to a single iPhone running iOS 9.3. To switch watches, you simply take off one watch and put on another (you can also manually switch between watches in the Apple Watch app on iPhone). To ensure that data is properly updated when switching between watches, be sure that your paired iPhone is within range of that watch when you switch. Note that only one watch is connected to the paired iPhone at a time.

Maps Enhancements

When users access the Maps glance or app in watchOS 2.2, they can get quick directions to a location, perform searches, or view nearby points of interest. The new Nearby feature makes it easy for users to browse through categories such as Food, Drinks, Shopping, Travel, and Health, and find the closest places in each category. Tapping a category can give users additional options, such as the Nightlife, Music & Drama, Parks & Recreation, and Movies options in the Fun category.

Core Text Framework

watchOS 2.2 includes the Core Text framework, which allows complex text layout and rendering into graphics contexts. To learn more, see Core Text Reference Collection.

HealthKit Framework

The HealthKit framework includes the following enhancements.

The HKActivitySummary class defines an activity summary object that contains a summary of the user’s activity for a given day. The summary includes the active energy burned, the amount of time spent exercising (that is, the time spent moving at a brisk walk or greater), and the stand hours earned. Apple Watch saves activity summary objects to the HealthKit store. You can create your own summary objects, but you cannot save them to the HealthKit store. You can use a HKActivitySummaryQuery object to read HKActivitySummary objects from the HealthKit store. You can also use a WKInterfaceActivityRing object to display data from a HKActivitySummary object (for more details, see WatchKit Framework).

Watch Connectivity

In watchOS 2.2, users can pair more than one Apple Watch to the same iPhone. If your Watch app uses the Watch Connectivity framework to communicate with a paired iPhone, you must adopt new interfaces to support the configuration of your session. These new interfaces provide more information about the state of a connection. To learn more, see Watch Connectivity Framework Reference.

WatchKit Framework

The WatchKit framework includes the following enhancement.

Use the WKInterfaceActivityRing class to enable a view of the activity rings in your Watch app. The activity ring view displays the Move (red), Exercise (blue), and Stand (green) rings on a black background.