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Apple Unveils App Store for Its Watch, Adds Health Features

The App Store will be usable from the Watch itself, a change from needing to download apps to the device via a connected iPhone.

Apple Unveils App Store for Its Watch, Adds Health Features
Apple previewed the new operating system, watchOS 6, at its annual developer conference in San Jose, California, on Monday. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. showed off a big upgrade to the software that powers its Watch, adding an App Store, new health-tracking features, and a series of new watch faces.

The company previewed the new operating system, watchOS 6, at its annual developer conference in San Jose, California, on Monday. For the first time, the App Store will be usable from the Watch itself, a change from needing to download apps to the device via a connected iPhone. It also added new Watch apps like a calculator, Apple Books for listening to audio books and a voice recorder.

Apple also unveiled new faces for the clock feature of the Watch, including a new dial that merges Roman and Arabic numerals, a face that looks like a sundial, and a new Infograph face that shows more information.

It also upped the health-tracking capabilities of the smartwatch, bundling in a Cycle Tracking program for menstrual cycle tracking and Activity Trends to analyze your workout activity over time.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Andrew Pollack

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