Heart rate recovery: A new feature that could use a better explanation. It's more like what Samsung's Gear watches offered in terms of fitness info on-watch. Other graphs and averages for workouts are listed, too. I found these really useful, and nice baselines. Heart rate, previously a ping-as-needed tool, now lists more graphs for all-day averages in resting heart rate and walking heart rate. The Apple Watch is doing it slowly, but now more on-watch than Fitbit, which relies more on a companion smartphone app. Or at the end of one day, I was encouraged to take a 20 minute walk to close my red ring. I'd see a ping that I could try for more activity today. The new operating system amps up coaching a bit, if you let it. Out of the box, the Apple Watch Series 3 runs WatchOS 4, the software update that's now available to all previous Watch owners. And the Series 3 still includes the big fitness improvements from 2016: GPS and 'swimproofing' - it's waterproof to 50 meters, even in seawater. The on-watch extra sensor this time is a barometric altimeter, which lists stair-climbing stats like a Fitbit. Most people use Apple Watch as a fitness tracker. Sarah Tew/CNET Fitness making more strides, particularly with heart

Heart rate data now includes resting heart rate and graphs. Others can be added and synced when the watch is charging. The first time I used the watch, after an overnight charge I found a few playlists and albums waiting for me when I went walking. WatchOS 4 now syncs music more automatically, and it's a huge difference. The iPod is gone: long live the new iPod.Īpple Watches could always store music, but they were bad at it: syncing music from a cloud-based Apple Music account was always a time-consuming ordeal. Messages and notifications came in fits and spurts. Phone functions were generally fine, and so was email. It's unclear how many of these will be smoothed over in software updates. AirPod connectivity sometimes didn't automatically work, either. Also, many third-party apps don't currently support LTE connection yet. If it's not, you won't get those pings on the watch. And third-party notifications, like Twitter, require your phone to be on and connected to a network somewhere, even if it's not nearby. iMessages sometimes popped in all at once or not at all.

I didn't experience those specific issues, but I did have weird experiences with notifications. (In the meantime, to disconnect from a problem Wi-Fi network, you need to forget the network using your phone.) It's unclear exactly when the problem will be fixed via software update, but I was told it would be soon. Apple confirmed these issues to CNET, too. Some reviews have noted that the LTE version of the Series 3 has problems connecting to LTE when open Wi-Fi networks are nearby, a bug that Apple has admitted to. Some playlists just automagically end up on your watch.

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