Powerbeats Pro 2 can also integrate with the Fitness app and help you close your rings like AirPods Pro 3.
When Powerbeats Pro 2 were released back in February, you had to use a third party fitness app on iPhone in order to log your heart rate, calories, etc. Now with iOS 26, you can use Apple’s own Fitness app and track your heart rate with a workout.
The fine print in AirPods Pro 3 press release:
Heart rate sensing with AirPods Pro 3 and Powerbeats Pro 2 during workouts is available in the Fitness app on iPhone with iOS 26, iPad with iPadOS 26, and Apple TV with tvOS 26 when also paired with iPhone or Apple Watch. Apple Fitness+ requires a subscription.
The Powerbeats Pro 2 got a lot of flack from the fitness community due to its woes with accurate heart rate monitoring and lack of consistency in getting readings. It worked better on Android for God’s sake.
AirPods Pro 3 are a signature Apple product, and it needs to work well all the time in order for people to take its heart rate sensing capabilities seriously.
Red Apple Watch faces that are easy on the eyes when sleeping and maintain your visual acuity (in-depth guide).
For a simple watch face when going to sleep, you could use the Sleep Focus and get a minimal watch face, but the problem is you have to tap the screen to see the time, which defeats the purpose of an always-on watch, and maybe your just overpowered by sleep and moving your other arm feels like a real drag in the moment.
The next best option? Minimal red watch faces. 📓
EE, a UK based mobile network operator, will have new family plans that limit internet usage for teenagers - as long as they don’t use Wi-Fi.
BBC:
Its new Sim-only mobile plans will filter the web at different levels depending on the age of the child using it, with three separate tiers of protections.
The plans will also have other features such as reduced internet speeds for younger teens to "limit streaming", as well as protecting against scam calls.
But EE can only control what is accessed by using mobile data using its network - meaning it cannot filter content accessed via wi-fi, which is operated separately.
Sounds like a way to profit off of parents’ fears and desire to do what’s right for their kids, but the uptake of many of these parental controls is really slim. Even on iPhone, setting up Screen Time and Parental Controls is cumbersome, and it took several tries for me to get things right for my kids. It also doesn’t help that you have to remember another 4-digit passcode.
I’m not alone in this battle:
EE ambassador and TV presenter Konnie Huq said at a launch event for the new plans she felt "like her mum in the old days" - who she recalled struggling to work the family's TV remote controls.
Meta, which owns Instagram and WhatsApp, says take-up of its numerous parental controls is relatively low.
Technology analyst Paolo Pescatore told the BBC that EE's plans are "a huge step in the right direction" but implementation of such controls "is no easy feat."
The best option really is to use on-device tools or a third party tool that works cross-platform and master that one app. For me, that’s Screen Time and Parental Controls on Apple devices, for now.
Another real risk of these plans - funneling kids to use public Wi-Fi more than usual, which is a whole different set of risks.
How to disable headphone safety notifications on iPhone and Apple Watch.
Normally this isn’t good advice, but I had to get rid of these safety notifications for my sanity. My background noise sleep setup coupled with earplugs is my ultimate sound proofing system for working the graveyard shift, and there’s nothing worse than your speaker warning you about loud volumes along with your watch vibrating with the same notification during a deep sleep session.
These can be disabled only in certain regions, but thankfully the US is one of them. 📓
Blood Oxygen feature returns on Apple Watch - what this could mean for future health metrics.
Apple Newsroom:
Apple will introduce a redesigned Blood Oxygen feature for some Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 users through an iPhone and Apple Watch software update coming later today.
Users with these models in the U.S. who currently do not have the Blood Oxygen feature will have access to the redesigned Blood Oxygen feature by updating their paired iPhone to iOS 18.6.1 and their Apple Watch to watchOS 11.6.1. Following this update, sensor data from the Blood Oxygen app on Apple Watch will be measured and calculated on the paired iPhone, and results can be viewed in the Respiratory section of the Health app. This update was enabled by a recent U.S. Customs ruling.
There will be no impact to Apple Watch units previously purchased that include the original Blood Oxygen feature, nor to Apple Watch units purchased outside of the U.S.
You won’t get measurements directly on your watch; you will have to go to your iPhone’s Health app to view the data. Still better than nothing, but it begs the question:
Is this a precursor to improved health features in the near future?
For one, sleep apnea detection could be more accurate with this new information. From a post I wrote back in January:
If you look at Apple’s study, sensitivity for severe sleep apnea had a sensitivity of 89.1%, while sensitivity for moderate sleep apnea was 43.4%, giving an average score of 66.3%. What that actually means is the Apple Watch is best at detecting severe sleep apnea 89% of the time. It is not that great at determining moderate sleep apnea at only 43%.
Apple would rather underdiagnose people than give false positives, which is still better than no diagnosis at all. They were able to get this far with just the accelerometer sensor:
“The Sleep Apnea Notification Feature is a software-based medical device that analyzes Breathing Disturbance data collected nightly by the Apple Watch accelerometer sensor.”
I wonder how much better the Apple Watch could have been at detecting Sleep Apnea if they included Blood Oxygen data, which is another key component in diagnosing sleep apnea. To perform another study at this scale would take years, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Apple’s sleep apnea detection gets better sensitivity with more crucial data points like blood oxygen levels once the battle with Masimo ends.
Who knows, maybe Apple has two sets of data when they did the study, one with just the accelerometer and one with both the accelerometer and blood oxygen sensor.
Wired reviews the best hearing aids, and it’s no surprise which ones are the best dual-purpose hearing aid/Bluetooth earbuds.
It’s no surprise that the best hearing aids cost thousands of dollars, with the top rated one being the Jabra Enhance Select 300 at a whopping $1,700 a pair, which is cheap compared to the Edge AI RIC RT’s $4,000 asking price. The best budget hearing aid? The JLab Hear at $100 that also doubles as wireless earbuds.
The overall best hearing aid and Bluetooth earbuds combo? AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C. They’re always on sale for $169, making them an excellent value with a low barrier of entry.
Here is Wired’s take:
OTC hearing aids have been around for more than three years now, but it might be Apple that really kickstarts this market into gear, now that hearing aid features are available on its AirPods Pro 2 wireless earbuds (8/10, WIRED Recommends). A software update is all you need to turn your existing earbuds into hearing aids, giving them a second job of helping you hear better, even when you’re not streaming.
All the expected features common to OTC hearing aids are here and more, including the ability to upload an existing audiogram to tune them to your specific needs. The units quickly and effectively shift between hearing aid mode and streaming mode, and—unique to Apple—iOS now automatically applies your hearing aid settings to streaming media, which can make a difference to the clarity of dialog and other sounds. For the most part, they do the job as intended.
Mind you, AirPods Pro 2 aren’t perfect as hearing aids, and they may not be the best choice for everyone. There’s a lingering hiss and some audio artifacts that need to be ironed out, and the built-in hearing test feature needs some work. With just six hours of battery life (plus 24 more in the case), they aren’t a great solution for people who need uninterrupted hearing help all day long. But the big news is that, at $249, Apple is now producing some of the least expensive products in the category, a position in which it rarely finds itself. As a first step toward investigating a solution for hearing loss, the price alone makes them worth strong consideration, presuming that you have an iPhone.
Also, former MythBuster Adam Savage who personally uses AirPods Pro as hearing aids had this to say:
I think Apple turning the AirPod Pros into a substitute hearing aid is one of the best sub-features I've seen out of this consumer product in a long time. Having been a very public hearing aid wearer for 15 years, I have been sent a lot of people’s versions of earbud-hearing-aids and I’ll, I’m not naming any names but everything I have tried sucked. Everything I have tried had a very bad user experience in the calibration, in the testing, in the integration. These (the AirPods Pro 2) were really really just as advertised by Apple, straightforward, simple to understand, fast to execute, and awesome to use […]
If you have people in your life who need hearing aids, this might be a great gateway drug to hearing aids, given that it is a lot less expensive and it carries a lot less of the, stigma of hearing aids. One of the rhetorical flourishes I gave people a few years ago that a lot of folks have told me worked on people in their lives, is to explain that no one who ever got hearing aids thought to themselves, “well that was a bad idea.”
REEVUS water bottle is great for workouts
I was too lazy to go upstairs and try to find my iPad for working out, so I decided to just use my iPhone and prop it up with the MagSafe compatible lid on the REEVUS water bottle and get the job done. I knew I would get side tracked if I went upstairs so I just had to grind it out on the small screen. 📓
Apple Watch needs to have Continuity with iPad, but iPadOS is holding it back.
I love running on my treadmill and watching videos on my iPad, and that setup is perfect to project my Apple Watch metrics onto the iPad. It makes perfect sense, and would allow me to be more intentional with my running instead of repeatedly looking at my watch.
This feature already exists on the iPhone when I noticed my biking workouts project real-time metrics onto the Lock Screen and the Fitness app. Gym equipment also connects with Apple Watch, giving you more accurate information.
There is a general lack of compatibility (or Continuity per Apple lingo), between iPad and Apple Watch, even at this turning point where all of Apple’s platforms have now unified their naming scheme. Apple Watch is already intimately linked to the iPhone, and provides crucially convenient features for Mac users such as Apple Pay and Auto Unlock with Apple Watch. I use both of these Mac features on my 12-year-old, 2013 MacBook Pro, and it still works flawlessly.
The iPad doesn’t have a true clamshell mode, so it would need to be updated before Auto Unlock with Apple Watch and Apple Pay could be a feature. Hopefully we can see an update in iPadOS 27 for more Continuity features starting with these two, and yes, projecting workout metrics to the iPad screen.
Workout Buddy in watchOS 26 is too nice.
She needs to have a more serious attitude and just tell it to you like it is. I did a couple of 15 minute workouts this week, and she was being passive-aggressive about my progress. We don’t need full Samuel L. Jackson mode, but something in the middle or at least the option to be more aggressive.
She needs more of a “GOYA” attitude.
That won’t happen of course, but as a healthcare provider, one of the best ways to motivate people to be more conscious and intentional about their health is to put their life into perspective. Think of things they want to do, and how their health could impact their ability to do that thing.
For example:
If you don’t start eating right and exercising more, don’t expect to be there when your daughter walks down the aisle.
If you want to go hiking with your grandkids, you need to lose weight and get your physical therapy sessions done regularly.
It would be crazy (but effective) if Workout Buddy starts telling you to keep running, or else you’ll never make it to enjoy retirement.
Forget about a ring, Apple should make a WHOOP competitor to further expand its wearable market.
Apple should seriously consider developing a smart ring to give its fitness-tracking wearables push new momentum and widen its market.
I think Apple should take a different approach.
Imagine an Apple Watch, but you take away the screen, buttons, speaker, and microphones, and you fill up that extra space with a higher capacity battery while making the device thinner. Currently the smallest, most modern Apple Watch (42mm Series 10) is 36mm wide, excluding the Digital Crown. With all those components removed, the form factor could morph back in time and be shrunken down just a bit to the size of the Series 3 Apple Watch at 33.3mm wide. This would still allow the small watch bands to fit (think 38mm, 40mm, 41mm, and the new 42mm bands).
You would only need one size since it’s a passive device with no screen. A thin device like that could act as a fashion piece like the WHOOP tries to do. Turn the front of the device into a polished steel surface with Apple’s classic trio of Silver, Slate, and Gold, and you have a piece of jewelry that can be swapped with any band of your choosing. If placed on an alternate site on the body, the smaller form factor would be easy to conceal.
Every single Apple Watch has been slightly taller than wide. To change the look of this new product, they can make it a perfect square at 33mm x 33mm, still leaving plenty of room to charge the device with the same Apple Watch charging puck. The device would have longer battery life, be more fashionable, and would not get banned from weddings.
Another critical feature? Giving it the ability to be worn on other parts of the body, such as your bicep, ankle, near your waist, etc. People are already doing it anyway, so why not make it more marketable (and accurate) for those of us who can’t wear a health device on our wrists all the time?
For my line of work in preparing sterile radioactive medications for patients, I’m not allowed to wear any jewelry in the lab, making the Apple Watch unusable for a decent portion of an 8-hour shift. It would be a huge deal for others in the healthcare field like myself who can track their health while working. This would apply to other occupations as well where the wrist is just too risky to put a $400 plus device.
The biggest hurdles to this form factor? Making sure the health data is accurate on alternate sites on the body, which could take years just based on how thorough Apple is when doing these health studies. They should pick alternative body sites that make the most sense and go all-in, even if it is just one additional body part like the upper arm or near your waist.
I think a WHOOP competitor that piggybacks off of the Apple Watch’s accessory lineup and distribution process gives Apple an advantage. It might seem redundant, but Apple has multiple form factors for each of its signature product categories, and this wouldn’t be any different. They should lean into their iconic squircle form factor instead of trying to start a whole new category.
Apple developing its own AI Health coach.
Mark Gurman in his Power On Newsletter:
The initiative is called Project Mulberry, and it involves a completely revamped Health app plus a health coach. The service would be powered by a new AI agent that would replicate — at least to some extent — a real doctor…
The idea is this: The Health app will continue to collect data from your devices (whether that’s the iPhone, Apple Watch, earbuds or third-party products), and then the AI coach will use that information to offer tailor-made recommendations about ways to improve health.
The company is currently training the AI agent with data from physicians that it has on staff. Apple is also looking to bring in outside doctors, including experts in sleep, nutrition, physical therapy, mental health and cardiology, to create videos. That content would serve as explainers to users about certain conditions and how to make lifestyle improvements. For instance, if the Health app receives data about poor heart-rate trends, a video explaining the risks of heart disease could appear.
Apple is by far the leader in healthcare among all the tech giants. I can’t think of any other company that comes close.
It’s good to see Apple continue to expand in that direction, and it might not be a bad idea to get some Pharmacists there as well who can advise on medications and what effects they could be having on a person’s health.
Siri has fallen and gotten worse, but I don’t think Tim Cook will let that happen with healthcare.
The Powerbeats Pro 2 are the best way to instantly monitor your resting heart rate, but it’s not perfect.
It’s funny how Beats is marketing this as heart rate monitoring for workouts, when it does a better job monitoring your resting heart rate. This device is genuinely better for older folks as a health and accessibility device than it is for athletes as a fitness tracker. 📓
Who should buy the Powerbeats Pro 2? The answer will surprise you.
Apple’s Superstar lineup for marketing the Powerbeats Pro 2:
Shohei Ohtani.
Lionel Messi.
Lebron James.
Your mom.
Wait…what??
Yes, that’s right. Your mom is a Superstar, and an ideal candidate for the Powerbeats Pro 2, at least if she’s anything like mine.
My mom was in the market for some durable earbuds back in October 2021. Besides being wireless, she only had one criterion: the earbuds had to have a loop that goes around her ears and keeps it secure. She wears a headscarf, and headscarves don’t go well with any AirPods that she has tried since they simply are not secure enough. As a bus driver, the last thing she wants to do is try to find her ear bud in the driver’s footwell.
The Powerbeats Pro were the best choice, and she has been using the same pair every day since November 2021. They’re still going strong, and once they go bad, I will probably get her the Powerbeats Pro 2 that I am testing out. I can’t give them to her now because her original ones still work, and she wouldn’t want me to get her new headphones for no reason. I might even get a lecture about wasting money if I did.
It’s an Asian thing.
Just don’t tell her about my Apple Watch obsession.
She’s in her 60s, yet these are perfect for her in many ways besides the secure fit. She is a marathon talker on the phone, and she will be happy with the much better battery life. She manages battery life by alternating ear pieces, and she keeps her other ear free for listening to her surroundings.
I don’t even want to try to explain to her how the force touch tips on AirPods work, let alone the swipe gestures, but the actual buttons on the beats make it simple and easy to understand. A simple volume rocker and a “beats” button for play and pause. Real, clickable buttons, perfect for the elderly and non tech-savvy. She is already used to this layout, so she will feel right at home.
The smaller case will make more room for her purse which is already full (what purse isn’t full anyway?), but it won’t be too small for her to lose it either. The balance is just right.
The other cool aspect about the Pro 2 is heart rate monitoring. My mom refuses to wear an Apple Watch because that’s just one more thing to learn and charge, but she wears her beats all the time. When she is not actively listening to lectures or talking on the phone, her iPhone would be logging her heart rate with the Pro 2. It only logs your heart rate when you are actively in the Health App with both earbuds in place, but it would be nice for her to see at least one health metric. The minute you leave the Health app, the heart rate monitor stops, probably to preserve battery life.
My plan is to get her interested in heart rate monitoring, and then eventually upsell her into an Apple Watch for all the other health benefits.
Lastly, if you’re afraid someone might steal her earbuds, buy the Quick Sand color. That hue of light grayish-brown is a similar color to hearing aids, and looks the part when placed in your ear. I instantly felt older when I looked in the mirror instead of younger and hip.
Storing things inside Your AirPods Pro 2 case.
I ended up getting a mini workout done when I was not really expecting to at my son’s wrestling practice. Normally I just use the time to do some writing, but now I have to split the time between writing and working out due to less free time at home with the new baby.
The Milanese band is my band of choice for jogging, but I forgot to swap it out and was wearing my link bracelet. I wear the link bracelet a bit loose since it’s uncomfortable when tight, but I needed to tighten it up for the workout.
I ended up taking out one link, and storing it in my AirPods Pro 2 case. It fits pretty good inside there, and even attaches magnetically making it harder for the link to fall out. I do use the smaller sized bracelet labelled 38mm (also the same as 40mm, 41mm, and the new 42mm), but I’m confident there is enough space for the larger links to also fit.
I’m not a fan of working out with the link bracelet, but it’s doable, especially if you have storage for your extra links. 📓
Did Apple fix its Drug Interaction Checker for Pregnancy?
I have tried out Apple's Drug Interaction Checker once again, a year and a half since the last time I looked at it. I had 4 complaints about the Interaction Checker when I first tested it:
Two drugs in the same category that are taken together do not bring any warnings to consult your Healthcare Team, even though they can cause severe problems.
Two of the literal same drugs, with one being the brand and the other being generic, when taken together do not bring any warnings to consult your Healthcare Team, even though taking the same medication twice can cause problems.
The Medications section does not give you warnings if you are pregnant and are taking dangerous medications.
The Medications section does not give you warnings if you are pregnant and drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, or use cannabis.
Has Apple fixed these issues? 📓
How Apple will probably implement their blood pressure technology.
They called it “Stereo Blood Pressure,” which just sounds awesome…📓
Time to stand.
This is perhaps the most underrated health feature of the Apple Watch, and the most important.
The “Time to stand” function is so important, and something you hopefully you won’t realize too late in life.
As a healthcare professional and as someone who has to stand a lot for work, I can tell you with certainty that the days I have to work and move around a lot, I actually feel less lower back pain. When I am off and sit on a computer trying to think about what to write, I feel more back pain.
I would encourage everyone to take their “Time to stand” reminder seriously because it will help you in the long run.
Remember, sitting is the new smoking.
Be careful with Apple’s Drug Interaction Checker
“I had the exact same list of drugs on both phones, but I had more drug interactions on my 15 Pro. The 16 Pro was only showing 8 Serious and 4 Moderate interactions, while the 15 Pro was showing 2 Critical, 9 Serious, and 5 Moderate interactions.” 📓
Sleep Apnea detection on the Apple Watch could have been much better with Blood Oxygen data.
Lauren Jeffries from Tom’s Guide talking about how reliable Apple Watch’s sleep apnea detection works:
To avoid the possibility of false positives, Apple decided to prioritise specificity over sensitivity. These terms mean:
Specificity: The percentage of those without moderate to severe sleep apnea who wouldn’t receive a notification
Sensitivity: The percentage of participants with moderate to severe sleep apnea who are correctly identified by the algorithm.
Apple recorded the notification performance as 66.6% for sensitivity and 95.9% for specificity. This means that there is potential for many cases of sleep apnea to remain undetected even when using the Apple Watch.
This is what concerns Dr Runge, who says, "The lack of accuracy is a significant issue. I don’t mind the idea that the Apple Watch will “over diagnose” sleep apnea. At least in that setting people will get formal evaluations. It is the under diagnosis that concerns me — people with sleep apnea may say to their partner 'see, I told you I didn’t have sleep apnea.'"
If you look at Apple’s study, sensitivity for severe sleep apnea had a sensitivity of 89.1%, while sensitivity for moderate sleep apnea was 43.4%, giving an average score of 66.3%. What that actually means is the Apple Watch is best at detecting severe sleep apnea 89% of the time. It is not that great at determining moderate sleep apnea at only 43%.
Apple would rather underdiagnose people than give false positives, which is still better than no diagnosis at all. They were able to get this far with just the accelerometer sensor:
The Sleep Apnea Notification Feature is a software-based medical device that analyzes Breathing Disturbance data collected nightly by the Apple Watch accelerometer sensor.
I wonder how much better the Apple Watch could have been at detecting Sleep Apnea if they included Blood Oxygen data, which is another key component in diagnosing sleep apnea. To perform another study at this scale would take years, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Apple’s sleep apnea detection gets better sensitivity with more crucial data points like blood oxygen levels once the battle with Masimo ends.
Which Apple Watches have Blood Oxygen availability?
The Blood Oxygen sensor on the Apple Watch is a nice tool to help those that require frequent monitoring of their oxygen levels. It can provide data that can help treat people who have lung issues, heart problems, and even blood issues. Unfortunately, support for the Blood Oxygen sensor is limited in the United States due to Apple’s ongoing legal battle:
The removal of the Blood Oxygen feature is the result of an intellectual property ruling from the United States International Trade Commission, which Apple is appealing.
The Blood Oxygen feature is no longer available on units sold by Apple in the United States on or after January 18, 2024. These are indicated with part numbers ending in LW/A. Learn how to identify your Apple Watch.
To make it easier I have made two lists here to show you which Apple Watches do and don’t support Blood Oxygen availability in the United States…📓