Introduction to watchOS 5

This document provides a high-level description of some watchOS 5 APIs.

To get started building watchOS 5 apps with Xamarin, refer to the getting started guide

Workout improvements

The workout APIs in watchOS 5 provide new features for workout data collection, saving workouts to HealthKit, automatically continuing a workout after an app crashes, and working with a series of related quantity data.

Siri shortcuts

In watchOS 5, the Siri watch face shows shortcuts that surface app content and functionality to users at convenient times. Siri learns over time to show relevant shortcuts when they are most likely to be used.

Background audio mode

watchOS 5 makes it possible for third-party apps to play audio in the background through the AV Foundation framework.

Movement Disorder API

The Movement Disorder API, part of the CoreMotion framework in watchOS 5, allows watchOS applications to monitor, record, and query tremor and dyskinesia symptoms related to Parkinson's disease.

Natural Language framework

The Natural Language framework enables applications to perform various types of language analysis. For example, it can be used to identify parts of speech and determine the language represented by a block of text.