I’ve written a lot about the Apple Watch, especially about the problems using the device as a fitness tracker. Its resting calories calculation was grossly exaggerated, the heart rate sensor recorded ludicrous numbers, and the device was stingy in recording exercise minutes.

watchOS 2 will be released next week, but I’ve already install the GM (gold master) on my Apple Watch. I’ve found that, while the new software fixes some of these issues, there are still some glitches.

First, exercise minutes. Previously, my Apple Watch hardly recorded any minutes, no matter what I did. My only exercise is walking, and I walk fairly briskly, generally around 12 min/km. That should be enough to count as exercise; my Fitbit One counts that time as “active minutes.”

With watchOS 2, my Apple Watch records my exercise much better. If I set a workout, either an indoor walk on my treadmill, or an outdoor walk, almost all of the time is counted. If not, some of my walking is counted, but not all.

As for resting calories, they no longer exist. Instead of showing Active Calories, Resting Calories, and Total Calories, the Activity app only displays Active Calories and Total Calories. (And, to confuse things, the Health app calls these Active Energy and Resting Energy.)

It’s true that showing the Resting Calories isn’t very useful; you can do the math if you want. The Total Calories I’ve seen so far seem to show that the resting calorie calculation is much more accurate. (Note that, in the example to the left, I only installed the software around 10 am yesterday, so it doesn’t display a full day’s calories; it didn’t pick up my resting calories before that time.) Read More