By digging through leaked iOS 14 code snippets it claims to have acquired, 9to5Mac says it has uncovered a number of details about the new features and improvements coming to the Apple Watch later this year when iOS 14 and watchOS 7 ship. Among them are a new blood oxygen detection feature, further evidence of sleep tracking, a number of new Watch face-related features, and the ability for a parent to manage a child's Watch from the parent's iPhone.

Like the electrocardiogram (ECG) feature introduced in a previous model, blood oxygen detection would be meant to help users preempt medical crises like cardiac arrest. The Watch will notify a user if their blood oxygen levels fall below a healthy threshold, at which time the user is at risk for dangerous health events. It does not seem clear whether this feature will be enabled by new sensors exclusive to the Apple Watch series 6 or if it will work on existing Watch hardware.

This feature would seek to replace yet another unwieldy, specialized medical device and consolidate various aspects of tracking the user's health on the Watch. Before making judgments about the feature, though, it would be best to wait and hear from medical experts. The Watch's ECG feature helped some users tackle serious health crisis, but some cardiologists warned that it wasn't an adequate solution for everyone. To that point, 9to5Mac says it discovered that Apple plans to improve the ECG feature to be more accurate between heart rates of 100 and 120 beats per minute.

In addition to blood oxygen monitoring, users will gain the ability to create custom Watch faces from photos in the Photos app and to share Watch faces with others who have Apple Watches. It appears that Apple also plans to introduce a new version of the Infograph watch face called Infograph Pro, which adds a tachymeter to the existing Watch face.

As it stands now, each Watch is tied to exactly one iPhone and vice versa, but the iOS 14 code indicates that Apple will add the ability for parents to set up kids' Watches from the parents' own iPhones, so multiple family members' Watches can be managed from one phone. There is also a new feature called SchoolTime, which allows parents to limit which complications or apps children can use on their Watches during specified time ranges, such as the hours of school each day. This feature would obviously draw a great deal of inspiration from ScreenTime, Apple's existing app on iPhones and other devices for parental controls.

Finally, 9to5Mac says the iOS 14 code contains yet more evidence of a coming sleep-tracking feature—something most of the Watch's competitors have had for a long time. And in an important change relevant to app developers, the 9to5Mac report says Apple seemingly plans to change the architecture of Watch apps so they will no longer be based on extensions from iOS apps.

Typically, Apple releases new versions of iOS and watchOS, as well as new iPhone and Watch hardware, in September or October. However, the company usually announces most new software features at its developer conference in June. There is some doubt as to whether that event will actually take place this year, though.