Apple Watch Series 8 Could Arrive Without Body Temperature, Glucose Sensors

Apple Watch Series 8 is expected to arrive later this year, as an update to the company's Apple Watch Series 7 smartwatch. The Cupertino company was previously believed to be working on adding support for measuring body temperature in its upcoming Watch Series 8 smartwatch, according to reports. However, a recent newsletter by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggests that the body temperature feature will not make it to this year's Apple Watch Series 8. Meanwhile, support for checking blood glucose levels and monitoring blood pressure levels is expected to arrive in later generations of Apple's smartwatch.

In his weekly Power On newsletter, Gurman stated that users should not expect body temperature sensing, along with blood glucose and blood pressure tracking on the successor to the Apple Watch Series 7. “Body temperature was on this year's roadmap, but chatter about it has slowed down recently. Blood pressure is at least two to three years away, while I wouldn't be surprised if glucose monitoring doesn't land until later in the second half of the decade,” Gurman notes in the newsletter.

Gurman was not the only one to predict that Apple would bring body temperature monitoring to the Apple Watch Series 8 last year. Apple market analyst Ming-Chi Kuo had also suggested that Apple was working on a temperature monitoring feature, while the Wall Street Journal, which also predicts upcoming Apple features, had hinted that Apple could add the feature in the next smartwatch generation. Temperature monitoring could be used for better sleep monitoring, as well as for fertility tracking, as suggested by the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, Apple Watch owners will no longer be able to book Uber rides from the watchOS app, which was first launched in 2015, according to a report by MacRumors. The company appears to have dropped support for the app last month, and users are shown a message asking them to switch to the Uber mobile app on their iPhone. However, the app itself was still listed on the App Store at the time of publishing this story. The company's support page has now been updated to state that the Apple Watch app is no longer supported.