Your Apple Watch can now raise your heart rate at will, with real-time notifications of US election updates

by Junna Base November 5, 2024

Apple News provides real-time updates on the US election through Live Activities
The notifications appear on both the iPhone and Apple Watch
You can enable the Live Activity lock screen widgets in Settings

It’s Election Day in the US and it’s clear from social media and conversations with our US counterparts that stress levels are at their peak as they wait to see who comes out on top in the presidential race. For people who feel like they’re not stressed enough yet, or who really have no interest in sleeping tonight, Apple News is able to provide real-time election updates to iPhone and Apple Watch users via Live Activity to provide.

Live Activities uses lock screen notifications, banners, and the dynamic island to display up-to-date information about a live event or activity, such as: B. the score of a sports game, the distance of your Uber driver or the results of the 2024 US presidential election.

So when you turn it on, you can spend your election night with a constant visual reminder of which candidate is ahead with a live election count – and the lock screen widget also gives you quick access to more in-depth election coverage.

How to enable Live Activities

You can enable (or disable) Live Activity by going to the Face ID & Passcode section in Settings and then toggling the option in the menu. (Image credit: Apple / Future)

While they’re not for everyone, if you want to enable live activity reporting for the US elections (or other events), here’s what you need to do.

First, go to your iPhone’s Settings app, find the “Face ID & Passcode” section, enter your passcode when prompted, and in the “Allow access when locked” subsection, enable Live Activities, if you haven’t already – this will enable the Live Activity Lock Screen Widget feature.

Next, on election night, open Apple News, then tap the “Watch the 2024 Election Live” banner and turn on Live Activity. The banner should either appear on your homepage (perhaps under Top Stories) or you can find it by going to the “Election 2024” special coverage.

Phones without Dynamic Island (iPhone 14 and earlier, iPhone 14 Pro is ignored) will still get the lock screen widget, but won’t see the constant live count at the top of the screen. Once you enable Live Activity for Apple Watch users, it should automatically appear on your smartwatch, assuming it’s running watchOS 11.

It’s not yet known how long Apple News will keep live activity going, but it could be live for a while. Some presidential results were announced within hours, while others took days for states to finalize their results for each candidate. If you want to turn it off at any point before the activity ends, simply search for the Apple News banner again and turn off the live activity by tapping it again.