Sit down and strap in for Apple’s next selection of wearables. Apple’s big “Wonderlust” event Tuesday gave a look at the company’s latest smartwatch: a second-gen Apple Watch Ultra again stole the spotlight with its beefed up screen size and lighter frame. Less spectacularly, the regular Series 9 slate of square watches sport slightly larger, brighter screens and slightly better processors.
Though the watch looks a hell of a lot like the Series 8, Apple said the regular Apple Watch will get a processing upgrade with the new S9 SiP. The company is also boasting that its new neural engine should add a whole bunch of new capabilities for Siri based on the neural engine inside the watch. The company said Siri’s commands will be processed on-device, rather than on the cloud, enabling health-related queries that can be kept private. Apple claimed Siri will be able to understand users’ commands better, and faster.
The other big push for Apple is, surprisingly, a new gesture control called Double Tap. Users can tap their forefinger and thumb together to answer or end calls, and it can also bring up the watch’s Smart Stack on WatchOS 10. The regular Apple Watch with GPS starts at $399 with GPS and cellular connection starting at $499.
There’s a slate of new Watch colors on offer, including pink aluminum, midnight, silver, and product red. The product also comes with metallics ranging from silver to gold to graphite.
One of the biggest changes to the Apple Watch this year is the band selection. The company said it was phasing out leather in their band selections. Brands such as Hermès started pulling all their leather bands from its stores in the lead up to the Wonderlust event, and and now the brand’s bands come in stainless steel silver and “space black.”
Apple is stating it’s on an environmental bent with its latest products, claiming the watch is its “first-ever carbon neutral product.” They’ve been replaced with the new “FineWoven” straps that’s supposedly made with 68% post-consumer material. The FineWoven bands are available with a buckle or a magnetic link.
The Second-Gen Apple Watch Ultra’s Screen Is Slightly Bigger and Slightly Bolder
The $799 Apple Watch Ultra 2now has a 2.1-inch, always-on LTPO OLED screen compared to the original’s 1.9-inch display. This is due to Apple shrinking the bezels on the screen, similar to what it’s accomplished with the newly announced iPhone 15. The flat screen now pushes a “Modular Ultra” to the edge of the display, and it’s also able to go extremely bright at 3,000 nits.
And if you’re still wondering, the Ultra’s screen is still flat compared to the regular Apple Watch’s smaller waterfall design, which curves at its edges. It gets 36 hours of battery on a single charge and 72 hours in low power mode, according to Apple.
The Ultra is getting a slight bump in processing power with the S9 SiP. Unfortunately, it seems the Apple Watch lineup will not get 5G capability.
Read more: Everything Announced at Apple’s ‘Wonderlust’ Event
The high-end watch is still geared toward the fitness enthusiast and sporting set, with WR100 waterproof and EN13319 ratings for diving up to 40 meters. There’s still the sapphire glass and red light night mode for adventures in the deep dark. The Depth app now saves a log of each session in the fitness app.
The Ultra still maintains the 49mm size and titanium case, and it has the touted programmable “Action” button for access to a specific feature or app designated by users. The Series 9 Ultra still maintains the digital crown and side button, and there’s still the speaker capable of emitting a 86-decibel siren. Like its predecessor, it sports three built-in microphones meant to be used in conditions with a lot of ambient noise.
The Apple Watch Series 9 Rolls In With a New S9 Chip
As expected, there’s not much coming to the company’s baseline Apple Watch that’s different from the previous generation, the Series 8. The new version will remain the same size, coming in at 41mm and 45mm screens, and it still maintains the same kind of digital crown as with past devices.
The most significant changes with the Series 9 are less visible—under the hood and where the wearable touches the skin. The device now sports the S9 chip, the same as the Ultra, with 5.6 billion transistors and a four-core neural engine making it 30% faster than the S8 though without sacrificing on the 18-hour battery life. The company also claimed this extra power will make animations in WatchOS 10 “super smooth.”
A lot of the messaging during the Wonderlust event surrounded Apple’s big push into health monitoring features as well as crash detection and satellite SOS features. The Series 9 sensors have gotten upgrades with a a new optical heart rate sensor that can better track users’ heart rates for health and wellness apps. This is used in the Fitness+ app to help determine how well users are doing during their workout, or even if they’re in a high-stress situation. Also, Siri can now log users health data through user speech.
In addition to the new SiP, the Series 9 also makes use of a second-gen Ultra Wideband chip that will show users the distance and direction for Precision Finding on Apple’s Find My feature. It will also give users a visual and haptic guidance to a misplaced device. The UWB chip also makes it compatible with HomePod when users are within four meters of a device, allowing users to control their media through the watch.
What’s New With WatchOS 10
As first announced during WWDC, Apple’s main thrust with WatchOS 10 is even more fitness health tracking, and wellness features on its smartwatches. Hiking apps now add more features such as compass and maps, plus the Cycling app can connect by Bluetooth to other smart sensors.
There’s also a new Mindfulness app that’s supposed to help track users’ mood or feelings. This works alongside the Series 9’s new sensors to help users gauge their stress levels. Users can also share how they’re feeling with the watch by logging their emotions.
Apple has remodeled a few of its apps and added widgets in time for its latest launch. The new widgets are going to be installed on a Smart Stack that can be accessed from the home screen through a turn of the digital crown. These will show up offering information about the weather, calendar appointments, or other notifications. Each widget also works as a shortcut for an actual app.
A few of the apps have been re-optimized for the larger screen of the Ultra, plus now users can watch FaceTime video messages directly from their Apple Watch. Additionally, users can now use the NameDrop feature to share contact information simply by placing the watch near another Apple product, including a iPhone or Apple Watch.
