AW10/Ultra announcement - thoughts

[jz0309]

My thoughts, interested to hear others:
Basically same design, thinner - good
New SiP 10 - good
No new health sensors - bad/disapponted
Jet black - love
Polished Ti - like it but also think SS is a watch classic and disappointed to see it go
Sleep apnea - great, uses accelerometer and also coming to S9/ultra2
Hypertension - disappointed that it’s not there

Ultra - love the black, but, it’s an Ultra2 (two) and doesn’t even have the S10 chip - major letdown

And for both, no mention of blood oxygen - very disappointed

Edit: title typos fixed

 

[Apple_Robert]

All that means a better update next year. I can wait. I was hoping for Ultra 3 but, I saved money.

 

[Datsyuk]

They didn't upgrade the processor for the "new" Ultra 2...to even stay in step with the Series 10? WTF? Is this 100% confirmed? I wasn't able to watch the presentation.

 

[the future]

They didn't upgrade the processor for the "new" Ultra 2...to even stay in step with the Series 10? WTF? Is this 100% confirmed? I wasn't able to watch the presentation.

There is no new Ultra. It is exactly the same as before, only now available in black also. But the only really new feature the S10 got was depth and water temperature … which the Ultra already had. And sleep apnea detection, which Ultra and S9 also get.

 

[dallison13]

There is literally nothing on the watch that is slow right now. I guess if the new chip could enable better battery life or AI features then I would care. What additional sensors do we even want right now? I can't think of many.

Software updates is where they really need to focus on. Ultra is. loads behind competitors in the Fitness game.

 

[Howard2k]

I wonder if there will be a mid-year Ultra 3 announcement? Seems unlikely... But then so does keep it on S9 SIP.

 

[batman75]

My thoughts, interested to hear others:
Basically same design, thinner - good
New SiP 10 - good
No new health sensors - bad/disapponted
Jet black - love
Polished Ti - like it but also think SS is a watch classic and disappointed to see it go
Sleep apnea - great, uses accelerometer and also coming to S9/ultra2
Hypertension - disappointed that it’s not there

Ultra - love the black, but, it’s an Ultra2 (two) and doesn’t even have the S10 chip - major letdown

And for both, no mention of blood oxygen - very disappointed

I am also disappointed. I would even get the Ultra 2 in black if it had the same functionality as my current Ultra 2. But my current Ultra 2 does have BloodOx and and Ultra 2 in Black does not.

Why would I downgrade for a nice color? They need to sort out this blood ox thing. Tons of companies have blood ox on wearables.

 

[batman75]

There is literally nothing on the watch that is slow right now. I guess if the new chip could enable better battery life or AI features then I would care. What additional sensors do we even want right now? I can't think of many.

Software updates is where they really need to focus on. Ultra is. loads behind competitors in the Fitness game.

We want a working sensor for Blood Ox which the one from last year had. I would love something around blood pressure too.

 

[GaryLittlefield]

How do they say that the new Watch 10 is even bigger than the Ultra but all of the Watch 10 sizes max out at 46mm vs Ultra at 49mm? Guessing the site isn't fully updated. Weird.

 

[jz0309]

There is literally nothing on the watch that is slow right now. I guess if the new chip could enable better battery life or AI features then I would care. What additional sensors do we even want right now? I can't think of many.

Software updates is where they really need to focus on. Ultra is. loads behind competitors in the Fitness game.

it's not speed, improved battery life would have been nice (eg my Ultra 1 was at ~ 25-30% whereas my Ultra 2 is at ~40-45% battery with same usage/charging pattern).
As for sensors: blood oxygen, hypertension, blood glucose come to mind

 

[jz0309]

How do they say that the new Watch 10 is even bigger than the Ultra but all of the Watch 10 sizes max out at 46mm vs Ultra at 49mm? Guessing the site isn't fully updated. Weird.

they talked screen, not case size

 

[Monkswhiskers]

All in all a rather lacklustre updater for the landmark series 10. My only disappointment is sleep apnoea won’t work on my og ultra (hmm, software hampered?).

 

[jz0309]

All that means a better update next year. I can wait. I was hoping for Ultra 3 but, I saved money.

I sure hope you're right for next year, the fact that they left the internals unchanged though makes me wonder ... and yes, I saved $$$ too

 

[ndouglas]

Yeah I know the answer is marketing, hype, more $$ for Apple, but it really is bizarre to wonder why this “update” is even part of their event? For example they claim “thinner” but looking at the specs it’s so negligible, especially with same “up to 18 hour” battery life, larger bezel than my Series 7, etc. Eh. I was looking forward to upgrading since my battery life is 83% and a hassle to keep from dying w/o charing more than 1x a day. But they don’t offer much reason for it this year. Disappointing.

 

[Bazooka-joe]

They didn't upgrade the processor for the "new" Ultra 2...to even stay in step with the Series 10? WTF? Is this 100% confirmed? I wasn't able to watch the presentation.

I don’t think there’s much of a difference between the S9 and S10 processors. With the ultra 2 there are still significant advantages over the series 10 such as better battery life and the series 10 is only 2000 nits brightness compared to the Ultra 2 which is 3000 nits

 

[M33-1]

I was going to order the Ultra 2 in Black until I saw that it still had the S9 SIP (CPU) vs. the Apple Watch Series 10 having the S10 SIP. I'll wait another year.

 

[Howard2k]

Yeah I know the answer is marketing, hype, more $$ for Apple, but it really is bizarre to wonder why this “update” is even part of their event? For example they claim “thinner” but looking at the specs it’s so negligible, especially with same “up to 18 hour” battery life, larger bezel than my Series 7, etc. Eh. I was looking forward to upgrading since my battery life is 83% and a hassle to keep from dying w/o charing more than 1x a day. But they don’t offer much reason for it this year. Disappointing.

Because it's an updated watch? They changed the internals and externals.

You don't have to upgrade though. I'm not. We have that power.

 

[Cirillo Gherardo]

Reintroducing Ultra 2 as if it were a new product was a new low for Apple.

 

[boak]

No SE either. Maybe they'll launch it together with the iPhone SE.

 

[Rick America]

Can anyone tell what the on-watch music storage limit is? Coming from Apple Watch 6, I was hoping for some meaningful improvement.

 

[DSTOFEL]

So glad I opted for the Ultra 2 on one of the recent deals in the past month….totally happy with it. I’m not crazy about any of the new trail or Alpine loop band colors and would not have been interested in the jet black Ultra 2. Pretty lackluster Ultra update IMHO.

Very confusing update.

• So, we got a new AW series 10 with a new S10 SIP and larger sizes.
• We did not get a new AW Ultra 3. Instead, the same AW Ultra 2 with the same S9 SIP but a new Jet black color.

I wonder if the S9 and S10 SIP use essentially the same chip (E.g., like the S6, S7 and S8…where there was no performance improvement…essentially the same chip).

 

[Rogifan]

I’m coming from a Series 6 with poor battery life so I was going to upgrade no matter what. I can see why some might be underwhelmed if they were expecting a major redesign or something. The fact they didn’t spend much time on battery life is concerning.

 

[Howard2k]

I’m coming from a Series 6 with poor battery life so I was going to upgrade no matter what. I can see why some might be underwhelmed if they were expecting a major redesign or something. The fact they didn’t spend much time on battery life is concerning.

The battery life is the same "18 hours", but it's thinner.

 

[onenorth]

Reintroducing Ultra 2 as if it were a new product was a new low for Apple.

Yeah that was sneaky but really what did we expect them to say, "this is a carryover?" They did the same thing with AirPods Pro 2 but that was a little more like "hey the ones you already own are going to get new features, so we good?"

 

[lotzosushi]

From the Apple site, I’m currently using an Ultra 1 but can’t decide if I want to get the black Ultra 2 or “upgrade” to the Titanium Series 10 😂 the only thing that’s good about the Ultra right now is the extra battery life…