MicroLED Apple Watch Ultra Now Rumored to Launch in 2026, Not 2025

[Sevendaymelee]

Yes, yes... that's all good. But what about BP monitoring? Been waiting forever, and there's still no word on the one feature that I really want to see.

 

[jmgregory1]

Round would lose a lot of its functionality, waste screen real estate and cut battery space. No thanks

For a watch, the round shape just changes how things are arranged. Maybe you need to scroll a little extra to read an email or long text, but it’s not lacking functionality just because of the shape. And as far as wasted screen real estate, the Apple Watch has plenty of faces that are really poor users of the space, where you have a small round dial set into the rectangle, sometime with complications at the 4 corners, sometimes not. My watch face currently packs every complication I want (8 of them) along with telling me the time in a traditional round format.

In regards to battery space, my round Garmin Epix 2 gets 16 days of use per charge, and their new Pro version will last 31 days, just using raise to view mode (smart watch mode), not power saving mode. I understand that with Apple’s including wireless radio chips, the batteries can’t last as long, but even with the non-cellular Watch, you’re not getting more than a day‘s use out of it. And with the Ultra, it’s literally just 0.1mm thinner than the Epix 2, and you get a 5th of the battery life out of it, so a round shape is NOT a negative for battery size.

 

[Tagbert]

Yes, yes... that's all good. But what about BP monitoring? Been waiting forever, and there's still no word on the one feature that I really want to see.

Considering how unreliable the wrist-mounted BP readers are, I would not expect a watch-based unit to be useful. I switched to an arm-mounted BP cuff and it works so much better than the wrist-based ones. Of course none of them will give you useful data if you aren’t consistent about the conditions in which you take readings. Time of day, activity, and how you hold your arm will all have a major effect on the readings.

Those variables are probably why we haven’t seen any on a watch so far.

 

[Sevendaymelee]

Considering how unreliable the wrist-mounted BP readers are, I would not expect a watch-based unit to be useful. I switched to an arm-mounted BP cuff and it works so much better than the wrist-based ones. Of course none of them will give you useful data if you aren’t consistent about the conditions in which you take readings. Time of day, activity, and how you hold your arm will all have a major effect on the readings.

Those variables are probably why we haven’t seen any on a watch so far.

What I need is something that can be worn all day, and that can take readings without me knowing. I suffer from white coat hypertension, so if I know it's being read, it can be 20 points higher on top, and sometimes 15 higher on the bottom. That's why I was hopeful for Apple to figure it out, so I can finally see what my real BP looks like, all day long.

 

[Rychiar]

For a watch, the round shape just changes how things are arranged. Maybe you need to scroll a little extra to read an email or long text, but it’s not lacking functionality just because of the shape. And as far as wasted screen real estate, the Apple Watch has plenty of faces that are really poor users of the space, where you have a small round dial set into the rectangle, sometime with complications at the 4 corners, sometimes not. My watch face currently packs every complication I want (8 of them) along with telling me the time in a traditional round format.

In regards to battery space, my round Garmin Epix 2 gets 16 days of use per charge, and their new Pro version will last 31 days, just using raise to view mode (smart watch mode), not power saving mode. I understand that with Apple’s including wireless radio chips, the batteries can’t last as long, but even with the non-cellular Watch, you’re not getting more than a day‘s use out of it. And with the Ultra, it’s literally just 0.1mm thinner than the Epix 2, and you get a 5th of the battery life out of it, so a round shape is NOT a negative for battery size.

I like having a full keyboard or the calculator or just lots of other apps that would simply not be possibly on a round screen… but then again growing up I had a Casio databank so I’ve always been into rectangular watches with those functions

 

[Tagbert]

What I need is something that can be worn all day, and that can take readings without me knowing. I suffer from white coat hypertension, so if I know it's being read, it can be 20 points higher on top, and sometimes 15 higher on the bottom. That's why I was hopeful for Apple to figure it out, so I can finally see what my real BP looks like, all day long.

You might be able to get relative BP measurements that way and track changes over time but I don’t think it is likely you could get absolute numbers that would relate to anything else.

My BP is higher in the doctor’s office as well, not always, but it tends to spike on some visits. I tried to use a wrist cuff but the readings were really unreliable. I finally just got an arm cuff device from iHealth. It produces consistant results that match the better results when done by a nurse. I like that one as it can send the readings to my phone and I can download a PDF of readings that I can share with my doctor.

 

[3rdiguy]

Will it come in black?

 

[_Spinn_]

This will be very nice when we finally get it.