Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Apple Watch Ultra Impressions: Polished Overkill!”.
What’S up MKBHD here so by Clockwork Apple, just unveiled a bunch of new stuff at their September event iPhone and iPhone accessories? My video about the new iPhone 14 series is already live. Link below that like button go watch it over there. If you want a look at those, this video is on the iPhone accessories, which low-key, I think, I think, were more interesting than the iPhones themselves. So first we got the new airpods Pro still 249 dollars like the last ones and still basically the same design, but a lot of internal improvements add up to a potentially much better experience.
So there’s new drivers, the new H2 chip inside there’s two times stronger noise cancellation, a new longer six hour battery life on a single charge and touch volume, controls on the stocks where the force touch sensors are and there’s even a new adaptive transparency mode. Basically, just building on Apple’s gigantic lead with their already god-like transparency mode by detecting like extra loud noises and trimming them. So so, if you walk past the construction zone, the mics aren’t going to pump in the super loud Jackhammer noises. But the best thing honestly is probably the new case, I think basically Apple just realized how often people lose the case, including myself, so it’s a lot easier now to not lose it or to find it. So there’s a hook on the side for Lanyards now, plus I added a speaker on the bottom, so you can find it when it’s lost by emitting a sound, and it’s all now in a fully magsafe compatible case that can also now charge with an Apple Watch Charger, the earbud Wars are spicy right now, there’s a lot of good options out there.
These are obviously on the pricier end, but given how good they sound quality is how good the transparency mode is and how well it works with the iPhone. These will probably do pretty well, but I’m going to review them, I’m going to check them out, but what you’re really here for is the new Apple watch lineup, because that’s what I titled the video, but that’s also the most interesting stuff. So that is the new Apple watch. Se, a new Apple watch series 8 and a new Apple watch Ultra, so the Apple watch SE slots in at the bottom of the lineup at 250, bucks to replace the old Watch series 3 that they were still selling and it’s better in pretty much every way. It’S got a redesigned, color matching back case, a 30 larger screen than that old watch and the S8 sip. That makes a lot of sense.
Then. The Apple Watch series 8 is in the middle, it’s a very minor but very reasonable, upgrade to the series seven. So it’s in the same design. It gives it a new temperature sensor which is useful for advanced cycle tracking and retrospective ovulation estimates for women. It gives it some new GeForce sensors for crash detection, so it can automatically tell when you’ve been in a car crash and it can call for help if you don’t respond to the prompt on the screen. No idea how I’m going to test that.
But I believe you and it gives it a new low power mode that can help extend battery life when you’re in a pinch boom same price 3.99 for GPS, only 4.99 for cellular cool, but then there’s a new watch at the high end. The Apple watch Ultra. It basically looks like they uh took a regular Apple watch and sent it to the gym. So the result is a beefed up.
49 millimeter watch. It’S the biggest bra brightest display ever in an Apple Watch which can get up to 2 000 nits. The display up top is flat and has just just a tiny bit of a lip on the edge to protect the sapphire crystal cover and the digital crown on the side is bigger and thicker. With this added Crown guard and a button that sticks out for even normal, so it’s easier to hit with gloves on then on the other side, there’s a second speaker and additional microphones added for additional volume and better mic quality and windy environments.
There’S a new button, a big bright orange action button. This is a customizable button that you can set to do any number of different things like starting a workout or letting up the whole screen white to be a flashlight and then, while you’re in an app. It can serve different functions inside that app and by the way this is the only spec there’s only one Apple watch Ultra just this titanium and ceramic. They all have cellular and they all have this bright orange action button. So you know aesthetically. It feels like you know when we first saw these rumors of a pro watch. Maybe coming. They really could only go go two ways: they could start with a super ruggedized military-grade, Garmin level, watch and then try to bring it down and like amplify it or they could start with a regular Apple watch and ruggedize that and they clearly went with option two, Which makes for this chunky looking Apple watch, but still a pretty familiar looking watch.
What’S notable, though, is it doesn’t feel heavy the titanium made. It actually feel much lighter on the wrist than I expected so yeah, while it’s definitely easier to call this one a chunker. It’S it’s thick with, maybe three or even four C’s just know it. It could have definitely been bigger.
Now, there’s a bunch of features, you know how I think they made this watch. I think they they took a bunch of extreme high performance athletes and asked them all how many of you use an Apple Watch and the ones that raised their hand and said I don’t use the watch. It just can’t hang with me. They took those people brought them to Apple Park and interrogated them to figure out what they needed to change about the Apple watch, to make it keep up with what they do, so they for sure talk to some divers who are definitely like yeah.
This thing is it’s waterproof, but it’s not waterproof enough to go down way as low as I go and be a dive, computer and then Apple went and made this watch wr100 water resistant. So you can dive down theoretically to 100 meters, with it and through extra sensors in there to make it a real, proper dive computer for a lot of people. I think they talk to Mountaineers, who hike in like white out conditions and then from that you get extreme temperature ruggedness, you get the ability to add waypoints in the compass app. So if you ever need to find your way back, someplace that you can’t visually see, you can always use the watch for it and they tossed in an 86 decibel siren from the new, larger speaker, which is Extremely Loud and can sort of send out an SOS Signal to people nearby and also uh, dual band GPS. This is a feature you don’t see as often as smart watches, but can massively improve accuracy and also help out if you’re going through some GPS dead zones. I think they talked to marathoners, who, probably all just said yeah the watch dies before the end of a normal Marathon, so I can’t use it and then, of course, the ultra now, with its new thicker case, has room for much more battery. How much more exactly well on stage Apple, said 36 hours and they also said 18 hours about the normal Apple watch. So I’m just doing the mental math of like how long this normally lasts me, which is about a day and a half, and so the ultra is double so it feels like with normal use. It can be about a three day battery and then they also said it could get up to 60 hours with the new battery optimization feature, that’s not coming till later this year. I don’t know exactly what that means or what it will entail. But if I just do the math again, that could net out to about five days of regular use with that mode on, but that’s that’s purely theoretical at this point I definitely have to use it, but either way they claim that marathoner can now not only finish A marathon, but they can do an entire Iron Man, which is a two and a half mile swim, a hundred mile bike ride and a 27 mile marathon back to back and track the whole thing with heart rate and GPS with battery to spare. That is impressive.
So this is definitely living up to the ultra name. No question about that, and I know when we all see these features. We start to think about pricing a little bit. So again there were some rumors.
There were some talks that this might end up being like a thousand dollar watch to start, which seemed crazy at first to me. But then I had flashbacks of like that. Ten thousand dollar gold Apple watch Edition. So it wasn’t entirely out of the aroma possibility, but it turns out this one is actually priced entirely reasonably.
It starts at actually there’s only one price, One spec, but it’s 7.99, that’s still pricey, obviously, but that just for context, uh, Garmin, Phoenix, a very competitive popular smart watch is 900 bucks. Uh 800 bucks, I think, for for the smallest one, but Apple’s not usually the one doing the undercutting, but then on top of that, there were also some new faces and bands specifically for this Ultra watch. Uh. The way finder faces are pretty sweet and give just a lot of relevant information to someone who might be in the middle of something like hiking. You know there’s a compass, elevation, Etc and then there’s three special new watch bands, a Trail Loop for endurance athletes, the Alpine Loop and The Ocean band for high-speed water sports. All of these are pretty unique and actually very impressive.
Both durability, wise and comfort, wise, like these, are really good bands and so fun fact. I was just kind of wondering and I had to actually check. I did take the bands off of the ultra and put them on the smaller watches and they seem to work just fine. So just from this experience audience I’m going to say that it seems like backwards. Compatibility with the bands is a green light. So the number one question I’ve been getting since this announcement is: am I gon na get one like? Okay, it’s for explorers Adventures, endurance, athletes.
A lot of you guys know. I play Ultimate Frisbee and I do wear my watch while playing and practicing most of the time. So am I in the Target demographic for this uh? Yes, and no, I you know they showed a couple obvious examples: mountaineering biking, Iron, Mans and things like that. For me, like, I would love the extra battery life and for certain workouts and things like that, having better GPS and being able to do more workouts before the thing dies would be nice.
But it’s for me like it’s still an everyday watch. It’S an Apple Watch like you still have to wear it all the rest of the time too, and for me it is approaching the sort of like too big to be able to pull off normally on the wrist. It’S not huge. Obviously I couldn’t wear a garment.
Every day, either I don’t think with my skinny wrists, but like fun fact, I wore this black Apple watch to the Met Gala and I think it was okay like it turned out fine, you can dress it up, hide it under a cuff, but I don’t think You can do all that with the ultra here’s, how I think of it on the waveform podcast this week, Andrew my co-host said. I think he explained it kind of perfectly with the summary, which is the Apple watch. Ultra is like the GoPro of Apple watches. You see a cool commercial and you think, oh, that is sick. Like this super durable camera is going to capture my Amazing Adventures. I’M gon na have the sickest footage ever and then you get one and then you use it maybe once or twice and the footages are right and then it just kind of sits in a drawer Gathering dust and this watch most people don’t need, but it would Be sick, like the commercials are sick, and I think, if you are one of those athletes who I was just talking about in this article, like you’re, definitely going to be able to take advantage of the watch. But for most people also, the regular Apple watch will be fine, and for me, it probably will my biggest annoyance, with all the watches, actually is something that Casey neistat actually just brought up on Twitter, which is literally just that if it’s, if you’re sweating a lot Or if it’s raining or if you’ve got long sleeves during a workout, it tends to mess with the screen. It touches the screen, even if you have theater mode on it, just lights up the screen and messes with the workout Data Tracking. I want them to just fix that and I’d be cool with probably any of the watches, but for the extreme for the adventurers and for those with Deep Pockets. This is going to be a pretty sick watch. This is it’s very it’s competitive with a lot of the other rugged eye.
Smart watches out there, but it’s key Advantage being it’s also an Apple Watch. You can also wear it every day and it’s also going to work really well with that iPhone that you probably already have. So that’s what Ultra that’s it for the video thanks for watching. Let me know what you think too, if the, if the ultra is right for you, if you have a certain situation, you use it in all right catch you guys later peace, .