Apple Watch Ultra 2, the most rugged and capable Apple Watch, pushes the limits again. Featuring the all-new S9 SiP, a magical new way to use your watch without touching the screen, and the brightest Apple display ever. Wired’s review says its display is “shockingly bright” and gives the new Watch a score of 8/10, recommended.
The Watch Ultra 2 looks pretty much like last year’s Watch Ultra, with a few key differences. This year it has a faster S9 chipset, which among other things powers some of the basic Siri interactions right there on the watch. You no longer have to wait for simple voice commands—start a workout, set an alarm, log your weight—to travel up and down from the cloud. Machine learning tasks are also completed twice as quickly than on the original Ultra, which theoretically extends the battery life of the watch. The extra power enables new interactions like Double Tap, which uses the watch’s sensors to detect when you tap your thumb and index finger together twice. That gesture can be used in place of the primary watch button on any screen, or open your Smart Stack. There are other gestures too, like covering your watch to mute it.
The new Ultra’s display maxes out at a brightness of 3,000 nits. That is shockingly bright; for reference, the iPhone 15 has a max-2,000-nit display. You can also configure the watch with its new Modular Ultra watch face, which lets you set an additional real-time metric along the bezel of the watch—pick between seconds, elevation, or depth if you’re diving. There’s a second-gen ultra wideband chip inside the latest model that makes the precision finding features more accurate, so it’s easier to locate your lost iPhone using your watch. (It slipped behind the snacks in your backpack’s front pocket.)
When you’re considering whether you should buy a Garmin Epix Pro or a Watch Ultra 2, it’s not one watch versus another. It’s one ecosystem versus another, one fragmented and one integrated. Do you want to buy a Garmin Edge and an InReach Mini and a Forerunner and a regular degular smartwatch? Or just one watch and an iPhone (and probably a portable charger) to do all the things, all the time. I consider that this equation now balances out in favor of the Watch Ultra 2…
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Watch Ultra 2. There is no substitute.
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