Apple Introduces Apple Watch Ultra
apple.com
apple.com
I’d still like a month of battery life though!
That, and I was really doubtful that the Apple product would 100%-for-sure-no-excuses make it through a marathon, and I'm fast enough to qualify for Boston. No way it would have made it through the five hour trail marathon I ran a few weeks ago.
So I really, really want the Apple Watch Ultra just so I can pare down to one watch. But the Garmin 945 isn't even a year old, so we'll see what Apple has to offer next year.
I have a Series 4. I stick it on the charger in the evening when I've settled down on the couch to do the NYT crossword puzzle, watch TV, and read. I inevitably fall asleep sometime during that. Sometime in the next two hours I'll wake up to go pee, see that the watch is charged, and put it on, go pee, maybe go get a drink of water, and head to bed.
When I'm in bed I have the watch in theater mode and with notifications silenced.
When I'm awake, but not exercising, I generally have it in theater mode with notifications not silenced. I'll toggle it out of theater mode if I'm doing something where I'll want to look at the watch more than sporadically.
When I'm exercising I turn off theater mode. That's typically about 40 minutes every morning.
Most evenings when I stick it on the charger it is above 50%. A fair number of days it is above 66%.
Retina display with 2k nits. I guess it looks awesome.
I prefer my garmin too. I charge it like two times a month and my gps fixes very fast and is very accurate
/s but only so slightly
This? Very informative website. Also I thought we talk about smart watches with GPS. Like 50 years ago we already had high precision mechanical watches that you dont need to charge ever...
Well, I never heard of that too. I wear Citizen. [0]
> Also I thought we talk about smart watches with GPS
I had a lengthy response here, but it was throttled.
To sum up: since the smartwatches became a thing I attempted multiple times to justify why I should buy one, but the need to constantly monitor it's charge level, along with my smartphone and whatever else (bt-headset, tablet, another smartphone - depending on the period) always killed the idea. I still use a wired earphones with the same reasoning - I don't want to bother with charging them, I just plug them in and they work.
And the main point is still what I don't [yet?] have a killer feature in any smartwatches what would offset the charging hassle. Especially if it needed to be charged everyday (I don't think anyone lives on a 36h cycle and forgetting to charge them in the evening means they would die around noon).
https://www.citizenwatch.com/us/en/product/AU1065-58E.html?c...
If you're concerned about battery life then Garmin has models which can run for over a month, and have solar charging.
But you don't need 18 days for that. Like I said, I understand wanting a few days. Why do you need a few weeks? It seems like at that point it becomes even more likely that you would forget to charge because it never becomes a routine.
Granted, it does have fewer features, but how good are all those whiz-bangs if the battery is dead?
I've been using a Skagen Jorn Hybrid smartwatch for the last few years. No digital display, but the time/date are set via bluetooth, and it has phone call notification, which is mostly what I want. I don't need to read emails or SMSs on my wrist. 6 months of battery life from a replaceable coin cell.
Honestly though, this is the first apple watch to appeal to me. Proper waterproofing, ruggedness, long enough battery life to go away for a weekend without a charger, always on screen. It's almost getting back to where Pebble was - they just need to stretch that battery a bit more with an ultra-low power mode. The cost is fairly high considering the functions I want though, so I'll need to use it in person before I put any money down. I do occasionally scuba dive too, so the dive functionality is actually fairly appealing as I don't own a dive computer any more.
(which just happened to me)
Recharging every 36 hours seems reasonable to me, even in very austere conditions.
That said the Apple watch is a nicer experience than the Phoenix which I don't tend to take out of the house too often outside of activities now. Indeed the Apple watch is claiming to be usable for recreational scuba for which the Phoenix is not and you would need to use an alternative Garmin watch
Perhaps the next iteration of the ultra watch will have features to extend battery life beyond the 60 hours in low battery mode it claims and hopefully towards 100 hours (14 hours * 7 days) of usage on low battery
Sporadic GPS usage, I'm guessing, since Garmin themselves only claim 13 hours of GPU usage (can't tell if it has UltraTrac though - the 5x non-plus can do 50 hours in UltraTrac mode.)
That said, even in normal GPS only mode (no Gallileo/GLONASS), the 5 when it was new would get 30 hours of recording. Enough for most ultras, 3 days of backpacking if you record 8 hours/day, and also enough for a week trip with an hour of running every day.
It’s totally valid to think that a different product more clearly suits your needs - you don’t have to fake incredulity about it.
The irony is that AirPods have a really great battery life (especially the carrying case) despite the small form factor, and are my go-to for long runs.
I don't really want a smartwatch (ugh, slack on my wrist? no thanks), but a backpacking safety companion would be awesome!
Additionally, you can do simple ad-hoc routing on the watch itself, while you're out on the trail, also totally offline.
For more complex ad-hoc routing, it can be easier to design a route on the Garmin Explore app on your phone and then sync it to your watch via Bluetooth. This works (also totally offline), but the problem is that Garmin Explore's UI and trail labeling kind of sucks, at least on iOS.
My preferred approach, if I'm out on a hike and want to set a new route to someplace, is to draw routes on Gaia GPS (which also has offline maps), then sync them to my Fenix 7 over Bluetooth for navigation. I wrote a Pythonista script to make this work well on iOS: https://github.com/mshroyer/pythonista-scripts/tree/master/G...
What's a good consumer device nowadays for that use case? I remember looking for some good sleep tracking (and heart health tracking) a couple of years and got hopelessly lost.
He’s a professional scientist specialising in sleep research and the reviews concentrate on data/accuracy only.
This. This is how they will beat Putin. Sleep apps.
The explorer focus was just wacky.
Without any gloves too.
Only in "smartwatch" mode - ie. pretty much everything is turned off. In GPS mode, you get 73 hours (which is more than the 60 you get on the Watch Ultra in conservation mode, yes, but vastly lower than "18-22 days"!)
Normal use WITH an iPhone present. I have a feeling the Apple Watch by itself in GPS mode will be much less.
That will be an interesting figure to find out when people start reviewing them.
You can leave the other sensors like HRM and pulseox enabled when outside of "activities," and bluetooth is connected by default when in an activity or not, so I don't know where your "everything is turned off" assertion comes from.
So this is 73 hours of actually being active. Even if you're moving all day, you wouldn't ever set it to record GPS data while you're resting, and you'd over double the battery life from what you describe.
I'm a moderately active person, riding and/or running several hours a week, and have an older Garmin device with HRM always on and pulseox enabled during sleep. I charge the thing maybe once a week, usually during a shower after a run. There's really just no way you can squint at this and come to the conclusion that Apple is in the same ballpark on battery life.
I know, I've owned and used Garmin watches since 2011.
> your "everything is turned off" assertion comes from.
Garmin's own measure of battery life - GPS, Pulse Ox, etc. all turned off => smartwatch mode.
> There's really just no way you can squint at this and come to the conclusion that Apple is in the same ballpark on battery life.
Indeed not.
So my guess is their thinking is:
- Garmin has 10 times the battery life
- We have a 10 times better user experience
- Most "outdoorsy people" (or prosumers or, let's face it, lazy people who want to look cool) will prefer user experience over battery life
- So we prioritize on that
Their competitors: Garmin, coros all offer weeks of battery life with tradeoffs people in this segment happily make.
I get 20 days of battery life on my coros pace 2. Charging a apple watch every night or two would not be acceptable.
The thing is though, I've only found it really useful if I'm doing stiff ascents and am not comfortable with my training. Mostly just to keep an eye on my heartrate, if my training/preparations are adequate for my trip, I don't use it at all.
If you are really UL, you can ditch the phone and just use the Ultra. Apple Watch + small battery is lighter than a Fenix + iPhone + battery.
Personally that device never interested me because:
1) if I can rely on cell phone signal, I’m likely doing a quick and simple hike where I don’t have to worry about draining my cell phone battery in the first place, or
2) if I can’t rely on cell phone signal (much more likely), which is especially likely in the US wilderness, then if I’m doing something precarious in a remote setting I’ll have to bring a beacon and satellite communicator anyway. Like an InReach Mini.
The fact that Garmin is releasing even higher end watches without cell phone connectivity likely indicates there’s not a lot of people buying nearly $1k fitness watches finding that functionality compelling.
Obviously people doing this are likely too narrow a segment for Apple. Like, why would Apple care that I’m not buying their watch? I was just engaged by their headline marketing for this watch until I saw the specs.
Does it make phone calls?
I really have a hard time seeing who this watch is for.
> I really have a hard time seeing who this watch is for.
I would say basically anyone who likes their Apple Watch (and there are a lot of us out there), is comfortable with the size and aesthetic, and has $800 to blow on a smart watch.
Currently The Apple Watch is a nice casual fitness tracker and the Watch Ultra doesn't change any of that.
It is definitely not for me this year, it does not have the battery life I need during an excursion and there is no possibility of charge on the go (like good old Garmin watches that you can charge while using during an activity).
But in few years it will advance the same way apple watch has advanced :-).
The only long-lasting battery is the iPhone's, but it gained that capability years after it became common in comparable Android phones.
I think this is just how Apple markets themselves. They know that most of the people who buy the Apple watch are not going to use it for 100 milers, and don't need the extra battery life.
I love how they call it a "revolutionary new design", yet most people on the street likely wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the Ultra and non-ultra.
This seems like an overly cynical take to me.
I agree that the marketing was a bit over the top, and most people who buy one will not be doing things like running ultra marathons in the Sahara. And for people who do those things, there are probably better watches out there from Garmin, etc.
But you don't need to be an explorer (or roleplay as one) to benefit from the longer battery life, larger and brighter display, improved GPS accuracy, improved audio and microphone quality, etc.
You have to realize Apple is creating the equivalent of the luxury Mercedes G-Wagon for off-roading, when in reality a Jeep Rubicon (Garmin) addresses all of your real needs at 1/3 the price.
It's infuriating that such an expensive watch will be unable to do some basic feature because they want to sell a "golf" version of the watch or a "sailing" version and so on.
They'll also release some feature that clearly is possible to implement on even current products elsewhere in the lineup - and isn't even really implemented on the watch at all but just some processing done on their cloud. But you don't get the feature, even if you bought a current model elsewhere in the lineup, because only the new watches get it.
With increased competition, supply chain issues, and consumer spending tightening it's been amusing to see Garmin suddenly drop much of that; the Vivoactive 4 and Forerunner 255 are absent most of their typical segmentation crap. The Forerunner 255 is a running watch that supports cycling power meters, for example, which had been a feature that had been limited to their absurdly expensive, huge, gaudy-looking "Fenix" watches.
It seems like Garmin is missing out on an opportunity to upsell existing device owners on apps. Like if someone sails occasionally then they're probably not going to spend $800 for another smart watch with sailing features, but they might spend $20 to add the sailing app to their existing device.
Meanwhile Apple's competition is flailing around releasing literally hundreds of minor model variations each, which all require design, parts sourcing, warehousing, warranty support[1], standards licensing, FCC approvals, etc...
Remember Nokia? They had something like over 100 phone models when Apple release the iPhone!
More models isn't more choice. It's more confusion, more fragmentation, more overhead, and more upset customers that can't get the combination of features they want.
[1] This one in particular is a killer, especially in some markets like California and Australia. Needing to keep spares on hand for legally-mandated warranty drags down the profitability or jacks up the price for a lot of companies that don't "get" the Apple Way of having fewer SKUs.
Garmin is targeting the actual market of consumers who are going deep outdoors. Apple is targeting the much bigger market of everyone else.
I'm an occasional outdoors person. A device with most of the Garmin features that is also a really good smartwatch for the everyday, which is 90% of my time, does appeal. A Garmin would collect dust for most of the year.
"along with recreational scuba diving to 40 meters with the new Oceanic+ app."
I was looking at $1,000 Garmin watches and was really not excited at buying one.
Can a user of this app easily determine whether the waterproofing of the watch has been compromised, perhaps invisibly? After all, most Apple products rely on double sided adhesives and thin rubber membranes for waterproofing, due to sensors etc, but most other watches use a O-ring seal or similar. What happens if the App crashes, or the watch experiences a freeze/reboot during a dive? Will the app relaunch and handle its state correctly? Will the battery aging impact ability to prevent unexpected restarts in cold water?
My past experiences with mobile apps and devices has been that while in the vast majority of situations they work fine, due to the large feature surface area and constraints associated with being a general purpose device, there are caveats to using them for a fixed purpose, where preventing failure could be critical. This is usually why purpose made equipment like dive computers are bulky and expensive, and I'm not sure this is the answer.
The thing about Spyder is that I need to replace its battery every two-three years, but otherwise it still does exactly what it did in 2003.
The thing about AWU is that it will long be a deadweight brick, while my Spyder will just keep on going. That's what bothers me about Apple-made dive computers.
I ordered and cancelled the order right after I read the fine lines of the 3rd party and subscription requirement of the app.
I guess I would go back to a better, dedicated dive computer at this price point then.
(Thats why I'm happy with my wristwatch, it shows the time and day of the month. Nothing more. I wouldn't mind a perpetual calendar, only to avoid those three days a year when they don't sync with the ideosyncrazies of the human's calendar)
As a small-wristed male, I would also love a thin watch, without a lot of the sensors.
My every watch is 36mm, I’d definitely buy a sub 40mm Apple Watch.
Plenty of ladies have larger risks than me (a man)
Are folks wanting something the size of a jacket button?
Samsung was only mentioned because are there any other real competitors to a full smart watch?
Garmin will likely keep me because running gps for 10+ hours at a shot is important. A full smart watch is far less of a priority.
(On Sunday I ran for roughly 10.5 hours, GPS active the entire time. When I finished, I had 33% of my battery left.)
If you don't want to dive headlong into Apple's stuff, then a Garmin might very well be all the smart watch you need. It's been quite a few years since I used a Garmin as a full-time smart watch, but you can have notifications and messages (read-only if using an Apple phone) and even contactless payment on a Garmin. If we weren't a knees-deep Apple house, I'd just use my Garmin 945 as my smart watch.
Now I just need to wait a few years for the extra button to trickle down to something that my family agrees is in budget.
I finally upgraded my ageing 935 to a 955 after 3 or more years and I actually find the 955 to be a joyous experience day to day for everything I need to do and way more. The UI/UX actually feels somewhat well polished now.
Sure, some features and functions are buried, but the amount of functionality packed into it, which is quickly and easily accessible when you get the basic UI structure is unsurpassed IMO. Nothing ever feels more than a few button presses or swipes away, which is honestly a huge achievement given just how much they are packing in now.
The new daily reports and training/workout suggestions are almost always bang on in terms of matching I how feel along with their suggestions for easy days / hard days. The battery life and abundance of buttons just leaves Apple for dust IMO. Add in features like PacePro, easy workout building, training programs, race day planning, integration with everything imaginable - Di2 gears, power meters, etc. Apple will probably never handle a triathlon event - jumping seamlessly from Garmin watch -> Garmin cycle computer -> Garmin watch. I don't think Garmin should feel threatened by Apple here.
Nothing about Apple Watch appeals to me for my use case - running, cycling, swimming, hiking, training status, sleep tracking/recommendations, notifications, music/spotify integration. I've had a couple of Apple Watches over the years and they both got handed on to family members within a month or two. I've wanted to like it, but they are a long way off realistically serving my use-case and this new Ultra version doesn't look to come close either.
I've certainly had issues with Garmin - that atrocious week long service outage a year or two back and also some software updates that made me wonder if any internal QA had been done at all, but overall, Garmin have given me rock solid devices that are best in class IMO. My 935 still looked almost brand new after 3 years of hard usage and still gave me nearly week long battery life (with 5-7hrs running a week).
/s
> Contusions, abrasions, strains, sprains, low back pain and rib fractures are common injuries experienced in wakeboarding.
Men wanted for hazardous journey [[omitted: to the South Pole. Small wages, bitter cold,]] long months of complete darkness, constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.
> Antenna Rigger - McMurdo, Antarctica
Frequently climbs towers up to 150' feet in height to perform all normal rigging duties as required.
It actually looks exactly like these ads.
Garmin is generally good but there are two issues:
1. Sleep and Hearth Rate tracking - it's still a bit hard for me to believe(am I missing something?) that Apple with Watch OS 9 seem to have much better sleep and hearth rate tracking (which Vo2max, HRV and other things are based on). Plus at least for me on Venu 2 watch GPS when running tend be really iffy , when running in small city with 5 floor buildings at most
2. App ecosystem - I don't really mind UX of Garmin it's ok for me. The issue is that I like to listen to podcasts and Garmins Spotify app is pretty bad at synchronisation. - The main app have bunch of things which are either useless (like insights), are often imprecise (Stress measurements) or are clumsy to use (setting up custom workouts through Web UI, strength training app) - I am bit capture by Apple now so I expect to get other marginal benefits with Apple - Access to data, there are only Apps integrating with Garmin and it's not really possible to create your own to have a full access to the API - garmin pay not as supported as apple pay in my area
The biggest challenge for me was always mainly the battery life and price to a degree - Ultra obviously doesn't really solve it. - I am hoping that annoyance of charging will be balanced out by more smooth experience - I don't like to wear my Garmin all day especially when just sitting behind the pc (maybe I just need a different band?) so charging might not be such a big deal, expect for travelling.
And as for a price I have same problem as I have with Fenix or Epix, I would pay for stuff I will never use. If only Apple Watch 8 would get the extra battery, battery GPS and extra button, but ou well.
So Apple would me to - get more of my runs without phone (thanks to apple pay, easy podcast sync, audible app) - more precise healthy tracking - bit better experience thanks to 3rd party and my reliance on Apple
or maybe I am just got convinced by marketing and try to justify it to my self :)
Edit: Nope... found on https://www.oceanicworldwide.com/faqs/
Q: I have a wireless transmitter, can I connect it with the Oceanic+ app?
A: At the moment this option is not currently available.
I would love to see a system that uses ultra-high frequency noise in combination with the watch microphone, but it's doubtful manufacturers are going to want to support that.
If it's about reading the tank pressure, then most probably the answer is no.
In any event, this isn't replacing my teric but I wouldn't mind diving with a backup.
Significantly so, especially when paired with a phone (which users already own).
(Some do, but many of us specifically leave the phone at home, and run with our apple watches to save having a big clonkly phone)
Any source on that - because I really doubt it.
A-GPS doesn’t need to wait for a fix to be pretty accurate though, which is nice.
This is a review of an Apple 5, and it's within a few % points of a Garmin
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/11/apple-watch-series-5-spo...
What I really hope is that Apple somehow allow battery extensions. E.g. a battery extension strap or something along that line. Then it will for sure be a choice for me.
Imagine on back of the wrist is the watch and a battery on the other side that connects to the watch and extends the battery life for days.
I use a third party application, WorkOutDoors, to get vectorial outdoor maps from OSM data on the Apple Watch Series 3. So it should be possible to offer maps by default on the new watch ultra that makes you an adventurer.
I've had an Apple Watch SE for the last couple of years. It's been pretty good on the whole. Bought it after my Garmin Forerunner nearly failed to get a GPS lock in time when I was in a start pen for a half marathon (AFAIK the Fenix gets a lock far quicker).
- Running for around 5 hours
- Cycling multiple days but with a dynamo + battery packs
The appeal of this over a Garmin etc. is that this has a far better UI and is more suited to 90% of the time when I'm not outdoors but at the office etc.
Maybe we need to compare the price point to buying both a basic smart watch and a basic fitness watch?
EDIT: Yeah, international orange, cool - keep it as an option, but the vast majority of people buying this will never be in a situation where "international orange" is needed.
Fail.
The pitch is basically:
Buy Apple products. You might not be a pro photographer, but you could be an Instagram legend. You will be an Instagram legend. Think of the likes. THINK OF THE FAME. How could it not happen with a device of this quality? Look at the photos. Look how gorgeous they are!
Just drop $10k on an Apple load-out and don't think too much about it. It's not like it matters. You'll make it back in no time, superstar. You're not like the rest of these norms. You're special. You're one of us. You're one of the crazy ones.
Welcome to your new, better, diamond-cut chamfered-edged life.
It amazes me to see the extents people will go to in order to pretend they can’t even conceive of simple scenarios.
They're marketing though is aspirational to the point of appealing to people's delusions of grandeur. Apple is very aware that barely any of their customers will be using a dive computer and most Pro phone customers won't be dealing with ProRAW, even if a minority genuinely appreciate it for their workflow.
This is going to sound made up, totally realise that, but that's kind of my point (it seems silly written out) - last night I was talking to a buddy of mine after the event and he said he's going out to get the Watch Pro at release. He's not a diver and hikes very rarely (locally, with good cell reception) so I asked why. The answer was the extra button, because it looks different from a normal one and people will know he has the Pro model. This is Apple's market, and they know it - the rest is just window dressing.
This dude can't afford a $900 watch right now.
It's not Apple's fault people make poor financial decisions, but they very much rely on it.
How many people use 8TB of SSD storage? Fail.
I can see a rugged, smartwatch with tactile buttons and a bigger crown being useful in a lot of construction applications, but I don't think most construction workers or contractors are rocking iphones and $799 smart watches.