New Apple Watch Ultra reinvigorates stalled company

Introducing Apple Watch Ultra

Inspired by the most extreme sporting activities, Apple unveils a revolutionary new design with breakthrough capabilities

Apple today unveiled Apple Watch Ultra, which offers a brand new, bold design and a wide range of features designed for endurance, exploration, and adventure. Apple Watch Ultra introduces a 49mm titanium case and a flat sapphire front glass that shows the largest and brightest Apple Watch display yet. A customizable Action button offers instant access to a wide range of features. Apple Watch Ultra has the longest battery longevity of any Apple Watch, reaching up to 36 hours of normal use.1 In addition, a brand new low-power setting, which is ideal for multi-day adventures will extend the battery’s life to reach up to 60 hours.2 The Wayfinder watch face is designed specifically for the larger Apple Watch Ultra display and incorporates a compass inside the dial, which has the capacity to accommodate up to eight different complications. Apple Watch Ultra also brings three new bands including Trail Loop, Alpine Loop and Ocean Band — offering unique design features that provide an incredibly safe and comfy fit for each adventure.

Apple Watch Ultra is available for purchase now and will be available starting Friday, September 23.

“Inspired by explorers and athletes from around the world, we created an entirely new category of Apple Watch designed for new and extreme environments — it’s the most rugged and capable Apple Watch yet,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer. “Apple Watch Ultra is a versatile tool that empowers users to push their boundaries with adventure, endurance, and exploration.”

Bigger, Brighter, and Stronger

Made from aerospace-grade titanium Apple Watch Ultra provides the perfect balance of weight, durability, and resistance to corrosion. The case is raised to surround all edges of the front crystal’s flat sapphire which protects the Retina display, which can reach at a maximum brightness of 2000 nits -2x brighter than any Apple Watch display yet. The Action button in high-contrast international orange is easily customized to give you immediate access to a range of functions, including Workouts, Compass Waypoints, Backtrack and more.

Apple Watch Ultra has three built-in microphones that dramatically improve the quality of voice calls during any conditions. An adaptive beamforming algorithm uses the microphones to capture voices while reducing ambient background sounds, resulting in incredible clarity. In windy conditions, Apple Watch Ultra uses advanced wind noise reduction algorithms, such as machine learning, to provide clear and intelligible audio for calls.

New Bands Designed for the Great Outdoors

Designed specifically for runners and endurance athletes, the Trail Loop specifically for runners and endurance athletes, the Trail Loopband is the thinnest Apple Watch band to date. The lightweight woven fabric is soft and flexible, allowing it to cinch to the perfect fit, and the convenient tab is designed for quick and simple adjustment.

With explorers in mind the Alpine Loop band features two layers of integrated construction, resulting from a continuous weaving process that eliminates the requirement for stitching. The loops on top, woven with high-strength fibers, offer adjustability and a secure attachment for the titanium G-hook fastener.

The Ocean Band HTML0is designed specifically for extreme water sports and recreational diving with an aluminum buckle and a spring-loaded loop. Molded from a flexible fluoroelastomer, it stretches and makes use of the tubular shape to ensure an ideal fit. The Ocean Band also has an optional extra-long tail that permits users to comfortably wear over a wetsuit.

Endurance Sports and Elite Athletes

Apple Watch Ultra is an amazing device for those looking to push beyond their limits. For the first time within the history of an Apple Watch, the precision dual-frequency GPS integrates both L1 and the latest frequency L5 and new algorithm for positioning. Apple Watch Ultra delivers the most precise GPS that any Apple Watch to date, offering users with the most precise distance speed, pace, and route information for training and competition.

Apple Watch Ultra is powered by watchOS 9, which includes new advanced running metrics that measure performance, like Stride Length as well as Ground Contact Time, Vertical Oscillation, and Running Power. New Workout Views, including Segments Splits, Elevation, and Segments are able to show important metrics in just a glance. due to the larger display, Apple Watch Ultra is the only Apple Watch that can show six metrics at once. Users can elevate their fitness to the next level by using features like Heart Rate Zones, Custom Workouts Pacer, and in the coming months, Race Route. For duathlons, triathlons, or other activities that involve any combination of swimming, biking, or running, the new Multisport workout features autodetection that allows you to effortlessly switch between workouts. Apple Watch Ultra has enough battery life for the majority of users to finish a triathlon of a long distance, comprised of the 2.4-mile swim and a bike ride of 112 miles and full marathon at 26.2 miles. 
 

The Action button will immediately start workouts and guide users towards the next segment of a Custom Workout or to the next phase of a Multisport workout. It can also be used for marking out segments, which is a great addition to the brand-new Track running experience, which automatically gives the most accurate pace and distance estimates for runners on a track.3

Explorers 

With the larger display, brighter display and robust style, Apple Watch Ultra is the perfect tool for explorers and adventurers in a variety of settings, from the every day up to the most extreme. The completely redesigned Compass application that comes with watchOS 9 offers more detailed detail and provides three distinct views. The app features a brand new hybrid view that displays both an analog compass dial, as well as an electronic view. By turning the Digital Crown reveals an additional view that includes latitude, longitude, elevation, and incline, aswell as an orienteering view that shows Compass Waypoints, as well as Backtrack.

Compass Waypoints are a quick and convenient way to mark a location or point of interest within the app. Clicking the Action button or tapping the Compass Waypoint icon drops a waypoint which is editable by pressing the icon that appears. The Compass Waypoint complication changes continuously in real-time with direction of the point and the distance.

Backtrack uses GPS data to create a path showing the exact location where the user was at any point, which is useful in case they get lost or disoriented and need assistance finding their way back. It can also turn off automatically in the background if it is off the grid. By pressing the Action button users can quickly drop a Compass Waypoint or start or view a Backtrack. A siren that is 86 decibels was made for emergencies, in case users get lost or injured and aid in attracting attention to a specific location. The distinctive sound signature consists of two distinct patterns that can be repeated for up to several hours. The first pattern suggests distress and the second one mimics the well-known SOS pattern. For multi-day backpacking trips, battery lifespan can be extended to as long as 60 hours with Low Power Mode plus an additional low-power setting which reduces the frequency of GPS and heart rate readings.

The on-wrist operating temperature was developed to aid in exploring the most extreme and remote locations, from freezing cold mountains at 4deg F (-20deg C) to the blazing desert heat at 131deg F (55deg C).4 Apple Watch Ultra is certified to the relevant elements of MIL-STD-810H that are used in military equipment and popular among manufacturers of rugged equipment. Testing covers low pressure (Altitude), Low Temperature, High Temperature, Temperature Shock, contamination by fluids, rain, humidity Immersion, Sand and Dust, Freeze/Thaw and Ice/Freezing Rain, Shock, Vibration, and more. To maximize for conditions in the evening, turning the Digital Crown makes the interface more red to provide better visibility in the dark in the dark when you use the Wayfinder face.

Ocean and Water Sports Enthusiasts

Apple Watch Ultra is designed specifically for water sports, including extreme sports like kitesurfing or wakeboarding, along with recreational scuba diving that goes to 40 meters using the brand updated Oceanic+ app. To facilitate these underwater adventures, Apple Watch Ultra is certified to WR100. Apple Watch Ultra is also certified to EN 1319 which is an internationally recognized standard for dive accessories such as depth gauges that are used by divers from all over the world.5

With a brand new depth gauge, Apple Watch Ultra features a Depth app designed with an intuitive user interface. With just a glance, the Depth app displays the time and depth, current water temperature, duration in the water and the maximum depth reached. Users can program the Action button to instantly launch the Depth app.

In partnership in partnership with Huish Outdoors, known for the development of quality and innovative equipment for recreational divers, the new Oceanic+ app turns Apple Watch Ultra into a reliable dive computer. Available on the App Store later in the autumn, the app uses the Buhlmann decompression algorithm, and includes diving planning, easy to read dive metrics, visual and haptic alerts, no-decompression limits, ascent rate and safety stop guidelines. Oceanic+ also offers a customized user profile, reports on local and current conditions for diving, as well as the ability to create a dive logbook which is shared with family and friends and syncs automatically to iPhone.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Apple to combine our world-renowned expertise in scuba with the unique capability of Apple Watch Ultra to turn the same everyday watch into an innovative dive computer,” said Mike Huish, CEO of Huish Outdoors. “With Oceanic+, Apple Watch Ultra users can enjoy a new and enriched experience during scuba activities.”

Additional Features

Apple Watch Ultra includes all of the connectivity, activity, and health features that have made Apple Watch the best-selling smartwatch around the globe including heart rate monitoring, and the ECG and Blood Oxygen apps, to Activity rings and Mindfulness, along with additional health and safety features, as well as navigation features.

Apple Watch Ultra features innovative new capabilities for temperature sensing that provide additional insights into women’s health. The unique two-sensor design eliminates the influence of external factors as well as the body’s own. Utilizing the new capabilities, users can receive retrospective ovulation estimates, which can be helpful for family planning.6Temperature sensing also enables improved period predictions for users who menstruate.7 With iOS 16 and watchOS 9, Cycle Tracking users can now receive a notification if their logged cycle history shows a possible deviation, which can be a symptom of underlying health conditions.

Utilizing two brand new motion sensors and an advanced sensor-fusion algorithm Apple Watch can detect a severe car crash with Crash Detection. If Apple Watch detects a severe crash, the device will contact the user and dial emergency services if unresponsive after a countdown of 10 seconds. Emergency responders will receive the location of the device, which is also communicated to emergency contacts.

Apple Watch Ultra and the Environment

Apple Watch Ultra is designed to minimize environmental impact. It has recycled gold plating on several printed circuit boards- a first for Apple Watch — as well as 100 % recycled rare earth elements throughout all magnets and 100 percent recycled tungsten within the Taptic Engine. Display glass is arsenic-free, and Apple Watch Ultra is mercury-, BFR-, PVC-, and beryllium-free. No Apple Watch packaging uses outer plastic wrap and 98 percent or more of all packaging is made up of fiber which brings Apple closer to its goal of completely removing plastic from its packaging by 2025.

In the present, Apple is carbon neutral for global corporate operations, and by 2030, plans to be carbon-free across all manufacturing supply chain and throughout the product life cycles. That means every Apple device sold from component production, assembly, transport, customer use, charging, and all the way through recycling and material recovery will have zero impact on the environment.

Privacy

Privacy is a key element in the development and design process across all of Apple’s features. When an iPhone user’s iPhone is locked using a passcode, Touch ID or Face ID, all of their health and fitness information in the Health app — other than medical ID — is encrypted. Any Health data backed up to iCloud is encrypted during transit and on Apple servers. When using iOS and watchOS with the default two-factor authentication and passcode, Health app data synced to iCloud is encrypted end-to-end, meaning that Apple does not have the key needed to decrypt the data, and is unable to access it.

Pricing and Availability 

• Customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, the UAE and the UK as well as the US as well as more than 40 countries and regions, can buy Apple Watch Ultra today, with stores opening on Friday, September 23.
• Apple Watch Ultra is $799(US).
• watchOS 9 will become available on Apple Watch Series 4 and later on September 12, 2011, and requires iPhone 8 or later and iPhone SE (2nd generation) or later running iOS 16. Not all features are available on all devices and in all regions.
• Three months of Apple Fitness+ are included for those who buy Apple Watch Ultra, Apple Watch Series 8, or Apple Watch SE, or new purchases of Apple Watch Series 4 or later.

 

1. When used in normal usage, Apple Watch Ultra can be able to last up to 36 hours of battery life with an iPhone present.
2. Low-power setting with reduced frequency for GPS and heart rate measurements will be made available later this autumn.
3. This year, the US will be getting US later this year. 
    
4. Extreme temperatures may impact some features. For more information, refer the user’s guide.
5. Apple Watch Ultra has a water resistance rating of 100 metres in accordance with ISO standard 22810. Apple Watch Ultra may be used for recreational diving (with an app from a third-party that is compatible available on the App Store) to 40 meters, and for high-speed water sports. Apple Watch Ultra should not be used to dive below 40 meters. Water resistance is not a permanent condition and can diminish over time. For additional information, see support.apple.com/en-us/HT205000.
6. The Cycle Tracking app should not be used as a form of birth control. Data taken from the Cycle Tracking app should not be used to diagnose health conditions.
7. The temperature sensor is not a medical device and not intended to be used for medical diagnosis, treatment or any other medical reason.