Apple announced its new smart watches, the Apple Watch. The new Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra are getting a new S9 SoC, a UWB chip, and a new “Double Tap.”gesture. Smart watches will be released soon.

Apple Watch Series 9 Get a new S9. This chip has 5.6 billion transistors, a 30 percent faster GPU, and a four-core neural engine. According to the manufacturer, this allows the watch to perform AI tasks twice as fast compared to its predecessor. Thanks to this improved neural engine, requests made to the Siri voice assistant will now also be executed locally on the smartwatch, and not via the cloud anymore. This means that these requests work faster and even without the Internet, just like on the iPhone. The 9 Series also allows users to request their health data from Siri. For example, users can ask about the status of their activity rings or how long they slept.

The Apple Watch Series 9 will also receive a UWB chip for the first time, with which users can use the new Name Drop function from iOS 17, among other things. It will also be possible to find the iPhone’s location more accurately via the Apple Watch Series 9 using uwb.

Apple is also introducing a new gesture with the new Watches: Double Tap. Users can operate their Apple Watch by tapping their thumb and index finger together twice. This action activates the “basic” action of the application. For example, users can snooze an alarm or play or pause music Smart stack Calls on the watchOS 10 home screen.

The Apple Watch Series 9’s displays remain unchanged compared to the Series 8, at 41mm and 45mm. According to Apple, the display achieves a higher peak brightness of 2,000 cd/m², compared to 1,000 cd/m² on the Series 8 watches. For use in the dark, the display can also be dimmed to a minimum of 1 cd/m². According to Apple, the Series 9 is its first product to be completely CO2 neutral.

The watches will be available in an aluminum case in the following colours midnight, StarlightSilver, pink and red. Stainless steel case variants will be available in silver, Graphite And gold. The Series 9 will be available on September 22 at a price of 449 euros.

Apple Watch Series 9. Source: Apple

Apple Watch Ultra 2

Apple is also launching Watch Ultra 2. This smartwatch also has a new S9 SoC with an improved Neural Engine, UWB chip, and double tap gestures. Apple is giving the new Ultra smartwatch a better display this time around, which achieves a peak brightness of 3,000 cd/m².

Apple is also introducing a new face for the Watch Ultra: Modular Ultra. This digital watch face displays more information on the 49mm screen, including to rise. Additionally, Night Mode, where the watch face dims and turns red, will now be activated automatically using the watch’s ambient light sensors.

According to Apple, the Watch Ultra 2 will have the same battery life as its predecessor. This lasts for up to 36 hours “with normal use.” With low power mode, this can be extended to 72 hours, claims the manufacturer. The case will continue to be made of titanium, although this time, according to Apple, it will be 95 percent recycled. The Watch Ultra 2 will be available at a price of 899 euros.

The displayed watches will be available with the watchOS 10 system that Apple previously announced. This software version gets a new interface with a greater focus on widgets. This OS update will be released on September 18. Apple is also lowering the starting price of the Watch SE from 299 to 279 euros.