Apple Watch Ultra 2 Hands-On: 15 New Features Detailed!

Apple has just announced the new Apple Watch Ultra 2, alongside the also-new Apple Watch Series 9. Both of these units see largely hardware upgrades, mostly focused on performance and the display, while also adding one notable new feature that leverages these new internal components for specific gesture controls.

Starting off with the hardware side of things, here's what's new:

New Apple Silicon S9 chipset, which Apple says had 5.6 billion transistors and is 60% more than before
New GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), which Apple states is 30% faster, allowing for faster rendering
New 4-core neural engine, which Apple states is twice as fast in machine learning applications
New far brighter 3,000 nit display (previously the Apple Watch Ultra was 2,000 nits, and the previous Series 8 is 1,000 nits)
New display can also go down to just 1 nit, versus the previous 2 nits. Apple says that in turn drives a big savings in battery consumption due to the always-on side of things (of course, that battery savings is then spent on the faster processor bits).
New UWB 2 (Ultrawideband) chip, which increases finding of things (like your phone), including exact distance and direction, but also increased Homepod integration
New watch bands
Updated case made from 95% recycled aluminum (versus 0% prior)
Same battery life as before (36hrs in normal mode, 72hrs in low-power mode)
Same $799 price as before, shipping September 22nd

However, it's these hardware components that then drive new software features, including:

New Double tap: This allows you to double-tap your index and thumb together, acting as a virtual button. You can answer a call, hang-up a call, snooze alarm, take a picture from the camera, or any number of other custom actions (more on this down below).
New Flashlight boost: This leverages the brighter display for a brighter virtual flashlight option
Siri now newly processes requests entirely offline (without cellular/wifi), for things it can do locally
Siri can now log Apple Health metrics (purely via voice), including weight, period information, as well as respond to Health requsts (e.g. asking for last nights sleep stats) - available later this year in English and Mandarin.

By far, the biggest new software feature here is Double Tap. Apple says the idea is that you may be holding a cup of coffee, or riding a bike, or otherwise having your hands full. By simply double-tapping your index and thumb together, it'll trigger an button response, which varies based on the application/watch.

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