Readers, I have a problem – I just love buying new Apple tech. That feeling of peeling off the label, opening it up, even the smell – there’s nothing quite like it.
Thankfully, I know I’m not alone – the Apple subreddit over on Reddit is full of folks like me. I also listen to podcasts where other ne’erdowells upgrade their tablet without needing to, or swap out their phone annually (the troublemakers!).
And yet, despite all of this, I just cannot find it in me to get excited about the Apple Watch Ultra 2.
Ultra Nonplussed
It’s not that the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a bad device, far from it. The double-touch gesture (when it arrives in watchOS 10.1) sounds like the closest I’ll get to Vision Pro functionality without selling my house, and I’m sure it’d be nice to hand off podcasts to a HomePod if I had one.
I’m also pretty excited about the new S9 chip, which allows for smoother animations and better performance, according to our hands-on with the device. I even suggested the Ultra 2 is likely to be a far better, longer-lasting investment than the Series 9, despite the price difference.
And yet, despite being quite likely to get a significant amount of the value back from my Apple Watch Ultra 1, I can’t find the enthusiasm to get excited for another new wearable.
Can a sequel be better than the original?
Part of that could be due to me only buying the Ultra this year, a combination of it being a gift to myself for starting a new job, and a promise to take heart tracking more seriously than perhaps I have done in the past.
But even with the fresh performance and brighter screen, I find myself struggling to get excited – and this is coming from someone who prides himself on fashion to the point where I would’ve happily traded up for an Apple Watch Ultra in titanium black.
Comparing the two side-by-side, you’ll find no design changes that catch the eye, with even the ‘Apple Watch Ultra’ underneath matching on both – there’s no denoting that the Ultra 2 is the latest model at all (at least Apple Watch models used to do things with red dots on the Digital Crown).
There are subtle updates, of course. The Ultra 2 offers Precision Finding for my iPhone 15 Pro, improved dictation, and double the internal storage – something I appreciate as someone who likes to keep a few albums and playlists downloaded on my watch. But more than anything, I’m struggling to work out who the Ultra 2 is for – and whether Apple may have actually been better off not launching it at all.
Not so Ultra
You could argue that this is more like an Ultra 1.5 rather than a next-generation model, and I’d agree.
But, this isn’t something that’ll affect most people. The Ultra, regardless of whether it’s a first or second-generation model, is targeting a subset of users who are really into fitness, exploration, or both.
And yet, the differences are so minuscule that I feel a lot of people are likely to flock to buy a secondhand first-generation Ultra rather than stump up $800 for the second version.
It’s perhaps emblematic of the Apple Watch lineup as a whole (the Series 9 is also a very, very slim update), and makes me wonder if it’s time for a year off. Still, with rumors that 2024 will bring a Series 10/Apple Watch X model with a drastic redesign, maybe this is an instance of Apple needing to clear its processing plants of chassis and components ahead of a big update.
Whatever happens, it feels like a particularly slow year for Apple Watch – and one that has me scratching my head about why it was necessary at all.