The apple-watch-ultra-having-your-watch-repaired-will-be-very-expensive/">Apple Watch Ultra breaks up the seven-year-old design of the Apple Watch. It delivers long-awaited functions – at fat prices. How extreme is that?
Advertising slogans, especially those from companies like Apple, should always be questioned. But sometimes they hit the mark. Since its first appearance, which is now more than seven years ago, the Apple Watch has been marketed with the slogan that it is “Apple’s most personal product”. And I can only agree: there is no technical product that would be closer to me personally, because I really wear the device every day.
Lift your butt off the office chair
The watch shows me notifications from my iPhone, lets me make calls and send text messages, tracks my heart rate and gets me moving more. I record my longer walks and every run with the watch. You can also say that the watch has made me healthier because I know more about my body through its sensors and its integrated fitness functions are motivating to lift my butt off the office chair more often.
However, one cannot say that the Apple Watch of the past few years has been revolutionary. Instead, Apple did what it does best: Iterate from a base that makes sense. So the Series 7 of 2021 came with a bigger screen – nice, but I still carry my Series 6. And overall the range felt a bit dated too. The basic design of the watch hasn’t changed since 2015, despite various rumors to the contrary that have been floating around for years.
But now, yesterday, that has finally changed. Apple is turning its entire smartwatch family upside down with the Apple Watch Ultra. For the first time there will not only be variants of the one standard device in different housing designs (aluminum, steel, titanium – Hermès, Nike Sport, SE), but a completely new model. It had already been heard in advance that the Ultra (which was long known as “Pro” in the rumor mill) would be aimed at “extreme athletes”. This is a very small target group even for Apple, but an ideal marketing element.
Take my money Apple!
So what is the Apple Watch Ultra? Well, first of all we are dealing with a 1000 euro sports computer watch in a 49 mm titanium case. The case has been redesigned: the screen is now flat and framed to resist glass breakage, the digital crown has a crown guard and can also be operated with gloves, there is an “action button” that can be configured for sports functions, a better speaker and better microphones.
Apple Watch Ultra (14 images)
The GPS reception has been optimized so that even marathon runners in the urban canyons of Chicago can (should) record their route. The watch can measure the water temperature and the diving depth. There is an alarm siren feature that can be used to scare away bears (or criminals). And of course the watch is also a statement because it looks so special and distinguishable from other Apple Watch devices. Apple even thought of new bracelets for the ocean, the Alps and the trail.
Mac & i editor Ben Schwan has been writing about technology topics since 1994 and now focuses his attention particularly on Apple devices. He likes the design of the Mac, iPhone and iPad and believes that Apple often delivers the more user-friendly products. However, the hardware and software world from Cupertino is not always perfect for him.
Will only extreme athletes buy the part? Of course not. They are people who have known the watch for a long time, but want something more – if only that the finally really larger display shows more sports information. Another target group are those who previously thought the Apple Watch was just a toy and preferred to stay with specialist companies like Garmin “because they are more familiar with sports computers”. Apple is now advertising a night mode with blue light filter that can be activated via a digital crown, making the Apple Watch Ultra a fully-fledged dive computer that even records entry and exit via GPS.
