The Apple Watch Ultra and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 are likely two of the best smartwatches on the market today. The Ultra 2, thanks to the S9 SIP and the new UW2 chip has a number of enhanced/ updated or new features that make the Apple Watch Ultra 2 a best-of-class choice when it comes to a smartwatch that tracks health, activity, and exercise metrics, as well as enhanced and expanded altitude and depth ranges, precision device finding, dual-frequency GPS, on-device Siri for search as well as expanded battery life.
The unboxing video can be found below:
Apple Watch Ultra 2 offers the following new features over the Watch Ultra:
- S9 SiP
- Double tap gesture
- Apple’s brightest display ever
- Expanded altitude range
- On-device Siri
- Precision Finding for iPhone
- Advanced capabilities for water adventures
- Modular Ultra watch face
- Customizable Action button
- Dual-frequency GPS
- Cycling features
- Depth apps for dives
- Redesigned apps
- Smart Stack
- Features to help explore the outdoors
- 36-hour battery life with regular use and up to 72 hours in Low Power Mode
While the above is certainly a nice spec bump over the Apple Watch Ultra, they are, believe it or not, nearly the same device. Some of the items in the above list, are covered in watchOS 10, as opposed to hardware dependent and only available on the Watch Ultra 2. For example, the redesigned apps, Smart Stack and the Modular Ultra watch face. If you have Apple Watch Ultra, you’ll get these. You won’t, however, get things like the dual-frequency GPS or the Double tap gesture. Both of these are hardware-dependent, and Watch Ultra does not have the hardware required to support those features.
Watch the unboxing video.
You’ll see what I mean when I say that the devices are nearly exactly alike and don’t really warrant an upgrade from Ultra to Ultra 2. Depending on what Apple does with Ultra 3 next year, you may not even need to move to it from Ultra 1. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I mean, that’s crazy talk, right?!