Launched yesterday, bit vague on the details as to whether you can follow routes on it, whether there’ll be OS maps (or something equivalent) and whether it can be linked to strava etc.

Admittedly I’ve just read about it straight after waking up so may have missed these details myself, anyone know the answers or care to pick it apart?

https://www.apple.com/uk/apple-watch-ultra/

The £850 price tag with 36hr battery life in normal mode means I can’t be arsed to look farther than my Instinct.

Far more interested in the new iPhones capability with making emergency satellite calls. 1st genuinely new bit of phone tech in years. Wonder how much that service will cost….

whether there’ll be OS maps (or something equivalent

All the OS mapping Apple Watch apps that I know of require you to have your phone with you.

As for Strava, you can link the Apple apps to it. Not tried it though as I strongly dislike Strava.

I want one. But then I think it’s an £850 watch that will be obsolete in 5 years. I’ll buy one when I achieve my life’s ambition of having more money than sense.

DC Rainmaker has a shortish report on it, but yeah, the battery life doesn’t look great. 36 hours in normal mode presumably means maybe 8-9 when running GPS.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2022/09/apple-watch-ultra-hands-on-everything-you-need-to-know.html

Other problem is that you of course need an iPhone.

36 hours in normal mode presumably means maybe 8-9 when running GPS.

Maybe. But “normal mode” means not in low power mode, which is coming to all Apple Watches and basically switches off things like GPS and max screen brightness to double the battery life. For reference, I can track my ride on my series 7 all day (say a 5 hour ride) no problem, so this new ugly brute should do your 8-9 hours and have plenty left. No way it’ll do more than one day of riding/tracking without a charge though. The thing that eats battery fastest on the Apple Watch is taking and making calls… so a bigger battery is welcome for anyone wanting to leave the phone at home when riding. Apple have still got a long way to go there though.

9hrs with GPS is best case, no cloud, no extra satellites, no second to second recording.

You can’t fit a battery big enough in a stupid form factor like that. But it isn’t for outdoorsy people – it’s the watch equivalent of the hunter wellies worn on the London tube.

it’s the watch equivalent of the hunter wellies worn on the London tube.

I might borrow this 🙂

Looks lovely, but totally impractical for the purpose they are marketing. Seems to be aimed towards dynamic, brave, adventurous outdoorsy types who spend their weekends climbing mountains, diving in exotic locations, or running across deserts. I personally can’t see any of those people wearing one of these if the battery life is that low. Low power mode will mean degraded service/stats collection so seems a bit pointless.

The real use case for this appears to be armchair enthusiasts who love to talk about climbing mountains, diving in exotic locations, or running across deserts. I expect the adventure button would get a fair bit of use though – imagine being able to quickly switch to a compass in night mode, very useful for navigating home from the wine bar.

Shame as I do like Apple products, but I’ve yet to really see the point in the watches.

This made me chuckle, in the footnotes:

The Cycle Tracking app should not be used as a form of birth control.

I’ve missed a good apple bashing thread…

It’ll get as much adventure use as 99.9% of most fenix’s and instincts ever made.

Seems to be aimed towards dynamic, brave, adventurous outdoorsy types who spend their weekends climbing mountains, diving in exotic locations, or running across deserts.

It’s not for camping or bivvying with no source of power, that’s for sure. It’s for what most people do, a day out in the mountains/sea/hills when you’ll by tucked up in bed the following night with your stuff charging. Even for the backpackers, carrying a charger/battery is already pretty normal. Not getting one, and the battery does need to be improved further… but this isn’t for long self reliant expeditions in the wild, is it, it’s for the kind of realistically achievable outdoor fun we all love.

Far more interested in the new iPhones capability with making emergency satellite calls. 1st genuinely new bit of phone tech in years. Wonder how much that service will cost….

Free…

…but US/Canada only at launch, and text messages (no calls) to emergency services only.

I suspect it will stay US/Canada only for a long time, if not for ever, given the infrastructure it seems to need (Apple employees in “Relay Centres” to pass on the messages to the emergency services in some situations).

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/09/07/apple-emergency-satellite-iphone-14/

There is a UK company working on this as well… although its name escapes me… something cheesy like “Spitfire”…

“Bullitt” !!! [ thank you google ]

I suspect it will stay US/Canada only for a long time

That’s a shame, genuinely useful feature.

It does look nice, but I can’t see many serious sportspeople switching from more traditional brands.

This amused me too:

Call and text.

Cellular connectivity is built into every model. With a service plan, you keep in touch with up to 18 hours of 4G LTE all-day battery life.

18 hours and all-day don’t seem to correlate here 🙂

Re. the satellite mode – I can see how the Venn diagram of people who buy this watch, and people who need to call to get rescued, might have quite a bit of overlap 😜

36 hours battery life. In a watch marketed at endurance athletes etc. Hahahaha! And £850! LOL.

It’s not for camping or bivvying with no source of power, that’s for sure. It’s for what most people do, a day out in the mountains/sea/hills when you’ll by tucked up in bed the following night with your stuff charging.

my current only gripe with my Garmin is that it wont do a full day skiing with gps running. Need to take a power bank and give it a boost on longer lifts.

knowing you’ll get a 9-4 GPS track, view any texts without having to take your gloves off and definitely have enough juice to contactless pay in the bar afterwards would be the level of outdoorsy they are aiming at.

I’m disappointed. I like Apple products and was hoping for a simple ruggedised watch rather than this behemoth as have been holding off a normal Apple Watch for fear of smashing it in normal everyday life – diy, riding, walking around etc.

The battery life is apparently long enough for people to run a marathon with. A mate that works at Apple commented that he’d need more than the battery life they are claiming for that.

I honestly think this will be the equivalent of those Breitling watches aimed at pilots… The Chelsea Range Rover of watches, worn by people that ‘need’ them for their 30 minute power walk across Hyde Park. Everyone that actually does endurance events will use either a Garmin, Suunto or a G-Shock.

I honestly think this will be the equivalent of those Breitling watches aimed at pilots…

Nailed it. In fact the Breitling Emergency has a pull-out radio/satellite beacon that probably has better battery life.

Re. the satellite mode – I can see how the Venn diagram of people who buy this watch, and people who need to call to get rescued, might have quite a bit of overlap 😜

Proper LOL.

knowing you’ll get a 9-4 GPS track, view any texts without having to take your gloves off and definitely have enough juice to contactless pay in the bar afterwards would be the level of outdoorsy they are aiming at.

Except:

Battery and performance may be affected at very low temperatures.

Also

I’ve missed a good apple bashing thread…

I’d class myself as an Apple fanboi, but Apple watch seems completely pointless to me.

but Apple watch seems completely pointless to me.

I wouldn’t buy one of these, but I had a AW4 and now an AW7. I don’t miss garmin at all. view it as a remote screen/control for your phone and it makes a lot more sense.

charging/batttery life was my biggest concern when I switched but in reality its a complete non-issue. its got more battery life than I have and takes about 30mins to charge from nearly empty. I’ve only ever run it flat once.

in standalone GPS mode (it’ll use your iPhone GPS if its connected), I think the 7 uses about 10% an hour.

t’ll get as much adventure use as 99.9% of most fenix’s and instincts ever made.

My Instinct gets zero use cos it’s at home in a box with a couple of old Swatches and a cheque book for a bank account I closed ages ago. I gave up trying to navigate the ridiculous menu system or get it to integrate with the 2 Garmin apps that were required. Now my Apple Watch synchs perfectly ( as you’d expect) and works as a little remote module for my phone.

@jam-bo interesting. The wife decided she wanted an Apple Watch for her birthday, she has a Fenix 5 but doesn’t really need all the bells and whistles, just something that will track runs and play music while she runs. Importantly it needs to look nice for work, going out, etc (her Fenix isn’t exactly glamorous).

We went to the Apple store to look at them and the guy there said that she’d need to take her phone with her if she wanted to record runs. Is that right? That was a deal breaker. She’s on GiffGaff and they don’t provide the eSIM pairing option thingummy if that makes any difference.

[sorry for the hijack OP]

@tonyd

You don’t need the phone with you. I track (with GPS) runs and rides on my AW4. Can either use the Strava app or the apple activity app. Uploads the ride/run to the phone for upload to cloud when I get home.

I’d probably be in the market for one if it wasn’t for the £849 price tag!

RE the battery life, they said in the presentation that it would be long enough for “most people” to complete an ironman “long distance triathlon”.

As it is, I’ll probably stick with an apple watch for every day use (still on an old S3, will probably upgrade soon) and Suunto for running ultras.

Can either use the Strava app or the apple activity app.

I don’t take my phone with me when riding at all. My series 7 tracks my rides, is my wallet for paying for things, and my phone if someone important wants me. This brute would do all that for longer. I’m not into the big bulky diving watch look myself, so I’d get a series 8 with cellular connection instead, if I didn’t already have a silly unnecessary wrist computer and I was looking to buy one. You don’t need the cellular connection for tracking… but if the plan is to leave the phone at home often, it’s useful.

Let’s be honest it’s not an outdoor/multisports watch it’s just another expensive aspirational “Tech Accessory” from a company that makes expensive aspirational tech accessories.
Garmin, Polar, Sunto, Leyzne, etc will not be worried by Apple’s smart watch offerings.

Jebus my Missus and Eldest (Both iPhone users) each have a Fitbit Versa 2 those are just just bogo smartwatches, not the latest greatest tech, they’re happy enough with the basic fitness tracking/HR functionality. those do a solid week in normal mode, and does what most muggle smart watches should and just uses phone GPS if it needs location information…

The £850 price tag with 36hr battery life in normal mode means I can’t be arsed to look farther than my Instinct.

^^Ditto^^ I’m a week in with my Instinct Solar (I already think it’s going to dislodge the G-Shock from regular rotation) I can’t imagine why you’d pay 6x more for something that can’t even hold 2 days charge, the Instinct Solar can apparently go for a couple of months* (*in battery saver mode)…

I’ve missed a good apple bashing thread…

It’ll get as much adventure use as 99.9% of most fenix’s and instincts ever made.

Depends really if you consider looking for a spare USB port so your watch remains useful for an entire weekend an “adventure”, say what you like about the posh Garmins they’re far better on battery life, at least making the odd adventure away from a plug socket an option, Plus at £850, if you go adventuring you might scratch it. Apple do sometimes deserve a good bashing…

We went to the Apple store to look at them and the guy there said that she’d need to take her phone with her if she wanted to record runs. Is that right?

i think the AW1 and maybe AW2 didn’t have built in GPS and so needed the phone.

now they have it, but only use it if they aren’t connected to your phone via bluetooth.

Garmin, Polar, Sunto, Leyzne, etc will not be worried by Apple’s smart watch offerings.

I’d bet they are…

The dcrainmaker video on it said recording workouts could cover an Ironman triathlon (17 hours or so) but it’s not clear yet how that new low power mode works. Hoping that will also mean a normal 44mm apple watch might do a few more hours and that would cover my longer rides, last time it made it about 6 hours before dying.

It’s similar money to the high end Garmins but probably better functionality for most people.

We went to the Apple store to look at them and the guy there said that she’d need to take her phone with her if she wanted to record runs. Is that right?

Taking an iPhone with you saves a heap of watch battery capacity, as it just uses the phone. It’s very noticable.
It does mean though that you have to think about where you put the phone – riding with it in a hip/back pocket really affects signal so the GPS plot can be all over the place.

Garmin, Polar, Sunto, Leyzne, etc will not be worried by Apple’s smart watch offerings.

I’m sure they are – this watch will eat into a large amount of the Fenix (etc) market. And apologies for misleading the thread further up – I believe it has 60 hours of normal life. While that’s nothing like as much as a Fenix, it’s almost certainly enough for a mid-packer like me to finish an Ironman.

Not that I’m planning on getting rid of my Instinct!

My Apple Watch does everything that I need it to.

I love that I can go cycling or running or walking and not worry about carrying a phone or wallet.

I sold my Fenix as it was both overkill in many contexts and yet not as good as an Apple Watch for things I wanted it to do.

I agree the Apple watch is great as a general smartwatch with decent sports credentials – competing with the likes of the galaxy watch, ticwatch, fitbit etc etc.

But with this new one they’re targeting the hardcore (endurance) athletes and watches like the fenix 7, epix etc which IMO is laughable, especially with 1.5 days battery life in general usage.

This will be very popular with the cross fit crowd, or those with £50k’s worth of land rover who spend 3 weekends a year ‘adventuring’ in the Welsh countryside…

Still, gotta give it to Apple – they know their market and I don’t doubt this will be snapped up by hoardes of people.

Taking an iPhone with you saves a heap of watch battery capacity, as it just uses the phone. It’s very noticable.
It does mean though that you have to think about where you put the phone – riding with it in a hip/back pocket really affects signal so the GPS plot can be all over the place.

Love it. Buy a smart fitness watch to use for tracking activities, has to use phone GPS to get any decent battery life. 🤣

riding with it in a hip/back pocket really affects signal so the GPS plot can be all over the place.

so apart from a handlebar mount, where would be good?

the Instinct Solar can apparently go for a couple of months* (*in battery saver mode)…

I only wear mine when cycling, to record my turbo workouts (for body battery) and on hols as a pool watch & to record an MTB ride. This means I’ve only charged it 3 x since I bought it last November. All other times it sits on the windowsill switched off and slowly charges. It’s at 78% now showing 21 days normal mode and 67 in Power Saver.

It’s also muddy, dusty and has some sweat and gel on it, definitely one of the 0.1% 😀

But then I think it’s an £850 watch that will be obsolete in 5 years.

I doubt the battery will last that long, wife’s iWatch battery won’t even last a day doing nothing with it – only a few years old. Non replaceable as well….