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Apple Watch Ultra 4
- mikestew 23d agoThe only thing keeping on a Garmin is that my OG AW Ultra probably won't last a mountain 50 miler (I've used it for easier 50 mile races). If it truly lasts anywhere near 45 hours, even my old, slow ass could knock out 100 miles in that time. Plus satellite comms on the AW (which I'd have to spend money to upgrade the 965 to get that feature). I just might pick one up next week.
- ktallett 23d agoTwo days is so poor for a ultra watch. The fact it won't last a full weekend let alone any significant hike just means it doesn't fit the market it is aiming at.
- gruturo 23d agoA weekend? How about a full week at the absolute bare minimum, if not more. 3 days is a complete joke. Competitors have battery lives measured in weeks rather than days (a famous, and still 100% appropriate, quote by Garmin. Now 5 years old and counting, and the situation is still as ridiculously bad). Seriously what is it even doing to justify going through the battery so fast? Are they just bad at programming?
- ktallett 22d agoI completely agree with you, I was just trying to avoid being attacked by a certain group. I assume it's the processor as it isn't designed specifically for battery life etc.
- smeeth 23d agoDear Apple, I want to send you my money, but your expensive watch I want to buy is f**ing massive and my wrist is normally sized. I don't really understand why this is still an issue since it's been 4 years. Thanks, - Guy with slightly below average wrist circumference (40th %ile)
- alistairSH 23d agoAn "Ultra Mini" with a proper lap button would open my wallet very quickly.
- Jubijub 23d agoSame, I’d pay for more physical buttons
- alistairSH 23d agoI just want the extra (vs non-Ultras) button THAT'S ALREADY THERE to allow mapping to "lap". Blew my mind that wasn't possible when I went to try one at the apple store. LOL @ downvoting this of all things.
- kemayo 22d agoIsn't that what it already does if you have the action button set to "workout"?
- alistairSH 18d agoNot that I could find in settings... the settings menu let me start a workout but that was all I saw. Maybe it just wasn't discoverable... Just looked at the online user manual and the only mention of lap control is in the stopwatch app (not workouts). It does mention secondary actions, but doesn't elaborate... if that actually does control the lap, Apple really sucks at doc. :shrug: Plus, I really want a mini version. The Ultra is MASSIVE to the point it's ridiculous.
- tiahura 23d agoI’m probably 60% and would feel ridiculous wearing one.
- atomflunder3000 23d agoThe first thing they mention is the "great" battery life and it is still only just over 2 days, great.
- carabiner 23d agoI desperately wish apple would release a viable competitor to the garmin fenix line but they can't with that battery life. Garmin UX and software overall is such dogshit, and to have Apple UX with garmin raw performance (battery life, GPS tracking accuracy, activity modes) would be perfect. Apple could never though because the fenix was designed from the ground up as an embedded device microcontroller, whereas apple watch is a general purpose computer with a GPU.
- intrasight 22d agoI suspect the screen is also a big battery drain. I dont find color useful in a watch so perhaps a greyscale version with no GPU. Apple could definitely do 7+ day batter life if they wanted.
- brians 23d agoYup. This tells me the AWU is not the adventure watch for me. I love my Apple Watch (8? I think?) and I love my Garmin Instinct Solar with 40d battery life. One of these is for daily wear as a communicator; the other is for weeks in the mountains or offshore.
- jsbisviewtiful 23d agoHyperbole is Apple’s favorite communication style, but at this point it’s so overused that it’s just a meaningless meme. Apple’s wearable competitors blow the Apple Watch’s battery life out of the water and it’s not even close. Hyperbole is all Apple has in this race.
- rootusrootus 23d agoOn the flip side, Apple blows them away on feature set, and often on data accuracy. There is give & take, different priorities for different people.
- brandonb 23d agoThe 4th generation heart rate sensor is quite interesting -- Apple Watch used to sample every ~5 minutes, and now it's every 5 seconds (basically continuous). I think that'll enable a lot of interesting health & wellness use cases.
- skadamat 23d agoIt's interesting because during workouts, the heart rate sensor samples every 5 seconds but besides that, it was either every 2 or 5 minutes. I'm guessing the battery drain is too much to have it sample every 5 seconds all the time!
- danek_szy 23d agoToo bad Apple reserved the [training] Readiness feature only for the Ultra 4 - I'm pretty sure Ultra 3 and probably below are just as well equipped to provide such insight...
- ShinyLeftPad 23d agonon ultra apple watch has it too
- ryanschaefer 23d agoHad this thought during the presentation. How is the “rewind” feature legal? Don’t a lot of states have laws against making secret recordings?
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- rootusrootus 23d agoRecordings, yes, but this is transcription.
- alwillis 23d agoIt doesn't save a recording of someone speaking; it's 15 seconds of a transcription.
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- testfrequency 23d agoMy understanding is it’s E2E transcribed dictation via PCC? Is that not the case?
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- Insanity 23d agoI guess it was already technically possible with phones though, or hidden tape recorders for something more old-school. Not sure on the legality.
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- LeoPanthera 23d agoThey made it very clear that it doesn't record anything.
- Dlemlo 23d ago$800 for a watch. Man we lost it as a society. Others are not able to eat, die because of insulin prices, struggle every day and we sit here on HN and people are thinking about buying the next gadget. A watch for $800...
- orf 23d agoInsulin shouldn’t be expensive. What’s that got to do with high-end smartwatch pricing?
- SoftTalker 23d agoIt's more a comment about what we value as a society. An Apple watch is an utterly optional accessory that nobody needs. And yet there's a bubble of rather wealthy people who will buy them without really giving it a second thought, and another large group of people who really can't afford one but will buy it anyway.
- orf 23d agoMan that’s so deep - some people are purchasing things while other people cannot purchase said things. Society is so screwed :/
- Dlemlo 23d agoThe social critisism is, that people in the united states of america (were apple is home), let people die while also buying unironically $800 watches as a mass consumer product.
- throw1234567891 23d agoAnd? People buy what they want to buy. Apple builds what people want to buy. Been like this forever.
- Dlemlo 23d agoAnd? Why do you even the comment on a social critisism comment? Just ignore it, feel happy when you buy yourself the next stupid thing while you feel offended seeing your fellow citicen. Why does it even trigger you then?
- nradov 23d agoInteresting but the short battery life and 40m (130ft) scuba diving depth limit still make it useless for me.
- anukin 23d ago40m diving is more than good for a lot of divers. I am allowed to go on a 30m dive and that’s probably at the 75 percentile of divers.
- still-learning 23d agoLooks like you'll be one of the only people using dive watches for their actual purpose then.
- nradov 23d agoThere are dozens of us!
- nvahalik 23d ago130ft/40m is standard limit for non-tec diving. Past that depth, you will be using diving computers and not a smartwatch. And the training you receive will help you to understand why.
- nradov 23d agoWho is "you"? I have the training and sometimes go significantly deeper. I use a competing Garmin smartwatch, works great. Do you understand why?
- nvahalik 23d agoHow deep are you going? What gas mixtures are you using? Which Garmin are you using? If you're using a Mk3i or a G2 (or related) you are using a diving computer in a smart watch form factor. It is custom built for this... unlike the Apple Watch Ultra.
- bilsbie 23d agoWhen are they going to detect blood sugar?
- michelb 23d agoWhen the patent trolls die down and accuracy improves.
- pilif 23d agoThe Ultra 2 was sold to me as the watch that can do Siri without network connectivity. That was very useful to me to leave reminders for stuff I think about while on a run without the phone. 3 years later, Apple releases the OS 27 versions and Siri got improved to the point where it can’t work on-device any more on said Ultra 2 So to get the feature back which I paid for and which was specifically used to sell me the device and which now has been taken away from me, I just have to… buy the next hardware generation? And how long will that last before they decide to remove the feature again? Thankfully, the Ultra 4 provides some other compelling features making this less painful, but I would have expected at least a toggle to keep old Siri on the old watch. New Siri over the network is impossibly slow and buggy (I made the mistake of installing the betas, so there’s no way back now)
- cromka 23d agoI seriously am surprised there are no class action suits around the crippling of older devices that is happening these days. Google Home speakers are prime example of that.
- roody15 22d agoYeah I took a 2012 iMac , loaded Ubuntu and it runs latest Firefox and chrome like lightening. Take same 2012 iMac and run latest macOS it is allowed to run and it runs super super slow. This is clearly by design. They like to advertise long support windows but they cripple older devices through software and OS features causing older devices to run much much slower. I have seen this for years from Apple and it would be hard to convince me that this isn’t done by design.
- cromka 22d agoSure, but what I am talking about here is even worse: they're taking away features that originally sold the device, so imagine they removed keyboard backlight after 5 years because they no longer want to maintain the cloud backend (hypothetically).
- ElijahLynn 23d ago
- silksowed 23d agoAs someone who often backpacks off grid, the features listed are pretty interesting. Anyone have any alternative products this competes with? The "adventure" watch is a new thing for me
- mikestew 23d agoNot to be too dismissive, but have you heard of Garmin, Suunto, Coros, or Polar? They all have something similar.
- silksowed 22d agoI have heard of Garmin, but neither of the others so they must have a more narrow marketing reach. I will review their product catalog and see how the value compares. I could have an agent go scour the web for product recommendations and substitute products, but I enjoy the discourse and perspective on HN so I like to ask here.
- mikestew 22d agoAs a user of both Garmin (and Suunto, Coros, Polar would be in the same category) and Apple Watch Ultra, you'll find one main difference again and again: battery life. The not-Apple-watches will last a week or more before charging, AW will make it a day or two. OTOH, as far as a smart watch goes, AW will be head and shoulders better. For me, it's a lot of little cuts with Garmin. For instance, setting a timer for my tea is like six button presses on the Garmin, and that's with a shortcut keypress to get to the timer. AW: there's a complication on the watch face, one press. Or, "Siri, five minutes". Three presses otherwise. I haven't owned anything from the other brands in a long time, so can't comment on the likes of Suunto or what have you. Some will tell you that AW is "okay", but "serious athletes" use a Garmin. Meh, whatever. I've got a running resume as long as my arm, and I just preordered the AW Ultra 4 to replace my Garmin (and my AWU 1). AW gives me the data I need, and it will last long enough for me to get through a 100 mile race, so I won't miss much from Garmin. And good $DEITY, Garmin's prices are getting ridiculous. $1200 for a titanium Fenix? I don't care how long the battery lasts, that thing better wax my fucking car. If you want to save a little money, I've heard nothing but good things about Coros.
- danek_szy 23d ago[Dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49631121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49631121 - this one seems to have more lively discussion
- neon_me 23d agoHaving Garmin Enduro with 3+ weeks of battery life seems funny to watch apples ultra ads ...
- thomasahle 23d agoIt's surprising that in 2026 they still haven't figured out how to remove the bezels. They are smaller than they used to be, but On something as compact a watch, all screen estate counts.
- mwidell 23d agoSo apparently Siri AI is not coming to my part of the world anytime soon because of EU law. With that, I see no reason at all to upgrade from my Ultra 1, as not much else has improved in any meaningful way in 3 years. Don't get me wrong, I love my Ultra 1. But I had hoped for more innovation in three generations of it.
- noja 23d agoNot because of eu law. Because Apple wants an exception to the rules.
- cromka 23d agoThey don't get it. Malicious compliance. So many credible proofs of them doing it, but people still rather be apologists for a trillion dollars company.
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- BAHKA 19d agoBecause Apple wants an exeption to the ridiculous and insane rules the EU has imposed on their citizens. EU is sooo irrelevant, sooo behind in tech... And such laws only worsen the situation.
- cute_boi 23d ago> For everyday use, Apple Watch Ultra 4 now offers more than two days of battery life, up to 50 hours. This is the reason i don't like these smart watches... I always forget to charge the watch.....
- amelius 23d agoYou just plug in your devices when you go to sleep. I don't get why that is difficult.
- stetrain 23d agoThat does diminish the sleep tracking benefits. It's still doable, but now it becomes "remember to charge your watch at least an hour before bedtime" which isn't as simple of a routine.
- amelius 23d agoHmm okay I haven't though about that.
- angulardragon03 23d agoIf you’re using the sleep tracking features, the watch will remind you if it thinks it won’t have the juice to get through the night. 15 mins of charging during a shower is usually all I do for my S9
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- dyauspitr 22d agoThat was fine until I started using it for sleep tracking. Now it’s kinda hard. I put it on the charger when I’m taking a shower and having dinner still it’s not super convenient.
- vablings 23d agoThe battery life being so short is just pathetic. My Garmin can last up to two whole weeks in a similar form factor and its pretty much the only differentiation
- VCFundedGenYer 23d ago"A batter you can't outrun" actually the gen 1 Pebble from literally 2013 still runs circles around this thing.
- rwz 23d agoI recently got their new gen Pebble Time 2 and this thing lasts about a month on a single charge!
- verytrivial 23d agoHuh, this "Readiness" innovation seems really similar to the "HybridCharge" my Amazfit watch has had for a couple of years (but obviously at literally 10x the price, but you do whatever you want with your money, chaps...)
- rudimentary_phy 23d agoI bought an Ultra 3 and was quite disappointed with it. The heart rate monitor frequency is really low. I'm glad to see they have at least fixed that. I dual-wield right now with a Fitbit Air to supplement the data.
- rwz 23d agoI've owned multiple generations of Apple watches before and the battery life made me ditch it. After about a year, the watch wouldn't even last a full day with mostly passive usage. I'm considering trying Ultra just so the battery can comfortably last full day without entering power saving mode by 8pm. Disappointing to see Apple doesn't consider battery life to be a major problem. They keep balancing efficiency and battery gains with new features consuming more juice to keep battery life roughly the same as the previous generations.
- dyauspitr 22d agoSo no new sensors. No blood pressure or glucose (very long shot) monitoring. I was holding out for the blood pressure monitor but I will have to wait longer now.
- shibaprasadb 22d agoWith the readiness feature - I think they are trying to close the gap with Garmin.
- gunbladeind 13d agoThe battery life boost doesn't seem all that big relative to the Ultra 3, certainly not big enough to warrant upgrading.