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Apple Watch is hitting diminishing returns feature-wise. I'm happy with my Series 11 but "it has more accurate heart sensors" isn't really revolutionary, and I

Apple Watch is hitting diminishing returns feature-wise. I'm happy with my Series 11 but "it has more accurate heart sensors" isn't really revolutionary, and I believe some of the Apple Intelligence features will be backported anyways. With fast charging, battery life hasn't been an issue; I just put it on the charger while in the shower and that does the trick.

CodingJeebus 1mo ago
And the Ultra series have been marginally incremental, emphasis on marginally. They announced that Ultra series 1 software support is ending this year, but I just cannot justify buying another one of these at $800.
HumblyTossed 1mo ago
> ... and I believe some of the Apple Intelligence features will be backported anyways Will it? Because they kind of made it a point, like they typically do, to say features are only possible due to the new chip.
jsbisviewtiful 1mo ago
> With fast charging, battery life hasn't been an issue I sold my 10 last year and haven’t missed it. You don’t have reasonable access to a charger during a marathon or a long hike, the latter of which needed me to charge my Apple Watch 3 times over the course of 12 hours of hiking.
- toasterlovin 1mo ago
  Did a long bike ride recently and just used my iPhone to track the workout. Probably suboptimal, since it doesn't have all the heart rate stuff, but it gets the big picture (elevation gain, speed, distance).
- bwv848 1mo ago
  Meanwhile Coros Pace 4, a 200 dollar watch, has 40 hours of GPS tracking and offline map. I simply can not understand the pricing strategy of Apple. Do they really expect people who are serious about endurance sports and training to get their ridiculously expensive Ultra? Or they are just fine with Garmin taking the biggest chunk of this market?
  - ajmurmann 1mo ago
    Are people serious about endurance sport actually a big market?
    - gumby 1mo ago
      Funny this was downvoted: I was thinking the same as I was reading this thread. True mass market means optimizing your product for the fat part of the population bell curve. This is some point or region in a space of { cost, features, use cases, durability }. The Apple Watch works for everyone from a stay at home parent, stocker at the supermarket, executive, and so on. If you work in a machine shop or spend a few hours every day working out it may not be for you. There’s a marginal but valuable exception: think of prosumer cameras. There are indeed pros, and the feature set is good enough for some of them to shoot with a prosumer camera (any actual pro can shoot better photos with an instamatic than I can with a phone, much less an SLR). But most people buy the high end aspirationally. Why not? That penumbra pulls more people in who really need the plain old features. And anyway once you really are at the high end your needs can be idiosyncratic.
  - mulderc 1mo ago
    The Garmin Forerunner 970 is only $50 cheaper than the Ultra. Then, the Garmin Fenix 9 is more expensive than the Ultra and doesn't have cellular and charges significantly extra for the satellite connectivity.
    - neurobashing 1mo ago
      My Fenix 7 has ~12 days of life, while using it every day for fitness tracking, maps, the occasional LED flashlight, etc. It also is at least IME much more of a beast than an (admittedly older gen) Ultra. I charge before I leave, then spend a week or more living out of backpack and sleeping on the ground. I very much want to go back to Apple Watch but Garmin battery life and durability is just so much better for my use case.
      - mulderc 1mo ago
- officeplant 1mo ago
  >You don’t have reasonable access to a charger during a marathon or a long hike Isn't this the market they made the Ultra for?
  - mort96 1mo ago
    Well no, they made the Ultra for very rich people who do long hikes or similar. For most of us, a smart watch isn't so important that the increase in price is worth it, even if we're annoyed by the battery life of the non-Ultra watch which is too poor for any kind of day-long activity.
  - datakan 1mo ago
    No one that does this with any regularity or seriousness uses an Apple Watch, they go with Garmin or one of the real fitness watches that can claim battery life in weeks and even months. My Fenix 8 charges once every 26-29 days. I left Apple Watch and never looked back. It's just an inferior product in every possible way.
    - mulderc 1mo ago
      Guess it depends. I do trail races (usually 25k and 20-milers) and marathons regularly, and Apple Watch has worked just fine for me and has a lot of other features that I use regularly that are largely not available on Garmin. I also prefer the map app I use on my Apple Watch compared to what my partner uses on his Garmin.
- mulderc 1mo ago
  I regularly do long races like marathons and 20 mile trail races and have never had to charge my watch during those events and I am often even streaming music/podcasts from the watch. With an Ultra you should be able to easily do a 12 hour hike.
  - bwv848 1mo ago
    Marathons and 20 mile trail races are not remotely long. A thru hiking day is usually about as long as the available daylight hours, so 16 hours in summer. A 100K race typically falls in the 10 to 20 hour range, depending on the terrain and the personal fitness. A 100 miler is usually over 30 hours for sub elites. An entry level Coros watch can handle all of these, there is no need to bring up premium priced Garmins, and certainly not much justification for the Apple Watch Ultra.
    - mulderc 1mo ago
      Few people do those types of races and The ultra 4 can handle the times you are describing. From apple website: Apple Watch Ultra Workout Up to 18 hours workout tracking Up to 25 hours Extended Workout tracking Up to 45 hours Max Extended Workout tracking My experience with the none ultra is that the battery life estimates are spot on.
      - bwv848 1mo ago
        I don't even know what you're trying to argue. Despite tons of people buying outdoor watches, these people are minorities, so Apple shouldn't prioritize them? An $800 watch that does what an entry level watch is capable of is considered a technological feat? Apple just shouldn't put a bigger battery in normal Apple Watches, and people who want longer battery life should just spend twice as much to get an Ultra?
        mulderc 1mo ago
        Apple doesn't generally make products that are for 100% of the market and focuses on specific market segments that it thinks it can make a compelling product. The $800 watch actually does more than what the $1200 Garmin does once you look at all the features available and has enough battery life to cover doing a 100-mile race. In the end, what I am arguing is that Apple provides a different set of features and provides battery life in the Ultra that covers the needs of most people going outdoors for multiple days. For everyone else, there are plenty of other options available.
- Gareth321 1mo ago
  I'm very close to selling my S10. I barely use it. All the features are sort of nice to have. The only one I really care about is heart rate monitoring during exercise and the AirPods Pro 3 do that.
Brendinooo 1mo ago
I dunno. Maybe there's a sense in which there's some untapped use cases out there that Apple needs to go figure out. But in a different sense, the idea that I buy a watch that lasts for years and I don't feel like I'm missing out in the meantime...sounds fine? I got my first Apple Watch a year and a half ago. After coming to terms with the fact that the form factor has fundamental limitations, it's faded into the background and has been an excellent watch, fitness tracker, and occasional remote control and messaging device. I'm kinda glad that series 11 and 12 haven't given me fomo! (I do wish they made more good watch faces though...)
throwuxiytayq 1mo ago
The way faster higher measurement rate is interesting and does open up entirely new use cases. Not like Apple will let us do anything fun with their APIs, though. > I believe some of the Apple Intelligence features will be backported anyways. Oh, I wouldn't count on it. The older hardware is capable, but Apple is running out of ideas how to make people upgrade.
- HatchedLake721 1mo ago
  This. It’s stepping into Whoop’s territory with always on heart rate reading.
mixdup 1mo ago
I mean, there's only so much that a watch can do or that can be packed into it. Eventually all gadget categories fall into a lull of slow and steady progress, they can't all be absolute bangers year after year
dom96 1mo ago
I'm still on a Series 6. Don't see a reason to buy the new one at all.
- Gigachad 1mo ago
  Mine got slow with the latest update. I stopped wearing it mostly and I don’t think I will get another smart watch. I’m more tempted by those screen less fitness tracker pucks. The Apple Watch is just too expensive for something that goes obsolete far faster than a normal watch. The watches I owned before the Apple Watch 6 are still in perfect condition and as good as the day I got them while the AW is bordering on ewaste.
  - pohl 1mo ago
    I recently replaced the battery in my Series 6. I’ve never noticed it feeling slow.
    - Gigachad 1mo ago
      Maybe mine is worn out, but things like opening the wifi/bluetooth controls pane, or scrolling notifications is noticeably low fps now.
mulderc 1mo ago
Having had an Apple Watch since the Series 0, I think Apple wants people to have a ~3-year upgrade cycle. They essentially update the internals one year, the next they come out with some interesting software features, then the next year they do some external design tweaks. Then they repeat. There is no reason to upgrade every year, or even every two. It is around the 3-year mark where there tends to be enough new features or your battery life is getting bad enough that there is reason to check out the new watches. Even then my mom uses a Series 6 and is very happy with it and actually uses it a fair bit.
Nursie 1mo ago
I was hoping we might get multi-day battery life this iteration. Fast charging is almost as good. I think it might be time to upgrade from my series 8.
selfmodruntime 1mo ago
My watch is basically useless for any reasonable workout (people buy Garmin for a reason), my AirPods randomly drop connection, Spotify stops working when I work out and the apple maps app randomly stops updating my routes when using it to navigate on my bike.
gunbladeind 24d ago
Agree with this. Not really seeing much reason to upgrade here.

CodingJeebus 1mo ago

And the Ultra series have been marginally incremental, emphasis on marginally. They announced that Ultra series 1 software support is ending this year, but I just cannot justify buying another one of these at $800.

HumblyTossed 1mo ago

> ... and I believe some of the Apple Intelligence features will be backported anyways Will it? Because they kind of made it a point, like they typically do, to say features are only possible due to the new chip.

jsbisviewtiful 1mo ago

> With fast charging, battery life hasn't been an issue I sold my 10 last year and haven’t missed it. You don’t have reasonable access to a charger during a marathon or a long hike, the latter of which needed me to charge my Apple Watch 3 times over the course of 12 hours of hiking.

toasterlovin 1mo ago
Did a long bike ride recently and just used my iPhone to track the workout. Probably suboptimal, since it doesn't have all the heart rate stuff, but it gets the big picture (elevation gain, speed, distance).
bwv848 1mo ago
Meanwhile Coros Pace 4, a 200 dollar watch, has 40 hours of GPS tracking and offline map. I simply can not understand the pricing strategy of Apple. Do they really expect people who are serious about endurance sports and training to get their ridiculously expensive Ultra? Or they are just fine with Garmin taking the biggest chunk of this market?
- ajmurmann 1mo ago
  Are people serious about endurance sport actually a big market?
  - gumby 1mo ago
    Funny this was downvoted: I was thinking the same as I was reading this thread. True mass market means optimizing your product for the fat part of the population bell curve. This is some point or region in a space of { cost, features, use cases, durability }. The Apple Watch works for everyone from a stay at home parent, stocker at the supermarket, executive, and so on. If you work in a machine shop or spend a few hours every day working out it may not be for you. There’s a marginal but valuable exception: think of prosumer cameras. There are indeed pros, and the feature set is good enough for some of them to shoot with a prosumer camera (any actual pro can shoot better photos with an instamatic than I can with a phone, much less an SLR). But most people buy the high end aspirationally. Why not? That penumbra pulls more people in who really need the plain old features. And anyway once you really are at the high end your needs can be idiosyncratic.
- mulderc 1mo ago
  The Garmin Forerunner 970 is only $50 cheaper than the Ultra. Then, the Garmin Fenix 9 is more expensive than the Ultra and doesn't have cellular and charges significantly extra for the satellite connectivity.
  - neurobashing 1mo ago
    My Fenix 7 has ~12 days of life, while using it every day for fitness tracking, maps, the occasional LED flashlight, etc. It also is at least IME much more of a beast than an (admittedly older gen) Ultra. I charge before I leave, then spend a week or more living out of backpack and sleeping on the ground. I very much want to go back to Apple Watch but Garmin battery life and durability is just so much better for my use case.
    - mulderc 1mo ago
officeplant 1mo ago
>You don’t have reasonable access to a charger during a marathon or a long hike Isn't this the market they made the Ultra for?
- mort96 1mo ago
  Well no, they made the Ultra for very rich people who do long hikes or similar. For most of us, a smart watch isn't so important that the increase in price is worth it, even if we're annoyed by the battery life of the non-Ultra watch which is too poor for any kind of day-long activity.
- datakan 1mo ago
  No one that does this with any regularity or seriousness uses an Apple Watch, they go with Garmin or one of the real fitness watches that can claim battery life in weeks and even months. My Fenix 8 charges once every 26-29 days. I left Apple Watch and never looked back. It's just an inferior product in every possible way.
  - mulderc 1mo ago
    Guess it depends. I do trail races (usually 25k and 20-milers) and marathons regularly, and Apple Watch has worked just fine for me and has a lot of other features that I use regularly that are largely not available on Garmin. I also prefer the map app I use on my Apple Watch compared to what my partner uses on his Garmin.
mulderc 1mo ago
I regularly do long races like marathons and 20 mile trail races and have never had to charge my watch during those events and I am often even streaming music/podcasts from the watch. With an Ultra you should be able to easily do a 12 hour hike.
- bwv848 1mo ago
  Marathons and 20 mile trail races are not remotely long. A thru hiking day is usually about as long as the available daylight hours, so 16 hours in summer. A 100K race typically falls in the 10 to 20 hour range, depending on the terrain and the personal fitness. A 100 miler is usually over 30 hours for sub elites. An entry level Coros watch can handle all of these, there is no need to bring up premium priced Garmins, and certainly not much justification for the Apple Watch Ultra.
  - mulderc 1mo ago
    Few people do those types of races and The ultra 4 can handle the times you are describing. From apple website: Apple Watch Ultra Workout Up to 18 hours workout tracking Up to 25 hours Extended Workout tracking Up to 45 hours Max Extended Workout tracking My experience with the none ultra is that the battery life estimates are spot on.
    - bwv848 1mo ago
      I don't even know what you're trying to argue. Despite tons of people buying outdoor watches, these people are minorities, so Apple shouldn't prioritize them? An $800 watch that does what an entry level watch is capable of is considered a technological feat? Apple just shouldn't put a bigger battery in normal Apple Watches, and people who want longer battery life should just spend twice as much to get an Ultra?
      - mulderc 1mo ago
        Apple doesn't generally make products that are for 100% of the market and focuses on specific market segments that it thinks it can make a compelling product. The $800 watch actually does more than what the $1200 Garmin does once you look at all the features available and has enough battery life to cover doing a 100-mile race. In the end, what I am arguing is that Apple provides a different set of features and provides battery life in the Ultra that covers the needs of most people going outdoors for multiple days. For everyone else, there are plenty of other options available.
Gareth321 1mo ago
I'm very close to selling my S10. I barely use it. All the features are sort of nice to have. The only one I really care about is heart rate monitoring during exercise and the AirPods Pro 3 do that.

Brendinooo 1mo ago

I dunno. Maybe there's a sense in which there's some untapped use cases out there that Apple needs to go figure out. But in a different sense, the idea that I buy a watch that lasts for years and I don't feel like I'm missing out in the meantime...sounds fine? I got my first Apple Watch a year and a half ago. After coming to terms with the fact that the form factor has fundamental limitations, it's faded into the background and has been an excellent watch, fitness tracker, and occasional remote control and messaging device. I'm kinda glad that series 11 and 12 haven't given me fomo! (I do wish they made more good watch faces though...)

throwuxiytayq 1mo ago

The way faster higher measurement rate is interesting and does open up entirely new use cases. Not like Apple will let us do anything fun with their APIs, though. > I believe some of the Apple Intelligence features will be backported anyways. Oh, I wouldn't count on it. The older hardware is capable, but Apple is running out of ideas how to make people upgrade.

HatchedLake721 1mo ago
This. It’s stepping into Whoop’s territory with always on heart rate reading.

mixdup 1mo ago

I mean, there's only so much that a watch can do or that can be packed into it. Eventually all gadget categories fall into a lull of slow and steady progress, they can't all be absolute bangers year after year

dom96 1mo ago

I'm still on a Series 6. Don't see a reason to buy the new one at all.

Gigachad 1mo ago
Mine got slow with the latest update. I stopped wearing it mostly and I don’t think I will get another smart watch. I’m more tempted by those screen less fitness tracker pucks. The Apple Watch is just too expensive for something that goes obsolete far faster than a normal watch. The watches I owned before the Apple Watch 6 are still in perfect condition and as good as the day I got them while the AW is bordering on ewaste.
- pohl 1mo ago
  I recently replaced the battery in my Series 6. I’ve never noticed it feeling slow.
  - Gigachad 1mo ago
    Maybe mine is worn out, but things like opening the wifi/bluetooth controls pane, or scrolling notifications is noticeably low fps now.

mulderc 1mo ago

Having had an Apple Watch since the Series 0, I think Apple wants people to have a ~3-year upgrade cycle. They essentially update the internals one year, the next they come out with some interesting software features, then the next year they do some external design tweaks. Then they repeat. There is no reason to upgrade every year, or even every two. It is around the 3-year mark where there tends to be enough new features or your battery life is getting bad enough that there is reason to check out the new watches. Even then my mom uses a Series 6 and is very happy with it and actually uses it a fair bit.

Nursie 1mo ago

I was hoping we might get multi-day battery life this iteration. Fast charging is almost as good. I think it might be time to upgrade from my series 8.

selfmodruntime 1mo ago

My watch is basically useless for any reasonable workout (people buy Garmin for a reason), my AirPods randomly drop connection, Spotify stops working when I work out and the apple maps app randomly stops updating my routes when using it to navigate on my bike.

gunbladeind 24d ago

Agree with this. Not really seeing much reason to upgrade here.