Apple Watch Ultra 2 Review: So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
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Speaker 1: If the first Apple Watch Ultra taught us anything, it's that you don't have to be an adventurer or outdoors enthusiast to wear this watch. Even if the most extreme thing you do is a coffee run, you can still get a lot out of it. And with the ultra two, it's definitely evolving to be the do it all Apple Watch rather than just a pure sports watch. Here's the five new things you need to know about the Apple Watch Ultra two, whether you're into health and fitness or not.
Speaker 1: The Ultra two comes in 1 49 millimeter size [00:00:30] and the case is now made of 95% recycled titanium even though it looks identical to last year's watch. My wrist is 152 millimeters for reference so you can get a feel of what it might fit like on yours. You probably know by now that it's the biggest and most durable Apple Watch you can get, but it's also the brightest screen on any Apple device hitting a maximum 3000 knits. But it's one thing to say that and another to actually show you. So original Ultra Ultra two, 2000 versus 3000 flashlights on into the cave. Let's see, [00:01:00] so that's the first generation ultra on the flashlight and let's sub in with the ultra two, give it a brightness boost by turning the digital crown, which is only on the ultra two and yep, that is brighter. Practically speaking, you're probably not spelunking all the time, so it's incredibly easy to see your workout metrics if you are say open water swimming at the beach or in a high glare environment. And on the flip side, the screen goes down to one knit in sleep mode or if it's a really dark situation and the screen [00:01:30] is not active when your wrist is down. I didn't have any complaints about the brightness or the dimness of the screen on the original Ultra, but you should have no issues seeing the screen on the Ultra two. Whatever the environment,
Speaker 1: The Ultra two shares the same brand new S nine chip as the series nine. That means support for on-device Siri performance improvements and double tap skip tracks, take a photo, reply to a message Start timers just by doing this. You can [00:02:00] see this icon at the top of the screen to show it's been invoked. There's over 65 different actions you can do in first party apps and for third party apps it will generally perform the default action. Sounds like Assistive Touch. Yep, that's been on the Apple Watch for a while. Double tap builds on that, but it is separate. It's on by default and in my experience it's more accurate now. I've been using a preview version on the series nine, but it will be the same on the Ultra when it rolls out in October. Make sure to check out my full text review, which I'll update when it's live. [00:02:30] I wish it did more in the workout app specifically. At the moment it doesn't do anything. Maybe it could sub in for the action button, so if you can't press it with the other hand, you could just double tap instead. That'd be nice
Speaker 1: That SS nine chip also supports on-device series so you can ask for more things, but most importantly, if you're outdoors you can use it with no connection. Say you're on a trail with no signal, now you can add away point or mark a segment with your voice. You'll also able to ask Siri [00:03:00] for health data, but that doesn't roll out until later in the year. It's hard to know how useful this is going to be until we can test it out and it is a bit of a bummer. It's not available at launch. Same as double tap until we get them. The ultra tooth still feels like the ultra one, but I did run a couple of tests side by side with a First Ultra to try and see a tangible difference in performance. Message dictation was slightly faster, but the biggest perk for me, it's much more accurate, especially with my accent and the new ultra wideband chip now supports precision finding as [00:03:30] long as you have an iPhone 15 or 15 Pro. One other hardware update that didn't get enough airtime is the Ultra two doubles the storage to 64 gigabytes, which is a big deal especially for offline music storage.
Speaker 1: You can't talk ultra two without Wacho as 10 because it brings a lot of updates that address what we wanted on the first generation. Ultra offline and topographic maps are now available through Apple Maps and the Compass app supports cellular waypoints, so it's going to show the last place you had a signal or where you can make it an emergency [00:04:00] call on any network. Let's head indoors for a second. There are two cycling features that I am most excited about that come in watchOS 10. The first is support for Bluetooth accessories like power meter pedals, and the other one is seeing your live activity on the iPhone screen, so it essentially can almost replace a bike computer. I'm going to show you how it works on my bike here at home. So I have power meter pedals, they're already connected to the Ultra two through the Bluetooth settings.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to jump on my bike [00:04:30] and start a cycling workout, either indoor or outdoors. You're going to see a live activity pop up on the iPhone screen. You can tap into that and then all of your data is going to be front and center for you. If you do have an accessory connected, it's going to support things like functional threshold power as well as your cadence and your power zones as well. The biggest advantage for me is not necessarily all this data, which is great, don't get me wrong, but it's really a safety thing because when you're on your bike, really the last thing [00:05:00] you want to do is keep raising your wrist to see your workout stats so you can have them right there on the phone, which is great. And guess what? You don't need an ultra two to get this.
Speaker 1: You can also get it on any other Apple Watch that runs watchOS 10. I don't normally talk too much about watch faces, but Modular Ultra is great because of this horizontal slot and you can have the time nice and big If you don't want that complication in the middle, you can change what metric appears around the edge of the display with seconds, depth or elevation. And the best part, it's coming to the original Ultra two night [00:05:30] mode on this watch face and the Wayfinder watch face now activates automatically using the ambient light sensor. That is also a watch o S 10 feature, so you don't need to turn the crown to activate it anymore.
Speaker 1: There's not much new on Battery Life as the Ultra two lasts the same as before. The official rating is up to 36 hours with regular use, but I found I can get almost three days out of the Ultra with lighter use. Something like one to two short workouts, no L t E, no music playback and not tracking sleep. If you're [00:06:00] doing outdoor workouts with G P S, you can expect between 11 to 12 hours maximum. That's enough for a marathon or a Century ride for example. There is a low power mode that has a couple of different ways you can calculate runtime depending on if you're taking full heart rate readings and using G P Ss. I've got more of a breakdown in my full text review linked in the description and like the first Ultra this thing charges up fast. New is being able to charge it from the iPhone 15.
Speaker 1: Thank you. U S V C. Still, if we're talking Battery life, I [00:06:30] would've preferred to have kept the same screen on the original Ultra and get a little bit more overall runtime as the trade-off because no one has ever complained about having more battery. Like the first generation. The Ultra two has a customizable action button, siren fall and car crash detection, E C G, temperature sensor diving features to 40 meters dual frequency G P S and built-in L T E. It shares the same heart rate sensor, so accuracy is excellent and you can check out my full review [00:07:00] of the original Ultra to see how well that performed. The Ultra two also has an expanded operating altitude so it can go deeper and higher skydiving anybody. So I know the big question you probably have is, should I upgrade from the first Ultra? Probably not.
Speaker 1: It is a modest update and I don't really know many people who do upgrade their watch every year because Apple's generally really good at giving you significant feature updates through software. If you are coming from an earlier Apple Watch series, that is a way more compelling upgrade, [00:07:30] a completely new design, huge screen, and much better battery life to name just a few reasons. So I'm left with mixed feelings about the Ultra two. It's a great watch. It just doesn't have the same wow factor as the first Ultra because it looks and feels pretty much identical and some of the key features that separate it from the first gen aren't available at launch. The Ultra two really feels like it's forging its own path compared to other sports and endurance watches because it's the watch you can wear everywhere for almost every activity. Most importantly, it is [00:08:00] a true smartwatch.
Speaker 1: You make no compromises on app support, cellular connectivity or that's seamless second screen experience that you often miss out on with other sports watches, but it's still missing a way to interpret all your data with recovery metrics and maybe throwing in some suggested workouts if you're more into the health and fitness side. I'd like that. I hope that's in the works and maybe something that could be added in a software update. watchOS 11, I'm looking at you. So thanks so much for watching. I hope this was helpful. [00:08:30] As always, you can leave me a comment with your thoughts about the Ultra two and check out my full text review, which is linked in the description. I'll see you later.
