Okay, so here's the thing. We already know that these two watches, the Apple Watch series 9 and the new Ultra 2 are not for people who already have any somewhat recent Apple watch. These are iterative updates for people who don't have any Apple watch yet or have like a really, really, really really old Apple watch like a series three or something like that so you would really have to squint and and put it side by side with the previous version to actually notice what's different about it versus the previous gen. But on top of that, some of the stuff that's actually genuinely new with these watches isn't even shipping right away.

It's coming later this year. Well, later this year, you'll see what I mean. So I'll make this review really simple for you guys here: it's just a spec bump. The Apple Watch series 9 is a spec bump over the series 8 and the new Ultra 2 is the same spec bump over the original Ultra Basically, there's one new color, this pink on the series nine that I have and it's pretty similar to the new pink.

iPhone It's this kind of light salmony colored one. Aside from that, honestly, you could never even tell if someone is wearing a new watch. Matter of fact: I've been wearing around this new Ultra 2 for more than a week now. Nobody's asked about it.

Nobody can tell because it looks exactly the same. There were some rumors floating around of heavily speculating on a black Apple Watch 2. You might have seen these also, and this seemed like something everybody agreed was probably going to happen and it made a lot of sense because there's always something Apple does just to visually distinguish the new one from the not so new one. But what I think happened was Apple Got to testing it and then they started to realize just what happens to a coated Titanium on a durable focused item like a watch.

so kind of similar to the new iPhone There's these new colors with PVD coating on top of titanium for the iPhone 15 Pro but it's a phone, so people put it in a case and they're a little bit more careful with it. but on an adventure watch where you expect people to run around outside and beat it up and scrape it and drag it through rocks and sand and stuff I Think they realized that might have a tough time wearing well so we just didn't get it just looks exactly the same. So either way, okay, what is the new spec bump? Uh, it's the S9 the new S9 chip inside this phone or the system in package the Sip as they call it. Literally, everything that's new about these watches stems from this S9 So first of all, it's a faster chip, which just means generally flying around the UI and opening and closing apps and notifications and stuff like that.

All is technically faster. Honestly, not super noticeable just because you really don't do a ton of that on the watch. and the refresh rate is exactly the same, but you know what? I'll still take it, but then it's also a more power efficient chip which you'll always love to see in a small battery. Gadget Like a watch, but Apple actually targets the same 18 hour battery life that they always do and instead cranks the maximum brightness of the new Series 9 display up to 2 000 nits thanks to new display driver silicon and on the Ultra 2 that now goes from 2000 up to 3 000 nits Max brightness.

So unsurprisingly, they look great outdoors. You don't necessarily look at it right away and notice it's brighter. It's really only when you put it side by side with the last one that you can at least appreciate how impressive this is. 3000 nits is actually the brightest display Apple has ever put in any Gadget they've ever made.

The S9 package also includes a new Ultra wide band chip that enables Precision finding of your iPhone. So basically find my iPhone before on the watch was just pinging a sound to play from your iPhone but now with the watch, you can have it direct you to find exactly where your phone is. kind of like finding an air tag. Even more useful if your phone is like in between some couch cushions or something or if it's playing sound echoing in a weird way.

I Think this is a great ecosystem feature I'm sure a lot of people will love it. and the S9 package also has twice as much memory built in now and a double the speed neural engine which combined is able to give you faster serial quests and it's able to process all the serial requests on device without any connection to the Internet. So Siri's kind of famous at this point for occasion, really just grinding to a halt and not answering questions or just taking forever because you have a terrible internet connection. so this actually does make a big difference.

Basically asking it normal questions is pretty consistently quick. The on-device Transformer model is also a bit more accurate. The Apple wasn't actually specific about which Siri requests are happening completely on device, but if we just use our our inferencing here, what I understand is happening is basically all the voice processing is happening on device. from the S9 and then anything that actually needs to go to the internet to look something up.

that's when it goes and does the round trip. So something like set a timer is always going to be nice and quick no matter what your internet connection is because that's all on device. But if you ask it like how tall is the Empire State Building that'll process your voice quickly, but then it still needs a decent internet connection to do the rest of it fast. It's also supposed to be able to access your health data and be able to submit Health Data from just your voice because it's all on device and local and secure.

but that's one of the few things that's supposed to be later this year later this year. So as of right now, when I try the things that were in the keynote I just get non-responses and errors. But then the one big feature. the one genuinely interesting new thing that stands out to me in this generation of watches as actually Innovative is double tap.

This double tap feature is like the perfect Symphony of impressive processing power and clever computation and high quality sensors all combined to give you something genuinely new. that honestly I don't actually expect other smart watches to be able to copy at least anytime soon. So it's just this: It's just double tapping your thumb and your pointer finger on the same side that you're wearing your watch to select things on the watch later this year. So Apple actually had to ship me a separate watch running I Guess an early copy of watch OS 10.1 All the new watches shipping right now I have 10.0 but the feature itself is simple.

You raised to wake and then you double tap your fingers together to control what's happening on the screen of the watch. This is basically most useful in instances where your other hand is full. Maybe you're carrying something, or you're walking a dog, or you're cooking and your hand is dirty. Something like that, whatever.

But when you actually do it, it's basically set up to either select the primary button in whatever app you're in or Advance through the stack of widgets in a series smart stack. So basically, if you're receiving an incoming call, no matter what, when you double tap, it will accept the call. it's the primary button. and then when you're in the call, another double tap that hits the end call.

Button Because now that's the primary button. That's also strangely satisfying. In the past for me: I Know if one hand is busy, it's been like a nose tap I Know I'm not the only one who's done that so you can't judge me. but I'm I'm welcoming of this sort of solution to that problem and honestly, it's been very accurate.

Very few false triggers I know that I kind of have to give it a second once I race to wake and then double tap. but it's it's consistent. It's very good. Now the whole butt actually thing about this not being new here is there was an accessibility setting called Assistive Touch added I Think all the way back with the Apple Watch Series 6, which was designed for people who don't have another hand to use their Apple watch.

so they have to be able to control it with just their one hand. And so it had double pinch. It had single pinch. it had clenching your fist and double clenching your fist For my limited experience because I turned it on and tried it on other watches.

it works pretty well when you're very deliberate about it. But the official reason why this double tap is new and therefore only available on these newest generations of watches and not the older ones is the most Apple thing ever. Okay, ready. Basically, the algorithm that is doing all of the processing from all the data from the sensors which is the same sensors on the old watches is so much more complicated and so much heavier now that it couldn't possibly run on an S8 or an older piece of silicon.

Just the S9 Yeah. Convenient. So this is coming. This is a in a month thing.

This is according to the keynote. They're usually pretty good about delivering on promises like that, but as of right now, this is not shipping with the watch. Either way, this is. this is something both useful and clearly foreshadowing to the upcoming Apple Vision Pro whose primary gesture will be selecting things by putting your thumb and index finger together.

Honestly, it's one of the most fascinating things about this watch. But the other fascinating thing is that paired with one of these sport bands, the Apple watch is Apple's first fully carbon neutral product. Like full carbon neutral. That.

That might be the most impressive thing about this entire watch. that includes all the materials, energy, and Emissions used to create it, assemble it, package, it, ship it to your door, and it accounts for all the energy that it actually takes to run the device for the lifetime of you owning it. That is absurd. That is extremely impressive.

I'm kind of taking their word for it on their face I Do want to dig more into this later, but it's also something that I hope other companies start to copy. So here's the thing. you know: that thing Apple's done in other product categories where they'll have a big silicon upgrade in the same old design as before and then the next. Generation They'll actually update the design of the product they've done this with the MacBook Air MacBook Pro other stuff I'm thinking and I'm hoping that to line up with rumors that that's exactly what's happening with the Apple watch.

This is what we've been wanting for a while. Look back at it. This watch looks basically exactly the same as last year, and that one looked just like the year before, which looked just like the year before that, and the year before. That same shape, same buttons, same fundamentals, and I get that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That's pretty classic, but there's been so many things that we've kind of just been waiting for Slash hoping for to maybe see from an Apple Watch someday. Something like maybe a circular redesign, Maybe a little more classical shape? Maybe a rotating bezel like we've seen on the Galaxy watch which is sick. Maybe an actual Leap Forward in battery life? Like literally, any one of those features would be the biggest update to the Apple watch in years. But this ain't it.

It's just a it's a spec bump now, you know. Thanks for watching. Catch you guys in the next one! Peace 24 7.