Powerful S9 chip, old design but new functions: Apple introduces Watch Ultra 2 (PHOTOS)

At Tuesday’s Wonderlust event, along with the iPhone 15 series smartphones and the Watch Series 9 smartwatch, Apple introduced the latest Apple Watch Ultra 2 smartwatch, designed for athletes and people with an active lifestyle. The new smartwatch, like its predecessor, is not “afraid” of adverse weather conditions and has a number of improved characteristics—although its design has not changed.

The body of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is made of durable titanium, and a sapphire glass protects the screen from damage. The smartwatch has a Retina LTPO OLED display with Always-on function, which provides a brightness of 3000 cd/m², making the image clear and legible even in bright sunlight. The new Modular Ultra dial enables to display a variety of data in real time, including seconds, altitude or depth. It is ideal for sports and active outdoor recreation, as well as water and ocean sports. In addition, it has a night mode that turns on automatically in the dark.

This new smartwatch has a powerful Apple S9 chip, which provides improved performance. Compared to the previous model, the number of transistors in this chip has increased by 60%, which makes the Apple Watch Ultra 2 30% faster. Also, this chip has a quad-core neural engine that works twice as fast and helps perform artificial intelligence tasks.

Another essential feature is that this smartwatch has a second-generation Apple U2 ultra-wideband chip; thanks to it, you can determine the location of your iPhone more precisely. In addition, it supports the Precision Finding function, which helps to easily find lost items using sound, visual and tactile signals, and indicates the direction of search and the distance to the lost item.

Furthermore, that Apple Watch Ultra 2 has the innovative double-tap gesture support, which enables the user to perform a number of actions—such as answer a call, end a call, turn off the alarm and control music—by double-tapping with the index finger and thumb. This functionality gesture is powered by an improved neural engine that processes data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and optical heart rate sensor using a new machine learning algorithm. Apple says this double-tap gesture support will be available next month.

This smartwatch runs on watchOS 10, which offers updated apps, a new Smart Stack widget, and a variety of features for exploring nature.

The battery of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 lasts up to 36 hours in normal use and up to 72 hours in low power mode on a single charge.

It is important to note that the production of the Watch Ultra 2 is 100% carbon neutral, which is also very relevant today.

The price of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 starts from $799. This new smartwatch can already be pre-ordered by users in more than 40 countries, and it will hit the stores starting from September 22.