Apple Watch Series 9

 Apple Watch Series 9 

Apple announced the next generation Watch Series 9 and it's probably the most minor update Apple has ever released. Apple is not expecting users to upgrade their device every year but when the product highlights are the smart watch's carbon neutrality and the double tap gesture, it almost feels like Apple is selling an old model as new. Apple Watch design is amazed, UI and functionality, overwhelmed even. Everything looked so shiny, smooth and colourful - like touched by Apple's proverbial magic. But the user experience was subpar. The Watch's core functionality is scattered across many apps, with poor implementation of features and sheer dumbness of supposedly smart functions. This includes abysmal battery life also. 

Design and build

But first, let's have a look at the hardware you will be strapping on your wrist. That façade is really something to behold. Apple has been known for its hardware craftsmanship and this Watch is a fine specimen. The Watch 9 is available in two sizes - 41mm and 45mm, and you start by picking one of the two models. Then, you choose between an aluminium and stainless-steel version. Then, you select the band bundle. Finally, you choose between GPS or GPS + eSIM capabilities. And even if it is one of the cheapest options available, it still feels quite luxurious. The nearly bezel-less screen is an immediate standout, plus its Retina 326ppi is quite sharp for a smart watch. The screen is covered with slightly curved tempered glass. The frame is either made of aluminium with a matte finish or stainless steel with a glossy finish. The speaker is on its left side, while the digital crown and the side button are on the right side. You can swap the Watch orientation. The digital crown has been a signature control on these watches, and it works flawlessly, and the haptic feedback is some of the best someone would have experienced. In fact, this goes to the entire haptic feedback on the Watch.

The bottom of the Watch is a combination of ceramic and sapphire-crystal glass, and it contains all sensors. Apple has indeed created something that lasts. It has been through a whole lot, and yet - two months later, it looks like new. The Apple Watch Series 9 is water and dust-proof, swim-proof, too. Overall, it offers a solid build and unique design, and we can agree it's flagship-grade and well-executed.

Hardware

Apple Watch Series 9 is based on a new S9 system-in-package (SiP) with 60% more transistors than the outgoing S8 series chip. It boasts a 30% faster GPU and a new 4-core NPU. This will obviously speed up the OS with faster animations, and it's claimed to offer all-day 18 hours of battery life. We acknowledge the snappier interface and interactions. The biggest benefit of this new S9 SiP is that it allows Siri requests to be processed on the device. This means much faster results as they don't go to the cloud and back. Apple also promises 25% more accurate voice dictation. Siri now has access to your Health data, making it easier than ever to check up on your key metrics. The S9 also allows the new Double Tap gesture. This is the much-advertised new pinch gesture, where you tap twice by meeting your thumb and index finger in the air. It works by sensing changes in your blood flow and wrist movement via the accelerometer and gyroscope sensors. Double Tap allows you to play/pause music, snooze alarms, scroll through widgets and pick up or hang up calls. The software should learn how you use this gesture and allow for even broader use. As far as sensors are concerned, the Apple Watch has them all - blood oxygen, electrical heart sensor with ECG, optical heart sensor with high and low heart rate plus irregular rhythm detection, sleep tracking, temperature sensing, compass, altimeter, accelerometer, gyroscope, ambient light.

There is also Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, and NFC support, as well as option 4G LTE via eSIM. The Watch 9 also gets a new UWB chip, which brings improved location tracking. You can still locate and ping your paired iPhone with even better precision. You also get improved integration with HomePod speakers. There is a lot of technology inside the Watch Series 9. If only it came together to bring the seamless experience for all.

Software

Apple Watch is the world's most popular smart watch. Some may even call it the best smart watch available. The Apple Watch Series 9 has the best technology on the market at its disposal, and it is only natural Apple wants you to know it as the best smart watch. First, you connect and set up your new Watch from the Watch app on the iPhone. From here, you can configure the notifications, app behaviour, and various settings, and you can customize the watch faces. Apple Watch OS has gone a long way since the first version, and there are now a lot of watch faces. Most of them are quite simple, others - super advanced. Half of the available Watch faces support Complications - there are spots for tiny widgets, which show real-time information like weather, calendar, moon phase, date etc.

Options and watch faces

Even though there are a lot of watch faces, most of them are either boring or not good, while others are beautiful and yet just too simple; you cannot even add a date as they don't support any Complications on purpose. 

Watch faces and complications

We spent three hours customizing this supposedly perfect watch face but still ended up with something that's okay at best. The Apple Watch still doesn't support third-party watch faces. The Apple Watch Series 9 boots the latest watchOS 10. It brings a refreshed app look, new watch faces (Snoopy, Palette), new advanced mods like Cycling and hiking, and updated Health features to include mental and vision health. Apple know how to make great app interfaces, and all system apps, such as World Clock, Weather, Fitness, Maps, Mail, Calculator, Phone, Messages, etc., look great and are optimized for watch use. Pushing the digital crown will bring the app list. It can be a list, but the default view is a grid, which is quite clever. It can be navigated with the crown or with touch. Control Centre and Notification Centre are available, and they are like mini versions of the ones in iOS. And a swipe on the watch face will reveal your big widgets. Apple Watch has a dedicated App Store with mini versions of popular apps. These are the basics.

Can you imagine that the Apple Watch lacks any automatic sleep detection in contrast to 30-dollar sports bands by other companies? Instead, you have to configure a sleep schedule; this is the only time of day the Apple Watch would try to detect your sleep. What happens if you take a nap in the afternoon? - the Watch would start objecting and vibrating, suggesting you move more, stand up, breathe and drink some water - enough to wake you up.

Sleep tracking

We discovered that the automatic sport detection works only sometimes. And then the sports modes show calories, heart rate and elapsed time but nothing sport-specific. Rope Jump - no rope count, boxing - no hit count. Different bands and watches in the sub $100 price range offering more adequate statistics.

Sports

The only well-implemented modes are the advanced ones like swimming, hiking, running and cycling - they use the location data and can record and show various other metrics too. The individual apps for using sensors like blood oxygen, heart rate and ECG - show accurate information, and the Watch will offer suggestions and even look out for abnormal heart rates. But the information about these vitals is spread across different places, and Apple doesn't make it convenient to check everything you may be interested in. The Health app on the iPhone has become overcrowded as well, and the information is scattered.

Finally, we get to communication and notification responses - the things of the highest importance. Notifications are displayed nicely, and Bluetooth calls sound quite good. There are predefined responses for the keyboard, and you can quickly send a thumbs-up. But - the keyboard, still new to these watches, is available only in a few languages, so if you are not using English, German, Spanish, Dutch, or French, you are out of luck. If you try to use the English keyboard to type in another language, you will have to arm-wrestle the autocorrect and the built-in swipe gestures. This makes text input look like a half-baked feature.

Replies and keyboard

Now let's talk about the double-tap feature, which was supposed to be the Series 9 highlights. Apple added it a good month and a half after release. Apple just removed the earlier feature from the Accessibility closet, placed a Smart label on it, and made a new headline watch feature. 

Battery life

 It should be enough hint that Apple advertises the Watch for its all-day 18-hour battery life. You know, there are 24 hours in a day, Apple! It's like Apple itself doesn't want you to track your sleep, and that's why it made it a nightmare to use. You cannot even use the sleep tracking if the battery is below 35%.