What is Apple doing with the Apple Watch? Not a lot…
The Apple Watch series 8 brings not much to a line of smartwatches which is dominating the sector, and potentially the traditional budget watch sector as well.
The S8 chip has the same CPU as the S7
Crash detection is included (you will hopefully never use this)
Wrist temperature sensing during sleep and cycle tracking with retrospective ovulation estimates
A more powerful gyroscope and high dynamic range accelerometer
That’s it. In reality it is effectively the same as the series 7 in almost every way.
The series 7 added the following from the series 6-
Slightly bigger case size
20% bigger screen area
70% brighter display indoors
Tougher crystal
Fast charging (up to 80% in 45 mins)
IP6X dust resistance
S7 chip
That was a better upgrade, but I personally did not go near it because it felt too similar to the series 6. It has only been in the past few days that I starting testing the series 7 for freelance purposes and I have to say that it feels very (!) close to my series 6.
The large display is nice, but for every other real world activity it feels the same and it works the same. It is to my mind somewhat disappointing.
And it is even more disappointing that the last few Apple Watch upgrades have added little to the overall experience. It feels as if Apple has stalled and that there are very few areas that can be improved to make things feel different to the user.
The Ultra is different in terms of the case, how it looks and in functionality, but it could be somewhat niche regarding who it is aimed at. The consumer Apple Watch is effectively the same as it was three years ago and I can’t be the only one who is not impressed by this. And I also cannot figure out why I am not so disappointed that the iPhone is following a similar trajectory.