Earlier this week, Apple held its "Wonderlust" event in Cupertino, launching new iPhones and Watches. Although the A17 Bionic-powered iPhone 15 Pro Max is garnering praise, and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 arrived with some incremental improvements, the Series 9 watch moved laterally.
Don't get me wrong, the Apple is lovely, but you can enjoy a similar experience with a Wear OS watch for a comparable price or less. Interestingly, the Ultra 2 and Series 9 differences are more physical than anything else, as both feature Apple's latest S9 SiP silicon and can use all the same apps. Sure, you get a siren on the Ultra, but is that worth spending $400 more? That's just a tiny reason to skip the Series 9; here are a few more.
Magnets!
As our intrepid Jason England pointed out recently, the mechanical system for switching out and securing watchbands is antiquated and awkward. With Bloomberg's Mark Gurman stating there may be a new magnetic watchband system coming, that's my first reason for skipping.
Battery life still needs to improve
Battery life is a significant reason I am not interested in the Apple Watch Series 9. It only gets 18 hours of daily battery life. I have experienced week-long battery life with the OnePlus Watch.
Apple's Ultra 2, due to its larger size, gets up to 36 hours of battery life and 72 hours in low-power mode. However, who wants to run around in low-power mode? These numbers are based on Apple's testing and not independent tests, but Apple isn't making any significant claims about improvements over previous generations.
Stale design
Apple has a habit of finding a practical design that works for them and then not changing it for eons. Sure the Series 9 brightness improved to 2,000 nits, but what can we say about the design, as it's seen only marginal change since its inception?
It's one area Samsung has done better; they've taken chances and made a few design changes over the years, and although one or two were not well received, Samsung has taken the feedback and brought back well-loved features and continued exploring new designs.
It's rumored Apple will make some significant changes with the upcoming Series 10 or Series X; who knows what they'll name it. However, it would be nice to see Apple take a chance and maybe shock the world with a large round watch.
It's still a little too early to theorize what the team at Cupertino has in mind, but now that the Series 9 is shipping soon we expect more Series 10/X leaks will start and I'm hopeful that the magnets are just part of a much more interesting Apple Watch.
