Apple announces Watch Series 9, Watch Ultra 2 with faster S9 chip

Apple has introduced its latest Watch Series 9 powered by its most powerful chip.

Bengaluru | Updated: September 14, 2023 04:57 PM IST

3 min read

Apple Watch Series 9 (Image credit: Apple)

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Apple announces its latest Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2, powered by the S9 chip, the most powerful watch chip from Apple. It is 60 per cent faster than the S8 that currently powers the Watch Series 8 and original Ultra. The new chip allows Apple to deliver 18 hours of battery life on a single charge on the Series 9 and up to 36 hours of battery life on the Watch Ultra 2.

In India, the Apple Watch Series 9 starts at Rs 41,900 ($399 in US) and will be available starting September 22. Similarly, the Watch SE gets a price cut, which is now available for Rs 29,900. Similarly, the Watch Ultra 2 is priced at Rs 89,900, which will also be available starting September 22.

Apple Watch Series 9 retains the same retina display which now offers up to 2000 nits of peak brightness and is available in two sizes — 41mm and 45mm and comes in multiple colour options, including a new pink aluminium case along with starlight, silver, midnight, and (PRODUCT) RED. Similarly, the stainless steel variant comes in gold, silver, and graphite finishes.

As a part of the green initiative, Apple is phasing out leather from iPhone cases and watch straps, eliminating plastic from all the packaging, and using 100 per cent aluminium in MacBook cases. The company plans to go completely carbon-neutral by 2030. The new sports loop watch band is Apple’s first-ever carbon-neutral product.

Double Tap

Watch Series 9 also gets a double tap using fingers, where the gesture can do a variety of tasks like answering a call, controlling music with support for HomePod integration, snoozing the alarm, and it can also be used to scroll through the widgets on watchOS 10. This has been achieved using a machine learning algorithm that detects unit changes in the blood flow.

Siri requests are now processed on the device using the new neural engine on the S9 chip, powered by the advanced transformer model. Siri Health feature will also allow users to ask various health-specific questions, and the feature will arrive with a software update later this year.

Apple Watch Series 9 also supports NameDrop, a feature that’s also available on iOS 17-powered iPhones. The watch gets a new ultra-wideband chip, which enables plenty of new capabilities like instantly firing up a playlist.

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