Apple has officially announced the Apple Watch Series 9 smartwatch, featuring the new Apple S9 SiP. The S9 has an upgraded CPU, 30% faster GPU, and 4-core neural engine, which doubles the speed of machine learning tasks. It also offers an all-day 18-hour battery life.
The upgraded neural engine makes it so Siri requests are processed on-device, rather than having to go to the cloud via Wi-Fi or cellular signal. This makes them faster and more secure, and lets you log health requests on the device.
Series 9 has a new ultrawide-band chip that lets you ping your phone and locate it in the same way that you locate an AirTag. The screen is also able to get both brighter and dimmer – up to 2,000 nits maximum and 1 nit minimum brightness.
Apple introduces the 'Double Tap'
An especially cool feature is the new "double tap" gesture that controls the primary button in an app – such as launching the smart stack, silencing an alarm, or answering a call. The double-tap is performed by double-tapping your thumb and index finger together on the hand that's wearing the watch.
Apple also unveiled details about the new Apple Watch Ultra 2, which gets all of the features outlined above for the Series 9. The screen is even brighter – up to 3,000 nits – and offers a new watchface called Modular Ultra, a customizable sensor array that's meant for athletes, outdoorspeople, and anyone who needs to know their GPS coordinates, elevation, or water depth. Battery remains a strong suit, able to typically last 36 hours on a single charge, and up to 72 hours in low-power mode.
New Apple Watches are available to order starting today, and will launch on September 22. The Apple Watch Series 9 will cost $399, while the Ultra 2 costs $799. There are also new eco-friendly "FineWoven" wristbands for the Apple Watch series.
For more information on what was announced during today's event, check out our roundup, which recaps all the major news and announcements from Apple's Wonderlust Event.
Bo Moore is IGN's Tech Editor.
