Apple Watch Series 6 — Full Review! By Rene Ritchie

- I'm Rene Ritchie and Apple's got a brand new watch series six, but is it the right Apple watch for you? That question actually has a couple of different answers. One, if you've never had an Apple watch before and the other, if you have up to and including last year's series five, so I'm gonna break down everything that's new with the Apple watch series six, and then dive into everything that's critical if the Apple watch in general is new to you and I'm gonna do it right now. Sponsored by BRILLIANT. I've got Apple watch SE and Apple Watch Series 3 in 2020 reviews coming your way soon. hit the subscribe button and bell. So you don't miss any of them.

Okay. So real talk 99.9% of the tech chatter you're going to hear this month is whether or not the Apple watch series six is a worthwhile upgrade to the Apple watch series five. You're going to hear it over and over and over and over, and you get the idea, but here's the thing most people. And by that, I mean the vast majority of people in this world still don't even have an Apple watch, like not at all. And other small amount that do most don't have the previous Apple watch.

They have older Apple watches and have the even smaller amount that do have the previous Apple watch the ones talking about this are all enthusiastic and industry types who often upgrade every year, regardless, just to have the latest and greatest, because the latest and greatest the rest, the rest though, maybe you probably some of your friends and family have been waiting on very specific features to either buy in for the first time or upgrade, regardless of which model you have. For me, that was the always on display for others. It was fall detection or ECG meaningless to some critical to a few. And this year, the Apple watch series six It's going to be exactly the same thing, just with completely different features for very different people. Namely new red and blue, aluminum and graphite and gold steel finishes.

And you sensor to measure blood oxygen levels a two and a half times brighter, 500 nit, always on display. And you always on altimeter five gigahertz, wifi, you want ultra wide band and faster charging. Now the new product red aluminum looks terrific way better than I expected it would. It's a deep metallic red, an iron man red, and it's opinionated, not neutral, but that may restrict your band choice if clashing just isn't your vibe. Also aluminum series six still have ion exchange, chemically hardened glass displays, not Sapphire displays like the steel and titanium models.

So what you gain in lightness, you do lose an a bit of durability. I've come to appreciate that trade off, but you have to decide you. It's still the same overall design though from the Apple watch series four, going back a couple years. there are no smaller models and no larger heavier models for people who prefer their watches decidedly more Schwartzenegger. Also, the displays are all still rectangles, which I prefer, and which are much better for computational science of computational watches, but other people while they express no desire for horse shaped cars or banana shaped mob bell style phones, really do seem to prefer the traditional mechanical dial shaped watches.

I haven't seen the blue series six in person yet. Justine unboxed in her video. And I like it a lot as well. It's also deep and metallic, a Royal Navy blue, or of course like pepper Potts says rescue armor and Avengers end game. John Gruber is reviewing the graphite series six and has already written up a few thousand words on the differences between that and the space black steel, because, John Gruber and it does indeed look less like something from Krypton and maybe more like something from Frank Miller's Gotham.

Apple insider compared the new gold steel to the previous gold finishes. And it does indeed look richer more 18 K K as in carrot, not as in Cardassians Cardassians as in Kim, not as in deep space, nine. I'm not sold on it at least not yet, but let me know what you think about it, and of all the other new finishes in the comments below. For me, the new health and fitness features are by far the biggest deals and differentiators for the series six. Well, I find them interesting and informative to test out.

I think for athletes, especially extreme athletes, they're going to be just beyond compelling, which is why I called up famed extreme adventurer res Ahab, the man who literally runs across the Sahara in a hundred days or across the Arctic circle or the Amazon rain forest. So he could share his far, far more expert thoughts with us, starting with VO2 max. - It's an indicator of overall health, if you take into consideration, um, or fitness, let's say, um, you know, your lungs, your heart, your blood vessels, uh, your blood, your capacity to move oxygen through your body at higher rates of exercise, like how efficient are you? How efficient are you at utilizing oxygen at higher rates of exertion?. Whereas on the other end of it, with the other thing that they're really emphasizing with Apple watches, SPO tube, which is something that I have used a lot of, and it also is an indicator and a measure, but less of an emphasis sort of on your lungs and your heart directly like VO2 max is a calculation that brings all those other things into, into the play. Um, it's more, uh, looking directly at how much oxygen is carried in your blood versus how much oxygen is not there, is my understanding, exactly.

And I'll tell you the application. So I've used FPO two, uh, over the years, um, in training with an hour, I have an altitude machine that simulates being at high altitude because many of the deserts that I crossed or when I went to the South pole, for example, you're at higher altitude. And so I want to be able to perform at my best over long days when I'm not recovering as well. We talked about last time, how I use the Apple watch to give me recovery information. So I monitor my SPO two, the higher an altitude I go, or the harder we exert in order to be at sea level and just running as hard as you can up a Hill.

And when you get to the top of the Hill, your SPO2, any person's SPOG will drop, and the lesson drops at the top of that Hill, the fitter you are, you're able to uptake that oxygen from the surrounding air and use it. - What's the advantage to you as someone who does what you do, to just having that with you all the time. - Well, it's super duper handy cause now like going from racing, ultra marathons to doing these long sustained efforts that could last up to a hundred days, um, I just sort of forgot about VO2. I wasn't using it as much. It was complicated.

Number complicated to understand. I was like, yeah, whatever. I'll just kind of forget about that and I'll go on how I feel. And, um, instead really focus on recovery, now, like with everything they do, like, you know, you pick up your iPhone, it's super simplified. Like everything, It's just an, it's easier for me now to access those numbers.

And now I'll probably start using them in my training. So I was telling you before, when I was sick post sickness, I was saying, ah, you know, I'm not feeling so hot. My SPO two is at about 94. It doesn't seem like that much of a jump from 94 to 98, which is normal for me 99, but I could totally feel it. I could totally feel it.

So having that now easily accessible and information on the go, is more info is always good. You know. - So the other thing that they introduced is the always on altimeter. What is the difference between the periodic and the constant for you when it comes to altitude? - Well, that, you know, that's a really great question and it's something that's kind of timely for me my last, um, five years or so. I've been training primarily based on elevation gain.

So how much I'm actually climbing when I'm running everyday. I live on the trails. So I always run 90% of my time is spent on single track running or skiing in the winter, um, or mountain biking and fat biking in the winter. And so I'm less concerned by the distance that I run, in a training run. And I'm more concerned by how much vertical can I get in a day.

And I set my training parameters and my programs around that number, that amount of vertical. So what's really nice about having a running elevation, uh, you know, on your wrist is you're able to actually see, are you at that high point? How much am I actually getting? Cause I am glancing down at my watch for sure when I'm running. And so I'm able to sort of ascertain, you know, where am I, what's my altitude and how I am, how high am I, am I, am I gaining altitude quickly? Yeah. You know, and then as it relates back as well to training and fitness, when you take all the numbers and you combine them, you can, you can see the results of that. If you're into all that data, you can totally see the results is compared to slow incline, elevation, gain, et cetera.

- And now the always on display is like 2.5 times brighter. So I think if you are working out, especially like you do outside, it might be even easier to glance at when you do need it. - Yeah. Well that, and the fact that I'm 51 and I need reading glasses all the time, so I can see it a lot easier when I'm out running, you know. - For Someone like you, someone whose entire livelihood is based on measuring these things.

What, how meaningful and upgrade is it to you to have VO2 max at this scale to have the pulse oxygen, the SPO, - Well, you know, it definitely anything that's added is a bonus to me, any data like that, that I can get is awesome when they did the ECG thing, that was amazing for me. Right? - Yeah. - But I'm also the guy and I told you the original story when they first came out with the Apple watch, I'm like, no, you know what? I got everything I need, I got the iPhone, I got the Mac book, I got all the stuff I need. I don't need any more stuff. And then I got the watch and I started using it and I thought, how would I ever do anything before I had this watch? So it just becomes, it's just one of those things that's handy.

So it's, it's always, they've always got stuff well thought out. Right. So there's no doubt that I don't even know it yet, but that data will become more valuable to me in the things that I'm doing, the more I investigate there, there's a lot more to it, I think, than just what's you see in like one minute sound bites, it's how all that information ties together, that I think gives you an overall view of your health. - You mentioned the sleep tracking. I know from previous conversations that you're big on, on using metrics for recovery as well, but things like multiple complications per app, or maybe map datas, is there anything else that's really got you into this year? - The new, uh, Apple fitness - Yeah - thing that I saw, and I think that is going to be so awesome for people that, uh, potentially, if there's a second wave with COVID, whatever, the opportunity to be able to just use the device that you probably already have for people that have devices, uh, is amazing.

Like, I mean, it's just such an awesome concept to get people moving. And, um, and I think that, that, that is really exciting for me too, to see that. - Now, a few quick caveats on just all of that, while the Apple watch can now measure low range VO2 max, the new low range, cardio alert feature, the one that warns you, your VO2 max is falling into the lower range is only coming later this year. For SPO2, while the Apple watch series six functions, similarly to a fingertip reader, instead of using transmittance to determine the color of your blood through your nail and your finger, it uses reflectance to kind of do the same job, but just on one side of your wrist. And if you're interested in how all of those technologies work, I covered them in my explainer video link in the description.

Also, unlike the ECG app, which Apple is still slowly rolling out region by region in coordination with local medical regulation authorities, like the FDA in the U S or health Canada, Apple, isn't submitting the blood oxygen app as a medical feature at all. Instead, they're putting it out as a wellness feature, which means it can go out into pretty much every region, pretty much immediately. Apple just can't say it's for medical use and can't send out alerts for low blood oxygen levels. You can start the app whenever you want. And it'll check periodically like during the day or at night, if you're using the new sleep tracking feature.

But that's, it, it is totally pull for now, not push, not at all. And likewise, because wellness and not medical, Apple, can't even legally say how accurate it is, which is all shades of weird. Now, I do really want that accuracy stated, and those alerts sent my way, but I also straight up hated having to wait for the ECG app to get approved in my country as well. And for anyone outside of the U S we often end up feeling like second class citizens when we get features late or often enough just not at all. So let me know what you think of the trade-off in the comments.

Meanwhile, I've asked around and the people I've spoken with seem to think the Apple watch pulse ox is as accurate as the fingertip tools, but I'll keep testing and comparing over the next couple of weeks and let you know how it holds up and how my measurements go in a follow-up review. Also sleep tracking in general is still a very mixed bag for me, wind down, low battery and charge alerts, good morning. All of that is fine. Great even, but it just doesn't provide a lot of data for the actual sleep tracking itself. Just total time slept, which is much less than apps that break it down by light, heavy and REM sleep.

And I get that Apple prefers to baseline new features rather than Sherlock or obsolete, completely whole app categories in general, but sleep tracking, for me at least, just fits so well with the core services. The mission of the watch that it should be as fully featured as possible. Battery life for me, on the series six has been outstanding. So much though that I don't even understand it. Apple says a slightly bigger battery and much better efficiency, even with all the new features should give you the same general battery life, as well as an hour of extra local music playback or workout tracking.

But I've been getting 36 hours on minimal load. And what I mean by that is just charging it, wearing it and seeing how long it'll last, both during the day, and with sleep tracking enabled at night. And I didn't believe it at first, I ran it again immediately, but it was the same thing. Now, when I start workouts more often, it cuts into that of course, more and more with each one. But overall it's still been terrific.

I'm just worried that I have or amps kind of weird outlier right now though. And it won't last, but he'll let you know. Apple's also no longer including the five, what AC adapter brick in the Apple watch box. Something they began phasing out a couple of years ago, and are facing out completely this year. Which they say is an effort to reduce e-waste.

But others feel is just a cost savings measure that's not being passed along to them. And while I have just stacks of those little bricks, other people, especially first time buyers do not. So the ideal, at least for me, would be for Apple to provide an inexpensive way for people who really do still need the charging bricks to get them with their order. The new, faster charging though, that I all caps love, especially with sleep tracking. I can just wake up, put my watch on the charger, go about all of my daily, ablutions and half an hour later, it's well past half full again.

It'll go from zero to about 80% in an hour and a full charge in about an hour and a half total. And that just makes a lot of it just work. And I know some people just can't wrap their heads around charging a watch like every day or so. Like it's a crime against nature and horology or something. But here's a way I think about it.

It's no different to me than charging my phone every day. Because with phones or watches or just any kind of computerized gizmo at all, the price you pay for features is power. Literally, the more you can do, the more battery it takes to do it. It's the currency of mobile, big break, display, powerful chip set, Bluetooth ultra wide band, wifi, LTE, heart rate, and blood oxygen sensors, compass gyroscope, accelerometers. The list goes on and on and on.

Take away features, add size, and the battery will last longer. Sure. But honestly, where some people can't understand can't grok, why anyone would want to charge a watch every day, even as they plug their phones in every night, I can't for the life of me, grok, why anyone would be willing to give up life-changing even life saving features like this, just to get out of having to plug it in next to my phone every night. Your mileage, or watchage, whatever will of course vary. This is how silly it's gotten.

Apple is cramming Silicon around the band grooves now. Basically into every nook and cranny, they can get inside the series six casing like a kid just piping way too much custard into a donut. Joking. There's no such thing as too much custard. I mean, there are seriously doing that with the XS and it makes the system in package 9% bigger.

And along with the new A13 derived processor cores, A13 is in the iPhone 11 chip set, which still melts my brain a little bit, makes it 20% faster, even at greater efficiency. And on the watch, that's most noticeable and things like how fast apps launch and how much on-device machine learning, the core features can just crunch through. But depending on which watch you're coming from, if any, it can be a super noticeable. A new one is even more interesting. Apple debuted the ultra wide band spacial and location positioning chip last year with the iPhone 11, but they totally kept it on the download.

Broadly speaking they've said it it'll enable more and better features on the Apple watch in the future. Things like key support, so you could open and drive your car with just your watch. Like you're starting to be able to do with just your iPhone. But I think, I think everyone's just sort of waiting for the next step and Apple's find my network to go live at this point. Being able to precisely track down all of our stuff, just using our watch is just super cool in concept.

We'll have to see how it is in execution. Along with all the new features, if you don't already have an Apple watch or a recent Apple watch you get everything Apple spent the last few years adding to the platform as well. And that includes all the communication features like email, I message and FaceTime. And if you get an LTE model, call an SMS relay as well, even emergency calling, if you're in an accident or fall down and don't have, or can't reach your phone, enter national emergency calling even. So if, and when we travel again, you get the same features, no international roaming plan needed.

And there's also things like the heart rate monitor and notifications for low high or irregular heart rate rhythms. And in some countries, including the U S and Canada and ECG app, so you can coordinate with your doctor and get much better data, much more often. And this stuff has literally been lifesaving for a lot of people. And then there are all the fitness features from activity rings that sort of coach and Cokes you in a standing and moving and burning calories and working out every day to the workout app, proper that measures pretty much everything you can imagine across an increasingly diverse array of indoor and outdoor exercise types. And coming later this year, the Apple watch will sync you up to Apple's new fitness plus subscription service as well, where you can take classes and measure your progress on your iPhone, iPad or Apple TV.

And of course, of course, none of these features are perfect. None of them will be all things to all people. Some of them might have no value to you at all. And that's totally fine. Not like dogs drinking coffee in a burning office fine, but legit totally fine.

The idea I think is to figure out if any, or enough of them are valuable, how valuable they are and whether or not in somewhere in part, they make the Apple watch valuable enough for you to want to get, or to upgrade. Starting at 399US and going up from there based on the size, the material and Wi-Fi or LTE options, you're going to have to do the same sort of value calculation that I just did. Also compared to the less expensive, but not quite as feature rich, Apple watch S E and the entry-level much less expensive, but also much less feature rich series three. I'll be doing reviews for both of those models, as well as a comparison to help you decide. So seriously, make sure your sub buttoned and beld up.

And then I'll promise not to use all the fancy new machine learning features in the XS to do the work for me. I mean, even if brilliance basically showed me how to do just that, the neural networks chorus has this example of how, like, if you lost your keys in your room, but need to find them, even if you have no clear indication how to structure your guesses, you can still get better round after round, figuring out your strategy based on the feedback of things like wall tile color, and find your keys in surprisingly few guesses. Brilliant is a website and app with over 60 interactive courses in math, science, and computer science, logic and deduction, physics, quantum mechanics, game theory, cryptocurrency, and so much more. It's based on problem solving and active learning. It's about seeing concepts visually and interacting with them, and then answering questions that get you to think, and there are no tests, no grades.

You just pick a course based on what you're interested in and you get started. And if you make a mistake, you just check out the explanations and keep going, Go to brilliant. org/reneritchie and sign up for free. Just click on the link in the description or go to our brilliant. org/reneritchie.

And the first 200 of you can also level up with 20% off the annual premium subscription. And clicking on that link just really helps out the channel. For more, much more on the new Apple watches and all the new Apple products This fall, click on the playlist right here. I'm doing all the unboxings, first looks reviews and deep dives. So click the playlist and I'll see you next video.

Source : Rene Ritchie