A Watch’s CPU

[Reggaenald]

Well, just recently got a S7, and it surely does stutter. Opening the workout app it does dim the display and show a „loading wheel“. But that’s not because of the hardware tho, but because of software optimisation. If the watch cpu were limited, Apple would probably have updates more since the S6 and not just change the name, add a sensor or two and put it in their flagship watch.
I would really appreciate faster animations, tho.
Reduce motion make the watch feel even faster and more fluid, but it’s not as pretty 😄

 

[Reggaenald]

The number one thing you’re missing is longevity. The Apple Watch 3 was fine when it came out, but became almost unusable through its lifetime due to limited storage space and cpu power. Software updates get bigger and more complex every year and require more power to run the latest software. For the watch (or any device for that matter) to STAY snappy over time, it needs to be a little bit overkill when it first comes out.

Considering the Ultra has practically a very similar chip to what they developed for and put into the S6, which is over 2 years old, I wouldn’t worry too much.

 

[GuruZac]

As was said, in another thread, while those who complain about the processor in the Apple Watch Ultra, those of us with the Ultra will enjoy it’s fast performance, for likely several years. I don’t know how much more performance an Apple Watch needs. Efficiency gains are always welcome but I don’t need any more speed doing anything on my watch. And I have not wanted for more performance since I went from a series 2 to a series 5.

 

[GuruZac]

Well, just recently got a S7, and it surely does stutter. Opening the workout app it does dim the display and show a „loading wheel“. But that’s not because of the hardware tho, but because of software optimisation. If the watch cpu were limited, Apple would probably have updates more since the S6 and not just change the name, add a sensor or two and put it in their flagship watch.
I would really appreciate faster animations, tho.
Reduce motion make the watch feel even faster and more fluid, but it’s not as pretty 😄

That’s not normal behavior on your S7. My old Series 5 never did that. And my Ultra certainly never stutters opening anything.

 

[GuruZac]

Having a newer CPU doesn't necessarily mean more computing power, it could also mean that the same computing power can be reached with a lower power consumption. Given how poor the battery life is on Apple Watch compared to competition, I think that the critics again a 3+ years old SiP are fair. If we can get the same smoothness across the OS, but for 22-24 hours of battery life rather than 18 (not talking about the Ultra but the logic is the same), it's a win for everyone.

The Ultra CPU is 2 years old. And it already has 3 days of real world usage for most users. What smartwatch has better battery life? Garmins are sportwatches with smart features whereas I define the Apple Watch as a truly smart watch with sport features.

 

[Howard2k]

My watch SE1 with an S5 processor has significant lag doing day to day operations. The thought that the $800 ultra only has a processor one year newer is a travesty.

Maybe it needs a reset? I just replaced my SE recently but I didn’t notice any lag.

 

[fwmireault]

What smartwatch has better battery life?

Oh I don’t consider Garmin to be a smartwatch nor an AW competitor. Samsung Watch 5 has a 50 hours battery life (better than the Ultra), Pixel Watch has a 24 hours battery life (better than the regular AW). Of course, it will depend on the usage, but Apple is not doing good enough for the AW battery life. It’s not normal that the Samsung Watch which is way thinner and smaller than the Ultra achieve better battery life

 

[BigMcGuire]

Oh I don’t consider Garmin to be a smartwatch nor an AW competitor. Samsung Watch 5 has a 50 hours battery life (better than the Ultra), Pixel Watch has a 24 hours battery life (better than the regular AW). Of course, it will depend on the usage, but Apple is not doing good enough for the AW battery life. It’s not normal that the Samsung Watch which is way thinner and smaller than the Ultra achieve better battery life

I know several people with a Samsung Watch 5 - forums are full of people just getting 24 hours to 2 days. Meanwhile the Ultra - a lot of us can get 3 days fairly comfortably (myself included). I got 1.7-1.8 days on my AW7. I think Apple tends to under-estimate time while other manufacturers tend to over estimate. Granted I'm probably a lighter than average user. But I agree - battery life needs to take bigger strides. I want a week on a charge!

Not sure Apple can do more. Battery technology needs significant strides to do better. Hopefully these graphene, solid state batteries usher in an age of extremely long battery life.

 

[BenGoren]

There's ALWAYS room for improvement
View attachment 2125085View attachment 2125088

You’re making my point for me.

People here are saying they want faster hors … er … CPUs.

Ask gearheads what they want, and many will say they want more horsepower. Ask a racing team what they want, and they’ll tell you they want better tires, better brakes, maybe a better suspension, and more torque. Ask families what they want in a car, and it’s more cupholders and better entertainment systems.

But the gearheads … just want more CPUs. Horsepower. Whatever.

Of course I’m not suggesting that the Apple Watch is perfect and needs no further refinement.

What I am suggesting is that it’s got more than enough CPU power for anything anybody is going to want from a wristwatch for quite some time.

Indeed, there’s likely room to decrease the watch’s CPU performance for the sake of battery — just as a family SUV would absolutely be better equipped with a smaller, more fuel-efficient engine instead of a screaming 600 horsepower behemoth.

After the obvious battery life that everybody’s screaming about (though the Ultra is more than plenty — pop it on the charger while you’re in the shower and you’re good to go), the improvements to the watch most talked about are, first and foremost, more sensors — especially blood pressure and glucose monitoring. Neither require more CPU. I wouldn’t mind cameras; a behind-the-dial Dick Tracy Facetime camera would probably be most asked for, but I’d personally prefer a Brownie-style shoot-from-the-hip camera, especially if it was a not-sucky document scanner. But we already know that the CPU has far more than enough “oomph” for those sorts of things.

I have to go all the way to silly over-the-top hypotheticals, like on-watch general AI, to think of real-world use cases that would actually need more CPU. Heck, the watch already does a great job at voice dictation, and Siri’s shortcomings wouldn’t be fixed with a more powerful CPU.

So, again.

To all those who replied to the poll insisting that the Watch needs a more-powerful CPU: what for? Especially considering that more CPU power generally comes at the cost of faster battery drain?

Or, could it possibly be — as difficult as it might be to imagine — that Apple engineers have figured out that it’s a waste of time trying to cram an 800 horsepower engine into a wristwatch, and it makes more sense for them to focus on the tires, brakes, and cupholders?

b&

 

[G46&Fbnth5]

Most people complain about the fact it is an old CPU, based on A13 chip (7 nm architecture), because a new one, based on A16 chip, would be both more powerful and much more power efficient, granting longer battery life.


S8 provides good performance today - even if sometimes closed apps take a while to load -, but I am pretty sure it will be very noticeably slower in 5-6 years, running wOS 14-15.

If you want an example of a feature that is not currently supported by Apple Watch CPU, you can think of Spatial Audio / Dolby Atmos through AirPods.

 

[GlamCheese666]

Still rocking Series 4 which I believe was based on the a12. Still works the same as it did day 1. Camera app lags a bit when opening/connecting but that’s about it. After they drop support, definitely won’t upgrade until this watch dies or they update newer hardware beyond a13 after all these years 😂

 

[akidokraja]

To me Battery Life is #1 - this is why I got the Ultra. To get 3 days on a charge is amazing.

While faster is always better and more is always better, nothing seems to overwhelm the AW. Everything is really smooth and it seems almost overpowered for what is asked of it at the moment. I don't see that changing.

To me if I had a choice for faster CPU or more battery life, I'd slide the slider towards more battery life.


I'd love to get to a point where I only have to charge my watch once a week and have the option for "low power mode" that would give me 2 weeks, lol.

“charge my watch once a week”. This guy for the president!!

 

[BenGoren]

S8 provides good performance today - even if sometimes closed apps take a while to load -, but I am pretty sure it will be very noticeably slower in 5-6 years, running wOS 14-15.

Why are you so sure, especially given how many people (including those in this very thread) observe that the S4 performs as well today on the latest-and-greatest WatchOS as it did on the version it was released with? And, while the S8 / Ultra is “snappier” than the S4, it’s not like the S4 is in any way a slouch, or that the difference is “very noticeable.”

The overwhelming evidence is that even the S4 will be just fine several years from now.

Indeed, that’s a pretty strong argument for keeping the CPU as close to where it is today. If future watches don’t need more CPU power — and they won’t — then running them on the same architecture will mean that today’s watches will work just fine on future versions of the operating system.

All y’all should be encouraging Apple to stick to the same CPU, save for transparently-logically-identical energy efficiency improvements. (Which is likely what they’re already doing with each SIP release.)

A new watch, someday, will have a blood pressure sensor. The S4 will probably work just fine on the same version of WatchOS, but without the blood pressure app — just like it already doesn’t have a compass app. Isn’t this the way it should be?

If you want an example of a feature that is not currently supported by Apple Watch CPU, you can think of Spatial Audio / Dolby Atmos through AirPods.

I think we can be extremely confident that this is a question of software, not of insufficient CPU performance. The watch, after all, displays video just fine (though, of course, you have to jump through UI hoops to get it to do so). What makes you think that even the most demanding audio processing is more CPU-intensive than the simplest video processing?

Again, I’m not suggesting that there’s no way to improve the watch.

All I’m doing is pointing out that these demands for a more powerful CPU are … misplaced. The watch could be improved with all sorts of things, but more CPU power pretty emphatically isn’t one of them.

I know it might seem weird to many to consider that CPU performance isn’t the limiting factor in a piece of technology. For the longest time, it was. But, for the longest time, automobile engines were also underpowered, too. We’re long past that era, and we’re at the end of that era for many computational devices, too. And, just as there’s plenty to do to improve cars (and even their engines!) without worrying about how much peak power they produce, the Apple Watch has a CPU with all the power it’s going to need for quite some time.

b&

 

[Xand&Roby]

Yes, but not for a technical problem but for an economic problem: Apple continues to charge crazy amounts for a 3-year-old product.

Not to mention what it did with Watch 3.

So either Apple begins to scale from year to year the cost of the same product that does not update, but to which it hypocritically adds useless functions (the time I hit myself with the car it will certainly save my life a watch...) in order to make it pay the same price, or updates the product it sells every year.

Then if we want I would prefer it to add sensors certified by the FDO, and I would prefer these damn watches to be independent of those scrap phones it sells, or at worst configurable with iPad, which I certainly need more than that tacky phone that now sells at ridiculous prices, and in fact only Americans update because as they claim Apple gives them phones. XD

 

[srknpower]

I am not happy with the animations that you sometimes see while opening an app on Series 8. Additionally once I compared S5 and S8 chips and there was a noticeable speed difference between app loading. I believe we might see a speed difference between S8 and new S9 chip. Also, I think this device will get WatchOS 13 or 14 but I am not sure it will work on future WatchOS version as it is working now on WatchOS 9. We can expect its performance will gradually decrease with new major WatchOS versions.

 

[Reggaenald]

That’s not normal behavior on your S7. My old Series 5 never did that. And my Ultra certainly never stutters opening anything.

Well, good to know. Got it from eBay with a somewhat broken speaker, will see if I can get it replaced by Apple for a new watch

 

[EZEIXE]

I don’t know about you guys but the Reminders app on my Apple Watch Ultra needs to be more responsive 🧐

 

[JustAnExpat]

Well, just recently got a S7, and it surely does stutter. Opening the workout app it does dim the display and show a „loading wheel“. But that’s not because of the hardware tho, but because of software optimisation. If the watch cpu were limited, Apple would probably have updates more since the S6 and not just change the name, add a sensor or two and put it in their flagship watch.
I would really appreciate faster animations, tho.
Reduce motion make the watch feel even faster and more fluid, but it’s not as pretty 😄

I'm going to say either this is a brand new watch that hasn't cached anything yet, or you're trolling. I have a Series 3. I just opened my "workout app". There is no "loading wheel".

 

[bodonnell202]

Just another consideration… I definitely wouldn’t be buying an Apple Watch with the S8 chip as you know in a few years Apple is going to cut support for this generation of chips, and it’s very likely that watches with the S6, S7 and S8 will all get cut at the same time since they are all the same chip. Next time Apple introduces a new CPU is the time to upgrade if you plan on hanging onto your watch for more than a couple years.

 

[johannnn]

- My S7 stutters in some animations
- I’m sure it’s gonna get worse with future watchOS updates (just like all other systems gets more and more heavy each year)

 

[JokoWidodo]

the S8 CPU actually uses the 2 efficiency cores found on the A13.. which is slightly slower than the 2 high-performance-cores of A10 found in iPhone 7 from 2016

 

[Htsi]

There was a noticeable difference between the series 5 & 6 in terms of performance. The CPU still being the same on the series 8 has kept me satisfied with the series 6.
A better CPU with ~20% speed and efficiency gains will be welcomed by all.

 

[Malus120]

Disregarding the question of whether or not it's fair/feasible to expect from a technological standpoint. I think most people could agree anecdotally that each of the following were fairly massive leaps in computational power and capabilities on the Apple Watch:

S0 -> S1/S2 -> S3 -> S4

With each, jump, even the S3, which was a more modest, you could immediately feel the difference in everyday use, and it enabled the watch to do new things it couldn't do before.

After the Series 4 however, it really feels like the Apple Watch just kind of "stopped" getting faster, and more importantly stopped getting more capable. This might be ok if battery live had improved dramatically in the interim but honestly speaking it hasn't. The best they could do was say "here's a low power mode that disables all the new features we've introduced since the S4 and then some," which, to be fair I'm grateful to have but it doesn't exactly feel like the innovation I want.

Personally, I was "forced" to upgrade from my beloved Series 4 (Apple's "repair" policy sucks)) to a Series 7 (got a deal on a floor model). While the S7 is certainly a nice upgrade (bigger, brighter screen, always on screen, on screen keyboard, etc) it's not what I'd call life changing.

To be fair, the Series 7 is noticeably faster and more responsive, but the difference is nowhere near going from say a Series 2 to a Series 4.

I can understand that it's difficult. Node shrinks have become less frequent. There hasn't been a breakthrough in battery tech. Apple already put the E-Cores from the A13 in the S6/S7/S8 so it's not like there's something dramatically faster (like S0 to S1) they can just slot in (although A15/A16 E-Cores should make for a nice efficiency jump at some point).

But it just feels like the AW is... stagnant performance/efficiency wise (and no the Ultra isn't the answer most people want), and as a platform watchOS could use more love...

 

[bodonnell202]

Disregarding the question of whether or not it's fair/feasible to expect from a technological standpoint. I think most people could agree anecdotally that each of the following were fairly massive leaps in computational power and capabilities on the Apple Watch:

S0 -> S1/S2 -> S3 -> S4

With each, jump, even the S3, which was a more modest, you could immediately feel the difference in everyday use, and it enabled the watch to do new things it couldn't do before.

After the Series 4 however, it really feels like the Apple Watch just kind of "stopped" getting faster, and more importantly stopped getting more capable. This might be ok if battery live had improved dramatically in the interim but honestly speaking it hasn't. The best they could do was say "here's a low power mode that disables all the new features we've introduced since the S4 and then some," which, to be fair I'm grateful to have but it doesn't exactly feel like the innovation I want.

Personally, I was "forced" to upgrade from my beloved Series 4 (Apple's "repair" policy sucks)) to a Series 7 (got a deal on a floor model). While the S7 is certainly a nice upgrade (bigger, brighter screen, always on screen, on screen keyboard, etc) it's not what I'd call life changing.

To be fair, the Series 7 is noticeably faster and more responsive, but the difference is nowhere near going from say a Series 2 to a Series 4.

I can understand that it's difficult. Node shrinks have become less frequent. There hasn't been a breakthrough in battery tech. Apple already put the E-Cores from the A13 in the S6/S7/S8 so it's not like there's something dramatically faster (like S0 to S1) they can just slot in (although A15/A16 E-Cores should make for a nice efficiency jump at some point).

But it just feels like the AW is... stagnant performance/efficiency wise (and no the Ultra isn't the answer most people want), and as a platform watchOS could use more love...

The interesting thing is that the S1, S2 and S3 chips all used older “off the shelf” tech and the S4 was the first chip to use full custom Apple efficiency cores. It’s kind of strange that development slowed considerably when they started using custom cores, but I suppose they were probably facing higher development costs along with diminishing returns on performance improvements so it was no longer worth it to produce a new AW chip every year.

 

[Malus120]

The interesting thing is that the S1, S2 and S3 chips all used older “off the shelf” tech and the S4 was the first chip to use full custom Apple efficiency cores. It’s kind of strange that development slowed considerably when they started using custom cores, but I suppose they were probably facing higher development costs along with diminishing returns on performance improvements so it was no longer worth it to produce a new AW chip every year.

Indeed. I was going to say more about that in the post, but it was already long too long so I cut it.

I actually think that development partially explains WHY we've seen the yearly AW advancement slow down.

The original Apple Watch used a VERY slow single ARM Cortex A7. The Series 1 and 2 used a dual core model of the same chip, hence the huge performance jump, literally a 2x for multi-core, although the CPU was still quite slow relative to the custom ARM designs Apple was using in the iPhone (interestingly enough, the S1/S2 were introduced in 2016, the same year Apple introduced the A10 with Apple's first big.LITTLE CPU design). The Series 3 saw a faster version of the same (?) Coretx A7 dual core.

With the Series 4, Apple was finally able to shift over to their own chips, using a 1.59 GHz Dual-core Tempest chips derived from the Tempest "little"/e-cores in the A12. This basically gave us a 2x bump in both frequency and IPC (if not more) along with an Apple GPU for absolutely massive gains. Thinking about it now, the S4 chip in the Series 4 was perhaps the Apple Watch's "M1" moment. The S6 (as well as 7, 8 and Ultra) would get the "Thunder" e-Cores from the A13 but having already shifted to "Apple Silicon" replicating the massive jump from S3 to S4 in one generation became much more difficult, especially since Apple's unlikely to want to share the latest chips needed for iPhones, iPads and now Macs in the low power Apple Watch.

On the bright side, the current Apple Watch is now three generations behind the iPhone CPU, so there's lot of potential to release something based on the e-Cores in, say the A15 or A16 next year for a very nice bump in both performance and power efficiency. That said, unless they can find a way to massively bring down power usage though, another jump like S0 to S1/2 or S3 to S4 is unlikely.

All of which still doesn't excuse the fact that more than just the lack of increased performance I feel like Apple needs to broaden the Watch's appeal. Make it able to be truly independent of the iPhone, let it use any voice or data sim from any provider (instead of just the majors), and really work on watchOS to let it do more.