Apple Watch Series 12: Everything to Expect Next Month

[Enrico77]

can't see Touch ID on the watch. It just seems like a waste of space, engineering, and resources in such a small device.

I agree. For me, battery life is the main priority on standard Apple Watches—the Ultra is a separate story. In fact, any gimmick or feature of questionable usefulness that reduces autonomy—whether by taking up internal space meant for a larger battery or by draining power—should be ditched. A true 24-hour battery would be fine on paper, but in reality, if you aren't careful, even the Series 11 won't make it to the end of the day. Only when Apple advertises a true 48-hour battery can we be confident it will survive a single day of heavy use.

By heavy use, I don't just mean long workout tracking—if you're an endurance athlete, you buy the Ultra anyway. I mean something as simple as spending all day relaxing at the beach. In that scenario, especially without an iPhone nearby, two factors drain the battery fast: peak screen brightness in direct sunlight and active LTE searching. In my experience, the battery dies in half a day under those conditions. To make it to the evening, I'm forced to turn off the Always-On display and toggle LTE on and off manually just to check for missed calls. It’s a real shame to have to make those kinds of compromises on a device like this.

 

[doc4x5]

I got the Ultra 2, before the Massimo suit took away the O2 sensor, mainly for the battery life for tracking my sleep. I used to have to remember to charge my old one EVERY evening before I went to bed, a real pain. The Ultra 2 has worked well over the years but I'm a small person and it's pretty bulky. I'd love a full featured "regular" watch with 36-48 hour battery life. Until then, I'm sticking with my Ultra 2. Round, square?? I'm not a fashionista.

 

[Bruce205]

The most useless device

Bought my first Apple Watch when S11 landed and its kinda neat but I won't buy another one.

 

[Enrico77]

Hope the Ultra4 still has a titanium case with ceramic back. I'm not a fan of the design of the back of the S11..

The Series 11 back scratches far more easily than older models (which paired a ceramic back with a sapphire front)—a clear issue at beach if sand gets caught under your wrist. That said, cosmetic wear or design on the back hardly matters since it’s hidden during use, and an Apple Watch isn't a high-end mechanical watch with an exhibition sapphire case back anyway 😆

 

[Enrico77]

anyone else hoping apple would produce an attractive watch? The square look is just so tired....and battery life like my Garmin Fenix would be great.

You are really comparing two completely different categories of devices. Expecting an Apple Watch to be a round fitness tracker or a Garmin to be a mini-smartphone misses what each is engineered to do.

The Square Display: Geometry & Ergonomics

• Text Efficiency: Text is written in horizontal lines and rectangular blocks. On a round display, the usable width for continuous reading is strictly limited to the square inscribed within that circle. Any remaining space at the top and bottom arc gets wasted unless text is awkwardly truncated or crammed.
• Wrist Footprint: To display the exact same volume of readable text as a square watch, a circular watch needs a significantly larger diameter, making it far more cumbersome on the wrist.
• Mini-iPhone UI: Apple Watch runs watchOS—an OS designed for rich notifications, app navigation, on-screen typing, and dense data displays. A square display maximizes active screen area for reading without making the case unnaturally huge. Round watches work fine for analog hands and simple metrics, but they are ergonomically inferior for text-heavy interfaces.

Battery Life & The Laws of Physics

• Smartphone Hardware & LTE: An Apple Watch is essentially a cellular mini-computer with a high-performance CPU/GPU, active LTE connectivity, and a high-brightness OLED panel. A cellular modem alone consumes a massive amount of power to maintain cell tower handshakes—just like your phone.
• Full OS vs. RTOS: Devices like a Garmin Fenix achieve multi-week battery life because they run bare-bones Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) designed to keep the processor asleep as much as possible, paired with low-power, low-refresh screens (like MIP displays). watchOS is a full multitasking operating system.
• Scale & Capacity: No modern smartphone with a 4,000 mAh battery lasts a full week. Expecting an Apple Watch—with a battery well under 600 mAh due to physical size limits—to last 7 to 14 days while keeping its current power, cellular capability, and screen quality is physically and chemically impossible.

If Apple made it round with a two-week battery, they wouldn't be making a better Apple Watch—they’d just be stripping away its core identity as a wrist-bound computer to make a fitness tracker.

 

[Enrico77]

I am definitely in on a new ceramic model.

The true charm of classic watches lies in their longevity—they are built to last generations. I occasionally wear my late father's Omega, and while time has etched a network of fine scratches into its steel, those marks tell a story. That is where ceramic watches usually shine. A 50-year-old colleague recently showed me her Rado; it looked brand new, completely devoid of the micro-scratches that usually dull a watch's luster over time. It turned out to be a gift from her 18th birthday, yet it looked straight out of the showroom.

Buying a ceramic Apple Watch, however, makes very little sense:

• Built-in Obsolescence: Unlike a mechanical watch, an Apple Watch is a perishable consumer tech item. In a few short years, Apple will brand it "vintage" or "obsolete," software support will drop, and battery replacements will become a hassle. You are left with a $50 trade-in value on a once-expensive piece.
• Brittle Nature: Ceramic resists scratches, but it lacks impact resistance. A hard knock that merely dents aluminum will completely shatter ceramic, turning an expensive gadget into useless trash.
• Flawed Investment: I recently bought a $4,000 mechanical watch—a real timepiece that will last the rest of my life and eventually go to my kids, just like my father’s Omega did for me. Dropping high-end money on a disposable smart device is simply throwing money away.

Even the titanium and sapphire Apple Watch models fall into this trap. In fact, standard glass displays actually offer better contrast and fewer reflections than sapphire. Sure, glass scratches easier, but when the underlying tech becomes obsolete so quickly anyway, you might as well buy the cheapest aluminum version and upgrade it more frequently.

 

[WinstonSmyth]

* Preventive Health & Healthcare Systems: Finding out about health issues like high blood pressure shouldn't rely on a smartwatch gadget—don't people get routine checkups? (Coming from France, where healthcare is free and the Sécurité Sociale actively pesters you to get your checkups done, the reliance on a watch for basic diagnostics seems like a product of the US healthcare system.)

Healthcare in France is FREE? I thought all those taxes you pay, are actually you paying for healthcare. A blood pressure cuff and be purchased here in the USA very cheap, and pretty much any pharmacy or grocery store has a place you can test for FREE.

 

[lazyrighteye]

anyone else hoping apple would produce an attractive watch? The square look is just so tired....and battery life like my Garmin Fenix would be great.

It's been 12 years of [roughly] the same taller-than-it-is-wide rectangular aspect ratio. The Apple Watch line needs a refresh. But I don't think it near as radical as some might think. And no, round is not the way.

If I was head of Apple Watch Hardware Design (which, after this, many will be glad I'm not), I'd leverage the equity of the family's rounded corners but move from a tall rectangle to an exact square: same width x same height. This would usher in a fresh, more substantial aesthetic, minus the physical (and financial) heft of the Ultra. As a bonus, this wider shape would also afford a larger battery - which is always welcomed. Anyway, here's a quick mockup...

 

[Daniel Alvarez Arribas]

There are a fair number of people where the Apple Watch has literally saved their lives... they would like a word

Not to be the "negative nelly", but I think it is worth considering that there is probably also a significant number of people killed as a result of using, or in many cases abusing, their Apple Watch. Distraction being one of the leading causes of accidents... Especially if the watch actively tries to catch the user's attention. The jury is still out as to what the net effect is in terms of safety. But you'll likely not hear of much of the deadly cases, while Apple makes sure to rub the life-saver stories in our faces. We might never know. It's an interesting thought to ponder though, and what that means for how to best set up and use such a device to maximize the upside potential and cut down on the downsides.

 

[Cwoods]

Gurman is always wrong so doubtful. But… I’m still irritated the polished titanium color only comes in Hermès so I would welcome a ceramic option and would definitely get it.

 

[miq]

Still no third party watch faces in 2027 is crazy 😣

Yup, as is a battery that lasts a day, two tops 🫠

 

[Enrico77]

@WinstonSmyth Research from Harvard and the NBER shows that preventable deaths drop significantly the moment Americans turn 65 and gain public coverage (the Medicare Effect). Overall, Europeans live 4–5 years longer.

Even if I were 50 and healthy enough never to have needed medical care myself, my 5-year-old daughter survived a rare, life-threatening illness—including a coma—thanks to world-class specialists, 3 months of intensive care, and years of rehabilitation. The cost of her care alone far exceeds all the taxes I will pay in my lifetime, and those same taxes also fund infrastructure like top-tier public universities.

In any case, back to the topic: if you look at it this way, you actually agree with my original point. If someone only discovers a health issue because of an Apple Watch alert for blood pressure or ECG, the Watch isn't what saved them—it highlights that they weren't getting proper routine medical checkups in the first place.

As a side note, in Italy (unlike here in France, though I personally get checked every two years for my pilot’s license renewal), an ECG and a full medical exam are legally mandatory even for amateur, non-competitive sports.

 

[coolkid93]

None of the costlier finishes are worth it in a device that dies entirely in a few years

 

[SkippyThorson]

I would LOVE a new Ceramic Watch.

It’s the device that, for me, represents the same clean clean shine as the white iPods with that high-gloss acrylic from back in the day.

The white ceramic frequently got noticed out in the wild, even years after they stopped making them, people knew what it was and complimented it.

No other Apple Watch got that kind of reaction. That subtle little splash would put some fashion back in the lineup lacking a splash of style.