Apple Watch's S8 Chip Features Same CPU as S6 and S7

[Mazda 3s]

What chip does the Apple Watch Ultra use? Anyway, keeping my Series 7, unless I can get an excellent deal on an Open Box Apple Watch Ultra from Best Buy (they typically have some amazing open box specials a few months after launch). For example, I got my AirPods Max back in October 2021 for $385 in Open Box Excellent condition.

I don't see the point in yearly upgrades for a watch (even though Apple would definitely like for you to) -- especially given the meager upgrades that Apple has doled out in the past few years. But at least the Ultra offers you some substantial battery life gains.

 

[frou]

Sometimes when I'm swimming in the ocean, I pause to run Geekbench

 

[Wags]

Add a pinch of salt and call it a new recipe.

 

[Royksöpp]

And the insults keep flying in. The 14 has the same chip as last years pro, BOOM! The Apple Watch series 8, SE, and Ultra have the same chip as the S6 and 7, BOOM! What's next? The new iPad's will still have the A15 and M1?

 

[cocky jeremy]

The Apple Watch has to be their most boring product. No update ever feels like it really adds anything useful.

 

[ELman]

The good news is my 6 should be supported for quite a few years.

 

[DNichter]

I thought about grabbing a series 7 at a lower price, but it really is the same thing as my series 5 and I hate all of the colors. I am hoping they return next year with a redesigned space black to match my 14 Pro. Until then, the series 5 marches on.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

You have before your eyes the consequences of teams working from home. All innovations slowed down bigly at Apple's, hence the execs pushing for returning to a normal office workplace.

You realize the series 4 in series 5 both have the same CPU as well? And both were released before any lockdowns.
It’s a Watch, now that they’ve moved on to the 64-bit architecture there’s not much to change that would make any noticeable improvement.
No one complainedback in the day that the iPod classic stuck with the same processor or only got a tiny upgrade year over year.

 

[kwokaaron]

The good news is my 6 should be supported for quite a few years.

Me too. They'll probably drop the S4 and S5 together in one of the next WatchOS release, and then a savage drop of the S6, S7, and S8 all in one go sometime after that.

 

[JustSomebody12]

Obviously moving the CPU up to a more advanced process would result in either performance and/or energy savings. But they are probably negligible for folks who have been tricked into leaving the screen always on.

Having a CPU that ages the battery faster is just more planned obsolescence, similar to how:

• Live Photos was enabled by default, just to waste more memory
• Turning off Live Photos is temporary by default, just to waste more memory
• There's no way to throw away the "live" part of a Live Photo, just to waste more memory
• Cropping a photo to "square" doesn't really take a smaller picture, just to waste more memory
• Cropping a video no longer throws away the rest of video, just to waste more memory

While I mostly agree about Live Photos, it’s possibile to turn them off permanently.

And reversible cropping isn’t necessarily bad…

 

[noone]

My wife and I both have Series 3 watches that are ready to be put out to pasture. Reading this makes me hesitant to jump on the 8, but I do like the idea of having crash detection which isn't available on the older models.

 

[JustSomebody12]

You realize the series 4 in series 5 both have the same CPU as well? And both were released before any lockdowns.
It’s a Watch, now that they’ve moved on to the 64-bit architecture there’s not much to change that would make any noticeable improvement.
No one complainedback in the day that the iPod classic stuck with the same processor or only got a tiny upgrade year over year.

Also Apple released the 14 iPhone with the same chip as the 13 Pro (and the 13/3rd SE, if you ignore the missing GPU core).

I think TSMC is lagging behind supply, so they chose not to upgrade the least energy-intensive product of the line-up.


Also, if they want to avoid another Series 3 debacle, this is the way.

 

[BootsWalking]

Tim Cook can still say "This new watch has the fastest Apple Watch processor we've ever created" and not be lying. 😜

 

[Jeaz]

The Ultra is too much for me, but if they add dual-GPS to the Series 9, I'll consider it a worthy upgrade from my S4.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

And the insults keep flying in. The 14 has the same chip as last years pro, BOOM! The Apple Watch series 8, SE, and Ultra have the same chip as the S6 and 7, BOOM! What's next? The new iPad's will still have the A15 and M1?

The new $329 iPad is actually rumored to stick with the A14, which is an upgrade from the previous generation’s A13.
But it really doesn’t matter because pretty much anything after the A12/S4 is still plenty fast.
I swear, I haven’t seen a single complaint about the iPhone or Apple Watch performance within the past four years, until now, when apparently the A15 with 5GPU cores and 6GB of RAM might as well be thrown in the dumpster for being so slow, and the Apple Watches CPU might as well be from the 90s with how archaic it is

 

[RalfTheDog]

Tim Cook can still say "This new watch has the fastest Apple Watch processor we've ever created" and not be lying. 😜

I am all for progress, but I have never understood why anyone would want their watch to run faster.

 

[jz0309]

Well, my S7 runs really slow… ha ha, what apps are there that need increased CPU performance? And until the S8 gets into someone’s s hands to do x-ray etc ti determine the differences …

 

[willchris]

Courage!

 

[Kazgarth]

Anyone knows if it's 7nm or 5nm based SoC ?

 

[4743913]

I hope Series 8 owners enjoy their ovulation reminders

Since John Siracusa said men can ovulate, I guess I will..

 

[johnmarki]

Yikes. The last few years have not provided me with any desire to upgrade my Watch. I'm almost in love with, and really want the Watch Ultra, but cant move myself to buy it in a color-way I don't like. Hopefully next year they will expand that to include a black/space grey/space black or whatever they call it. I feel like the Ultra is a way to get people prepared for a small visual redesign and upgrade to the non-Ultra lines. So maybe, just maybe, the Watch 9 will have upgraded chips, small redesign and battery. 🤔

 

[jurmous]

Obviously moving the CPU up to a more advanced process would result in either performance and/or energy savings. But they are probably negligible for folks who have been tricked into leaving the screen always on.

Having a CPU that ages the battery faster is just more planned obsolescence, similar to how:

• Live Photos was enabled by default, just to waste more memory
• Turning off Live Photos is temporary by default, just to waste more memory
• There's no way to throw away the "live" part of a Live Photo, just to waste more memory
• Cropping a photo to "square" doesn't really take a smaller picture, just to waste more memory
• Cropping a video no longer throws away the rest of video, just to waste more memory

You can duplicate a Live Photo as a still photo and delete the Live Photo after. The still photo will be at the same time as the Live Photo in the library.

 

[4743913]

My S7 from Walmart arrives later today. At $299 it was about the best watch deal this year. Anyone who bought the 8 got ripped off unless they wanted the crash detection.

I used my $150 gift card from my M2 MBA purchase so I paid less than you did. There is nothing else I would have ever used that gift card for, so it worked out for me going from Series 3 to Series 8 for $279

 

[alpi123]

Anyone knows if it's 7nm or 5nm based SoC ?

It's in the article.
7nm

 

[tfresquezdxs]

My main question is, does this year's apples watch support T-Mobile's LTE/5G band 71. Cause that's a big hit for T-Mobile users. IDK why apple has yet to have this band, been waiting on it since S4.