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Yet the prices still increased with the new models. Are people starting to realise Apple has been overpricing its products by hundreds of pounds the last 5 years.
 
Going to be a tough year for apple… think this is the turn of the tide.

Time to innovate.

Trading on coattails of the past.

Trading on coattails of the past using old tech but yet for reasons unknown increasing prices each year when the price the year before was already overpriced.

All of their products need a massive price correction. iPhone Pro Max shouldn't be breaching the £1000 barrier. The studio display is worth £500 not £1500. The MacBook Pros are around £500-£1000 overpriced.

They keep pushing prices higher and higher but there will be a breaking point and hopefully they take a massive massive hit in sales to force them to change.
 
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I take it you have never dealt with buying a car, it’s the same thing. Minor cosmetic changes.
No, I am one who buys the cars I love, that is, I study them well, drive them, try them and try them again, and then I keep them forever. I am not someone who buys bins that are updated every 6 months with some aesthetic retouching, in fact I have vintage cars and motorcycles, not bins from the last 20 years or worse electric.
Same with Apple products: I don’t recycle or sell them.
 
I don’t think this is a huge problem because the Apple Watch has always performed well with the exception of the series 0.

I can’t confirm for series 1,2 and 3 but I had the 0 which was dreadfully slow and the series 4 which performed fine.

Now on the series 7.

The Apple Watch is an accessory first and if it’s current chipset is more than capable of supporting it’s functions and features then there’s no need to push it.

Much prefer apple to focus on features that can improve people’s quality of life which is what’s happening.

We don’t use our watches like iPhones, iPads and Macs.

So we shouldn’t need to treat its chipset likes it’s one of those devices.

Of course I’d be against them branding the chip as a next gen if they haven’t made any tweaks.

I know they have been adding a new number but I’d be curious if the S6, 7 and 8 have suitable differences to justify changing the S number but I guess Apple aren’t the type to get into the nitty gritty of things.

As long as it works right?
I read somewhere that the CPU part has the same “model” number on the 6, 7 and 8, so assume it’s the same.
 
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.
This is on point. I work from home and work gets done when I’m not living my life. However, I’ve also quit smoking, don't use drugs or alcohol any more, have lost 55 lbs in past year and don’t need BP meds any more and am running 3 miles a day. My age has reversed what feels like 20 years. But I still agree, for performance on the job, the office is where it is at and people like me will be cut first, retire first, be passed up for promotion, and drift into obscurity.
 
The ultra is about as much as the stainless steel watch with 4G. At arguably worse margin. So it’s not totally unreasonable that it could come to the S9, at least stainless steel version.
OK, so it really demonstrates how incredible the ripoff is to just get the SS case material.
 
Hanging on to my Series 4 for another year. Still just as fast as the day I bought it even with watchOS 9 beta
Same. I think the Ultra 2 is gonna be a great upgrade from my Series 4 and on 3nm chips the battery life should be even more amazing. I’m hoping for reduced bezels around 50mm, an upgraded chip, and at least one of the long-rumored heart sensors such as blood pressure or glucose, two things I have to be careful with given my family medical history and what feels like rapidly advancing age. The upside to getting older is that yearly product upgrades feel like they hit a lot faster. But so will death.

I also kinda wonder if they will make a smaller version of the Ultra if there are big battery life improvements from the 3nm chips? They might also add 5G but I don’t get the point of that in a watch. Guess it depends how efficient they can run it. Satellite SOS would be cool.
 


The S8 chip in the Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra, and second-generation Apple Watch SE features the same CPU as the S6 and S7 chips, according to identifier codes.

f1662570472.jpg

The CPU within Apple's S8 SiP carries the same T8301 identifier as the CPU in the S6 and S7 chips that debuted in the Apple Watch Series 6 and Apple Watch Series 7. This explains why Apple has only compared its S-series chips in recent years to the S5 chip or earlier.

It also means that the Apple Watch Series 6, Apple Watch Series 7, Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra, and second-generation Apple Watch SE all feature the exact same CPU. It is worth noting that Apple may have still iterated on other parts of the SiP to accommodate new components such as the Apple Watch Series 8's new accelerometer and gyroscope.

The S6, S7, and S8 chips all feature 32GB of storage and dual-core CPUs. When Apple debuted the S6 in the Apple Watch Series 6, the last time it made performance claims about its latest smartwatch lineup, it said that the chip allowed apps to launch 20 percent faster.

The S6, S7, and S8 are based on Apple's A13 Bionic chip from the iPhone 11 lineup and are manufactured using TSMC's 7nm process. Apple transitioned to TSMC's 5nm process starting with the A14 Bionic chip, and the iPhone 14 Pro's A16 Bionic is the first Apple chip to be fabricated with a 4nm process.

One explanation for Apple not advancing the CPU technology in its S-series chips is potential that advancements from using the cores in the A14 chip and TSMC's 5nm or 4nm processes would primarily yield performance improvements, which are no longer essential for the Apple Watch. Waiting for TSMC's 3nm process, which is set to enter mass production toward the end of this year, could yield more meaningful efficiency improvements – an area of much greater importance when it comes to the Apple Watch because it could help prolong battery life.

Article Link: Apple Watch's S8 Chip Features Same CPU as S6 and S7
My series 4 is still ticking, and I love it! Guess I'm going to wait again.
 
An Ultra was in my plans, but on this chip-info I’ve decided, won’t getting it. I’m okay with my SS S7 for another year.
 
I‘d rather upgrade to the series 7 steel for $500 than the 8 from my series 6 steel. The bigger display is what interests me most. Apart from that the series 6 lives on for another year
 
Disappointing news for sure, but I am still keeping my order for the Ultra version. Although it would be great having extra power on a newer chip, I am excited for all the new capabilities and features it will offer. It is also worth noting how much bang for you buck you get when compared to previous titanium versions of AWs, where the only premium thing they offered with a $700+ AW was the enclosure itself. Anyway, looking forward to my delivery day!
 
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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

Where's your sarcasm /s flag on this comment? If you were serious... oh my. I feel sorry for somebody. 🙃
 
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Same. I think the Ultra 2 is gonna be a great upgrade from my Series 4 and on 3nm chips the battery life should be even more amazing. I’m hoping for reduced bezels around 50mm, an upgraded chip, and at least one of the long-rumored heart sensors such as blood pressure or glucose...
Yup, I think I'm going to hold out for the Ultra 2 as well. I figure they have to move the CPU to at least 5nm+ next year, but hopefully 4nm or 3nm. I'm hoping for a screen that fills out more of the case with reduced bezels, too. I LOVE the design of the Ultra, it's so incredibly nice, and I'm hoping the casing design and orange accents remain unchanged next year. I'll upgrade my S5 then.
 
Where's your sarcasm /s flag on this comment? If you were serious... oh my. I feel sorry for somebody. 🙃
You've obviously never looked at the photo albums of the average iPhone user. They have 1000s of live photos filling up their storage, and they don't even know what they are. It was a blatant decision to push novice users into subscribing to iCloud, and eventually upgrading their subscriptions to handle the bogus crap foisted on them by Apple.
 
Will continue using my series 6 but this may be my last Apple Watch period once its over and done with.
 
I feel the deep discount on S7 earlier this year was the wisest move. As a dude.

Blue.
Used that opportunity to upgrade my mother in laws AW4 LTE, even at something like 87% battery health it wasn't lasting her a full day on the weekends. She's loving the increased screen size of the AW7 LTE.

----------------

Another reason to skip this generation. We do still have one AW4 LTE user that needs an upgrade, hopefully I can find another AW7 at a discount. EDIT: Picked up a 45mm on amazon for $400, cheaper than the 41mm I picked up in July for my mother in law ($419).
 
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My series 6 still feels brand new. Doesnt lag, battery lasts all day and then some, etc.

Will wait for redesign or a 41mm smaller Ultra
 
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