Jack Slade

Same 49mm titanium case and a $50 price reduction. But the new S11 chip and 18 hours of continuous GPS mean the Ultra can now cover a full Ironman without dropping into Low Power Mode. By Jack Slade 10 September 2026 · 3 min read Every year the Apple Watch Ultra arrives with a spec sheet that reads like a shrug and a real-world change buried inside it. The Ultra 4, unveiled at Apple Park overnight, is the sharpest example yet. There is no redesign.

There's a moment, Robin Barnes tells me, when you step off the plane in New Orleans and something shifts. "People say they can taste the city when they land," she says, laughing. "I call that humidity. But there is something." She pauses, then: "It makes you feel at home instantly." Barnes would know. The Songbird of New Orleans is a ninth-generation local of a city with history that stretches back further than the United States itself. New Orleans is over 300 years old; America is celebrating 250.