For the Series 9 smartwatch, Apple goes to great lengths to reduce its carbon footprint and deliver a wearable that's as capable as ever while being gentler on the planet. Featuring more recycled materials and manufactured entirely with clean electricity, the Apple Watch Series 9 (starting at $399) is the company's first-ever carbon-neutral product (in some configurations, at least). Powered by a super-smooth S9 processor, the Series 9 also features an impressively bright 2,000-nit display for improved outdoor visibility without an impact on battery life. In addition, it offers support for a handy double-tap gesture, on-device Siri processing, and an on-trend pink color option. Though seemingly minor, these updates keep the Apple Watch Series 9 far ahead of the pack, making it our Editors' Choice smartwatch for iPhone users.
The Best Watch for Barbie
At $399, the Series 9 sits between the rugged Ultra 2 ($799) and the entry-level Watch SE ($249). Generally speaking, the Series 9 is the best option for most people, while the Ultra 2 is a better pick for outdoor adventurers and the Watch SE is positioned as the sensible choice for children, older adults, and budget-conscious buyers.
The Series 9 ships with watchOS 10, the latest version of Apple's smartwatch operating system, which includes a Smart Stack of widgets, fresh watch faces (including a Snoopy-themed clock), new mental health and vision health tools, additional cycling and compass features, and more. All three Apple Watches require an iPhone Xs or later with iOS 17 or later and do not work with Android handsets. The opposite is true for their main competitors: Samsung's WearOS-powered Galaxy Watch 6 series and Google's Pixel Watch only work with Android handsets and do not support iPhones.
Design-wise, the Series 9 looks nearly identical to its predecessor and has the same case dimensions, 1.7mm display borders, and two-button configuration.
Similar Products
The heart of the Series 9 (and the Ultra 2) is Apple's S9 System in Package (SiP) chip, an upgrade from the S8 in the previous models that allows for a new double-tap gesture for one-handed operation, on-device Siri processing for voice requests that don't need internet access, and an increase in screen brightness without a reduction in battery life.
As with the previous two generations, you can choose from 41mm (small) and 45mm (large) case sizes, in either aluminum or stainless steel, with the base connectivity suite (Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi) or added cellular support. In each case, the latter option costs extra.
Stainless steel models have a shiny polished finish that looks more expensive than the base matte aluminum, and a more durable sapphire crystal display as opposed to Ion-X glass. A cellular connection, which requires a separate plan through your phone carrier (typically $10 per month), lets you call, stream, and message on the watch when your iPhone isn't nearby. All Series 9 models are IP6X dustproof and WR50 water resistant to 164 feet, making them safe for shallow-water activities like swimming.
In the era of Barbiecore, Apple has added a new Pink aluminum case option to the mix. The other color options are the same as the last generation: Aluminum models also come in Midnight, (Product)Red, Silver, or Starlight, while stainless steel versions come in Gold, Graphite, or Silver.
For this review, Apple loaned me the smaller 41mm Series 9 in Pink with cellular connectivity. The company also loaned me a Nike Sport Band in Magic Ember, which you can see in some of the photos in this review, as well as an iPhone 15 and a pair of AirPods Pro for testing with the watch.
For fans of the color pink, this new option alone might warrant an upgrade. The Pink Series 9 is more on the cool side of the color spectrum than the rose gold tone of previous Apple Watches. It should match well with any silver jewelry you might want to wear alongside it. And some buyers will likely be ecstatic that the iPhone 15 also comes in a complementary shade of pink. They don't seem to be the exact same tone, but they will pair well together all the same.
Mother Nature Approved
Apple aims to make all of its products carbon neutral by 2030. All aluminum Series 9 models paired with a new Sport Loop band are carbon neutral, as denoted by a green leaf logo on the packaging. Apple also offers carbon-neutral combinations for the Ultra 2 and the Watch SE.
"Each carbon-neutral Apple Watch model meets the following strict criteria: 100% clean electricity for manufacturing and product use, 30% recycled or renewable material by weight, and 50% of shipping without the use of air transportation," Apple says. "These combined efforts result in at least a 75% reduction in product emissions for each model."
The Series 9's aluminum case; copper, gold, tin, and tungsten interior components; and battery-bound cobalt are all 100% recycled. The new Sport Loop band is now made with 82% recycled yarn but still feels the same as before.
The Series 9 is packaged in a slightly smaller box made entirely with fiber, and Apple is shifting from air shipping to lower-carbon modes like ocean freight to transport units from assembly sites to their ports of entry. Don't worry: Even with the new packaging, the Series 9 offers the same premium unboxing experience for which Apple products are known.
Apple is offsetting remaining emissions from the Series 9, including the estimated amount of electricity customers will use to charge it, via "high-quality carbon credits" to achieve its goal.
As part of its climate pledge, Apple is removing leather from all products, including watch bands and phone cases, due to its environmental impact. On a personal note, as a vegan for the past decade, I commend this decision and hope other wearable device makers follow suit.
To fill the gap, Apple has introduced a new premium textile for watch bands: FineWoven. It's buttery soft, like premium yoga pants, but strong and sturdy like leather. FineWoven is available in two new watch band styles: Modern Buckle and Magnetic Link. Of course, you'll still be able to get leather bands for the Apple Watch from third-party retailers, including Hermes, but not from Apple itself.
2,000-Nit Brightness With No Hit to Battery Life
The Series 9's always-on display can shine twice as bright as its predecessor—up to 2,000 nits—matching the Galaxy Watch 6 series and the original Apple Watch Ultra. The Ultra 2, meanwhile, gets a 50% brightness bump to 3,000 nits. The affordable Watch SE, for comparison, has a 1,000-nit display and no always-on mode.
Indoors, I don't notice a difference in the Series 9's display from this generation to the last. Its LTPO OLED panel is exceptionally colorful and vibrant, but the same is true for last year's models.
Outdoors in the sunlight, the Series 9's brighter screen improves visibility to a noticeable degree. This will reduce eye strain when you're trying to read small text on or follow the Compass app when the sun is shining on you. While tracking a beach run along the sunny Florida Gulf Coast, for example, I had no problem seeing my metrics on the Series 9's screen mid-workout. With dimmer displays, I often have to squint to read the screen under the sun or rotate my wrist to an angle that reduces glare.
The Series 9 has three brightness levels (accessible via Settings > Display & Brightness), and regardless of your setting, it uses its ambient light sensor to read the amount of light in the environment and automatically adjust the display brightness for optimal visibility and battery life. As a result, it only shines at 2,000 nits when you're outside in the bright sunlight (or if you're standing inside under harsh fluorescent lights), and limits its brightness indoors most of the time to save battery life.
Conversely, when using Sleep Focus mode in a dark room the Series 9 will now dim to a single nit (from 2 nits last generation) to reduce disturbance for light sleepers.
Thanks to the power efficiency of the S9 chip, the increase in screen brightness does not come with a reduction in battery life over the Series 8, which is my main complaint about the Galaxy Watch 6 series. In testing, the Series 9 powered through about 32.5 hours on a charge with normal use and the always-on display enabled at max screen brightness, which are similar results to the Series 8.
Battery life varies depending on your settings and use, but Apple's official battery life claims for its latest smartwatches remain the same as last generation: 18 hours on a charge for the Series 9 and 36 hours for the Ultra 2. Apple Watches tend to outperform their manufacturer-stated estimates in the real world, and I'm happy that's still the case for the Series 9.
In comparison, the Galaxy Watch 6 series lasted 22 hours on a charge in testing—less than a full day—with the always-on display enabled and the brightness turned all the way up to 2,000 nits. Enabling the battery-saving Adaptive Brightness mode only extended it to 24 hours. Moreover, switching the always-on display off also only increased battery life to 24 hours. The Galaxy Watch may allow for more granular control over screen brightness with a slider, but the Apple Watch's three settings get the job done.
Double Tap for One-Handed Operation
Enabled by default, a double-tap gesture lets you perform various actions on your Apple Watch without needing to touch it. For instance, you can quickly tap your pointer finger and thumb together twice to open your Smart Stack of widgets, answer and end calls, start and stop timers, play and pause music, take a photo, and more. This feature won't be available until later this month, but I had the opportunity to test it in preview and found it to be reliable.
The main thing to know is that you need to raise your wrist before performing the gesture. When my wrist is down or resting in my lap, the double-tap gesture doesn't always work. But when I lift my wrist toward my face, it works every time. I quickly got the hang of it and memorized how to perform it after a few tries. You should use your pointer finger and thumb when performing the gesture, though it typically still works with your middle or ring fingers.
If you have a passcode on your Apple Watch, it needs to be unlocked for double tap to work.
False positives shouldn't be a problem. I tried triggering the gesture by quickly snapping my fingers, as you might do while listening to music or dancing, and it didn't register as a double tap.
From the watch face, a double tap opens your Smart Stack. After opening the Smart Stack, subsequent double taps let you scroll through your widgets. In Settings, you can change this to open your top widget instead of advancing through them, if you prefer.
The gesture otherwise corresponds to what's happening on your watch at that moment. When receiving an incoming call, for instance, a double tap will answer. While on a call, a double tap will end it.
It's hard to really understand how cool the new Apple Watch double tap gesture is until you try it for yourself. I already know I'll rely on double tap while teaching sculpt yoga classes, which typically incorporate one-minute planks that I time using my Apple Watch. I added a one-minute timer complication to the watch face for quick access, and now with a double tap I can start and stop the countdown while keeping my eyes on the class.
That's just one use case specific to my life, but I can see double tap being helpful in many other situations. If, for instance, the Apple Watch automatically detects a workout and asks if you want to start tracking it, you can use double tap to accept, which should be a lot easier than tapping the screen with your other hand mid-workout.
If you set a timer on your Apple Watch to remind yourself to shake your food in the air fryer, you can quickly use the double tap gesture to turn off the alarm while grabbing the basket handle with the other hand. Or, if you're walking in the house with your arms full of groceries and an important call comes in, you can use double tap to answer.
Though similar accessibility-focused features are available for earlier versions of the Apple Watch, this latest iteration of the double-tap gesture relies on the S9 SiP, so it is only available for the Series 9 and Ultra 2. Without getting too technical, it uses data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and optical heart sensor, along with a new sensor-fusion machine learning algorithm to detect the small wrist movements and changes in blood flow that correspond to the double tap action. Though double tap is enabled by default (removing the friction of having to manually set it up), you can turn it off if you want. The existing AssistiveTouch gestures, available on the Apple Watch Series 4 and later, allow for more customization than the double-tap feature—you just have to manually enable them.
A True Lifestyle and Health Companion
With Siri on your wrist, you can set timers, start a workout, make a call, and more all with the sound of your voice. The S9 chip has a four-core Neural Engine that accelerates machine learning tasks, enabling on-device Siri processing. In other words, Siri requests that don't need information from the internet, like calling someone from your contacts, are now executed right on your watch without having to first go to the cloud. You're unlikely to notice this change, but it should improve Siri's reliability and speed up responses when you have a poor network connection.
Moreover, with on-device Siri processing, you'll soon be able to access and log health data on your Apple Watch by voice for the first time. Siri will be able to answer questions like, "How many hours of sleep did I get last night," "What is my average walking heart rate," and "How am I doing on my Activity rings?" The virtual assistant will also let you log data such as your weight, period, and medications. You can also use Siri to access data from third-party HealthKit-connected apps and devices, such as blood glucose monitors. At the time of this writing, these features are not yet available for testing, but Apple plans to launch Siri health data access later this year.
The S9 SiP enables another handy new feature called Precision Finding. If you're anything like me, you use your Apple Watch to ping your misplaced iPhone all the time. Now, when you ping an iPhone 15 from the Series 9 or the Ultra 2, you'll see the distance and direction of your missing handset on the watch's display. Precision Finding relies on the second-generation Ultra Wideband (UWB) chip in the S9 and the iPhone 15 family, so it doesn't work with older Apple Watches and iPhones.
Precision Finding works well, even from a different room. I generally have no problem finding my iPhone with just the ringing sound, but the new Precision Finding experience could be really helpful if you misplace your phone in a loud environment. If you can't hear the ringing sound, seeing on your watch screen that you're within feet of your phone is reassuring, and in testing, the direction ark accurately guided me to it.
The UWB chip will also soon enable new integration with the HomePod. When the Series 9 comes within 13 feet of a HomePod that is playing music, it will automatically launch Now Playing so you can control the audio from the watch. If nothing is playing on the HomePod, the watch will offer media suggestions at the top of the Smart Stack. This HomePod integration is slated to launch later this year, so I couldn't test it for this review.
The Series 9 otherwise continues to offer a fantastic range of lifestyle, health, and safety features, including blood oxygen, ECG, and temperature sensors that are not available on the Watch SE. The App Store lets you browse and download third-party watchOS apps directly on the watch, including popular favorites like Calm, Pandora, Peloton, Shazam, Spotify, Starbucks, and Strava, just to name a few. Google's rival WearOS platform also offers a wide selection via the Play Store, but it still trails watchOS in terms of high-quality third-party watch apps.
The Series 9 is also an excellent fitness tracker, offering accurate workout pulse readings compared with a chest strap and a dedicated optical armband heart rate monitor. For a 30-minute beach run, the Series 9 said I had an average heart rate of 175bpm and a maximum heart rate of 187bpm, while a Polar OH1 tracking my pulse from the opposite arm offered nearly identical measurements, at 174bpm average and 187bpm max.
Moreover, while many wrist-based optical heart rate trackers tend to exhibit a slight lag when detecting rapid pulse change during workouts, I haven't found that to be the case with the Series 9. Following a 20-second maximum-intensity sprint on the Carol 2.0 indoor bike, during which my heart rate shot up to 160-plus bpm, the Series 9 detected the elevated pulse just as quickly as a chest strap.
Still the Best Smartwatch
The Apple Watch Series 9 offers just enough improvement to remain the best smartwatch for iPhone users. Its powerful S9 processor enables hands-free double-tap gestures, on-device Siri processing, and a brighter display without impacting battery life. We also appreciate the carbon-neutral build option and applaud Apple's decision to phase out leather accessories. With a more practical price and design than the high-end Ultra 2, as well as a superior display and health sensors than the entry-level Watch SE, the Series 9 is the best smartwatch in Apple's lineup for most buyers. The updates aren't quite enough to warrant upgrading from last year's model, but if you're in the market for a feature-rich, iPhone-compatible smartwatch to stay connected, keep tabs on your health, and track your fitness, the Apple Watch Series 9 is our Editors' Choice winner.
The Apple Watch Series 9 has a faster processor, a brighter display, and a more eco-friendly build than its predecessor, making it the best smartwatch for iPhone owners.
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