Apple introduced the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 on September 9, alongside its new iPhones. Both watches are built around a new “Health Sensing System” and Apple’s S11 chip, and both are available to pre-order now, with stores getting stock on Friday, September 18. Pricing starts at $399 for the Series 12 and $799 for the Ultra 4 in the US, and both are on the pre-order list in India from day one.
What’s Actually New: Continuous Heart Rate and a Readiness Score
The headline change is health sensing, not design. New optical and electrical heart sensors let the Series 12 and Ultra 4 measure heart rate every five seconds, all day, instead of periodically. Heart rate variability, a marker of stress and recovery, is now measured up to 24 times more often than before.
That data feeds a new “readiness” score: a single 0-10 number each morning, with a plain-language recommendation — Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready, or Go For It — built from recent activity, training load, vitals, and sleep. Apple says the underlying model came out of its Heart and Movement Study, done with outside exercise scientists and physicians.
“Apple Watch Series 12 is the most advanced health and fitness companion we’ve ever created,” said Kaiann Drance, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Apple Watch Product Marketing.
Battery life also improves. The Series 12 now manages up to 10 hours during an outdoor workout, a 25 percent gain over last year’s model, plus faster charging that adds 12 hours of use in a 15-minute top-up. The Ultra 4 goes further, with up to 50 hours of everyday battery life and a Max Extended Workout mode rated for 45 hours of continuous GPS tracking — enough, Apple says, for a 100-mile race.
Two Features You Won’t Get Right Away
Apple is framing this as a bigger software story than a hardware one, but two of the features it’s leading with in its own marketing aren’t shipping at launch. Audio Intelligence — which uses the microphone and on-device Apple Intelligence to help recall recent conversations and flag important sounds — is listed as “arriving later this year,” not on September 18. The redesigned Health app with its new Longevity tab and Health Age metric carries the same later-this-year caveat. If either of those is the reason you’re buying, know that you’re pre-ordering hardware today for software that isn’t finished yet.
Pricing and Availability
- Apple Watch Series 12: starts at $399 (US) for the 42mm GPS model; available in aluminum (dark bronze, black, light gold, space gray), titanium (radiant gold, natural), and ceramic (pearl white, night blue) finishes
- Apple Watch Ultra 4: starts at $799 (US); natural or black titanium only
Both watches are up for pre-order today in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, the UAE, the UK, the US, and more than 50 other countries and regions, with in-store availability from September 18. Apple has not yet published India-specific rupee pricing on its India store as of this writing; buyers there should check apple.com/in for local pricing before ordering.
Specifications
- Chip: Apple S11, Apple’s most powerful watch chip to date
- Case sizes: Series 12 in 42mm and 46mm; Ultra 4 in its usual single large case size
- Durability: aluminum Series 12 models now use Ceramic Shield 2 on the display
- Health sensors: new optical and electrical heart sensors, continuous 5-second heart rate sampling, higher-frequency HRV
- Software: watchOS 27, with Apple Intelligence powering Siri on both watches
Apple’s aluminum Ceramic Shield 2 claim — “60 percent tougher” than the previous glass — is the company’s own lab figure, footnoted in its release rather than independently tested. Treat it as a manufacturer claim until third-party drop tests confirm it.
Source: Apple Newsroom
