Apple unveils Apple Watch Ultra 4

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 9, 2026--

Apple® today introduced Apple Watch Ultra® 4 — the ultimate sports and adventure watch — now including new, advanced health and fitness features, and longer battery life.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260909667616/en/

Engineered with the new Health Sensing System and S11 chip, Apple Watch Ultra 4 delivers the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable, 1 higher-frequency heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) measurements, and a new readiness score to support athletes of all kinds. Apple Watch Ultra 4 also offers extended battery life to track outdoor workouts for up to 45 hours, and the most accurate on-device GPS in a sports watch. 2 A redesigned Health app on iPhone® arrives later this year, including a new Longevity tab with a Health Age feature showing how metrics are tracking relative to a user’s age. In addition to powering the Health Sensing System, the S11 chip — Apple’s most powerful wearable chip — enables new Audio Intelligence features arriving later this year, to help users remember key moments from their conversations and stay alert to important sounds, built with privacy, security, and accessibility innovations at the core. 3 With watchOS® 27, Apple Intelligence™ powers Siri® AI on Apple Watch®, bringing personal context understanding and broad world knowledge to the wrist.

These features add to the many ways Apple Watch Ultra already supports users with advanced workout tracking across activities, sleep tracking, powerful health features like heart health notifications and the ECG app, 4 and game-changing safety capabilities like satellite communications. 5 Apple Watch Ultra 4 is the most comprehensive wearable across health, fitness, and safety. 6

Apple Watch Ultra 4 comes in sleek and durable natural and black titanium options. It is available to pre-order today, with availability beginning Friday, September 18.

“The new Health Sensing System and S11 chip take Apple Watch Ultra 4 — our most rugged and capable Apple Watch — to the next level, delivering longer battery life, faster charging, and the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable,” said Kaiann Drance, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Apple Watch Product Marketing. “With powerful health and fitness insights including readiness, new intelligent features, and its large, bright display, Apple Watch Ultra 4 is designed to support you wherever you go, from your workouts, to adventures, to everything you tackle in a day.”

The Most Accurate Heart Rate Sensing in a Wearable

Apple Watch Ultra 4 is re-architected to provide continuous high-fidelity health monitoring using the Health Sensing System, featuring new optical and electrical heart sensors. Using this system and the S11 chip, Apple Watch Ultra 4 offers the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. A scientifically rigorous study on a diverse population of over 1,000 participants compared the new heart rate sensing accuracy on Apple Watch against leading wearables, with Apple Watch showing the highest accuracy across devices.

With larger, power-efficient green LEDs on the optical heart sensor, Apple Watch Ultra 4 now measures heart rate every five seconds, all day long. This continuous passive measurement delivers deeper insight into a user’s fitness and physiological state while making Exercise and Move Activity rings even more accurate. Users can view their real-time heart rate at a glance throughout their day on a new heart rate watch face complication.

HRV, a key indicator of stress and recovery, is now measured up to 24 times more often and available to view in a new section of the Heart Rate app. Apple Watch provides two separate variants of HRV for better understanding of a user’s health status. Recovery HRV is best for identifying daily signals of stress and recovery, while overall HRV is best for insights into a user’s broader health, including cardiovascular health. Higher variability is generally associated with better overall recovery, while a lower variability value is an indicator of stress.

Overnight vitals now includes recovery HRV measurements analyzed against a user’s personal baseline, providing a more complete view of their health status. 7 A new daytime vitals view lets users toggle between overnight and daytime metrics, and can potentially spot shifts in their metrics before they show up overnight.

Readiness: A Daily Read on the Body’s Capacity

Apple Watch Ultra 4 introduces readiness, a new feature that analyzes a user’s recent activity, training load, vitals, and sleep score to offer insight into their capacity for the day ahead. Readiness provides a single 0-10 score each day with a clear, actionable recommendation: Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready, or Go For It. This helps a user decide how to take on their day, whether they’re headed into a workday or tackling their training plan.

Readiness updates throughout the day as new data comes in, to reflect, for example, an intense workout or a shift in daytime vitals. Readiness clearly highlights which factors are driving the score and allows users to tap into more details. The scoring algorithm was developed using data from the Apple Heart and Movement Study, in collaboration with exercise scientists and physicians at Apple.

Longer Battery Life and Faster Charging

For everyday use, Apple Watch Ultra 4 now offers more than two days of battery life, up to 50 hours. In Low Power Mode, it offers up to 84 hours of battery life. 8 Charging is now faster than ever: Just 15 minutes adds up to 18 hours of additional battery life. 9

For outdoor workout tracking, the new Extended Workout mode delivers up to 25 hours of battery life for tracking workouts with full GPS and heart rate readings — a 25 percent increase from the previous model. For even longer workouts, the Max Extended Workout mode allows Apple Watch Ultra 4 to track outdoor runs, walks, and hikes for up to 45 hours, typically enough to finish a 100-mile race, while still taking GPS readings every second. 10

The Most Accurate Step Tracking of Any Smartwatch

The pedometer model has been completely redesigned with new machine learning algorithms and the S11 chip to provide more accurate distance measurements during indoor walk or run workouts, and more accurate step counts all day. As a result, Apple Watch Ultra 4 now offers the most accurate step tracking of any smartwatch. 11 The S11 chip also enables the brand-new Steps complication, so users can track their steps in real time, right from their watch face.

A Redesigned Health App Offering a Holistic View of Long-Term Health

The Health app on iPhone serves as a central and secure location for a user’s health and fitness information, uniquely positioning it to provide a better understanding of a user’s health. The Health app has been redesigned to dynamically respond to a user’s data using Apple Intelligence, with a new Insights tab that surfaces timely health information and a new Longevity tab that analyzes a user’s longitudinal health data for deeper insights. The Longevity tab includes Health Age, an Apple Watch feature that shows users how certain metrics are tracking relative to their actual age. 12

The Health app also includes movement evaluations that measure flexibility, strength, balance, and more using vision-based AI models on iPhone and heart rate data from Apple Watch. Users will be able to schedule and purchase new labs that feature over 50 key biomarkers for $119 directly through the Health app at approximately 2,000 Quest Diagnostics locations in the U.S. The redesigned Health app will arrive later this year, starting in U.S. English.

Audio Intelligence: A New Way to Stay More Present and Engaged Throughout the Day

Since Apple Watch is always on a user’s wrist, it is the perfect device to help users stay alert to important sounds and stay present and engaged in conversations throughout the day. With the built-in microphone, the power of the S11 chip, the latest Apple Intelligence models on iPhone, and Private Cloud Compute, Apple Watch Ultra 4 offers a brand-new class of Apple Intelligence features. Audio Intelligence helps users stay aware of the world around them, catch what they missed, and remember key moments — with user control, privacy, security, and accessibility at the center of its design.

Audio Intelligence features include:

Privacy by Design

Audio Intelligence features are private by design, combining hardware, software, and services to protect user privacy in a way that only Apple can. These features do not create or store audio recordings, and raw audio used for processing is completely inaccessible to the operating systems, apps, the user, or Apple. This is because the S11 chip on Apple Watch Ultra 4 includes Secure Exclave, a dedicated hardware-isolated compartment that processes audio in complete isolation from the rest of the system, then immediately deletes it.

Users are in control and can choose whether to opt in to each Audio Intelligence feature. They can decide exactly where and when Siri Recap takes notes, and can turn Siri Recap on or off at any time, right from Control Center.

By design, Audio Intelligence features do not identify and attribute speakers, to protect the privacy of both the user and those around them. Siri Recap produces a brief, high-level summary of conversations — not a transcript — and is designed to exclude sensitive information like financial information or government-assigned identifiers. Live Rewind plays an audible chime when it is being used, even if Apple Watch is on silent, and shows a full-display animation and microphone indicator so people nearby can hear and see that the feature has been activated.

Live Rewind text snippets and Siri Recap summaries are end-to-end encrypted in the Siri app with iCloud® syncing, and are not accessible even by Apple. Read more about how Audio Intelligence protects privacy. Siri Recap and Live Rewind arrive in beta later this year.

Siri AI Brings Personal Context Understanding and Broad World Knowledge

With watchOS 27, Apple Watch Ultra 4 supports Siri AI, an entirely new version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence. The new Siri app lets users continue conversations on the go and tap into Apple Intelligence capabilities — like personal context understanding and broad world knowledge — making Apple Watch an even more intelligent companion on the wrist. A new Siri Modular watch face makes it even easier to access Siri throughout the day. 13

Featuring watchOS 27

watchOS 27 brings a range of additional updates to Apple Watch Ultra 4, including:

Lineup and Bands

Apple Watch Ultra 4 is available in natural and black titanium.

This fall’s band lineup features new colors across the range. Trail Loop now comes in dark umber, sand, and burgundy, while Alpine Loop comes in desert, dark olive, and burgundy.

Ocean Bands are now made from a unique translucent silicone, which comes in three new colors: translucent gray, translucent kelp, and translucent black.

Apple Watch Hermès Ultra 4

In addition to Apple Watch Hermès Ultra 4 available in natural titanium, the Apple Watch Hermès collection introduces a bold new Grand H titanium band featuring a built-in extension mechanism to conveniently adjust the band to fit over a wet suit. Apple Watch Hermès Ultra 4 also features the new Fathom and Wonder watch face, which allows users to explore an illustration of the ocean’s depths. Rotate the Digital Crown to select one of four watch face options, from the surface to the seabed. Each option features a unique shade of blue and distinct animations.

Apple Watch Ultra 4 and the Environment

The new Apple Watch Ultra 4 was built with the environment in mind and drives progress toward Apple’s ambitious plan to be carbon neutral across its entire footprint by 2030. It is made with 45 percent recycled material overall, 17 including 100 percent recycled titanium in the 3D-printed titanium case and 100 percent recycled cobalt in the battery. All of the electricity used to manufacture Apple Watch Ultra 4 is sourced from renewable energy, like wind and solar, across the supply chain, and Apple has also invested in enough renewable energy around the world to match the electricity customers use to charge their Apple Watch. Like all Apple products, its paper packaging is 100 percent fiber-based 18 and can be easily recycled at home.

Pricing and Availability

Footnotes

^ Apple Upgrade lease: This offer is for a consumer lease, not a purchase or loan. Lease provided by Klarna Inc. for a 12- or 24-month term. Your first monthly payment is due approximately 30 days after device is shipped or available for pickup. Lease approval is subject to eligibility and is based on creditworthiness. Monthly payments are based on the selected device and lease term.

For example: For Apple Watch Ultra 4 with a purchase price of $799 (U.S.) (excluding taxes and any trade-in credit), the typical monthly payment is $24.99 (U.S.) (excluding taxes and any trade-in credit) for a 24-month lease term and $44.99 (U.S.) (excluding taxes and any trade-in credit) for a 12-month lease term.

No security deposit required. A trade-in device may reduce monthly payments. Advertised monthly payment amount may not include a trade-in device’s estimated value. Upgrades are not guaranteed and are subject to eligibility and approval.

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Apple Upgrade lease eligibility: Leases are only available to U.S. residents (excluding residents of U.S. territories). Leased devices are only available for shipping to U.S. addresses (excluding U.S. territories) or pickup at Apple Retail stores in the U.S. (excluding U.S. territories). To be eligible for a lease, you must be at least 18 years old (or the legal age in your state of residence), have a valid Social Security number or individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN), have an accepted credit or debit card, have an Apple Account in good standing, have a Klarna account, and be able to receive security verification codes via text message. Leases are not available on refurbished accessories or online at the following special stores: Apple Employee Purchase Plan; participating corporate Employee Purchase Programs; Apple at Work for small businesses or enterprises; Government, Education, or Veterans and Military Purchase Programs.

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Apple Watch Ultra 4, the ultimate sports and adventure watch, now includes new, advanced health and fitness features, and longer battery life.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Elon Musk spent at least $445 million in a gambit to help Republicans keep control of Congress, an amount roughly equivalent to someone on a $100,000 annual salary saving every penny for 4,400 years.

To the world's first trillionaire, it's a pittance, but the billions of dollars' worth of business his companies do with the federal government is not. And on Tuesday night, a Republican Party that had embraced Musk lost again and again, ceding control of Congress to a Democratic Party leery of the world's richest person and keen to put his companies and his work at the Department of Government Efficiency under a microscope.

Nobody may have suffered bigger losses Tuesday than President Donald Trump. But few others had more on the line than Musk, who gambled big and came up holding the midterm’s worst return on investment. Democrats in Congress were already queuing to get their shot at Musk, with possible subpoenas and investigations.

As the bloodiest election for Republicans in recent history wore on, Musk joked on X, the social media site he owns. “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time,” he wrote with a shrug emoji.

Musk now faces new threats to his bottom line in places including Texas, where he has based himself and several of his companies. Musk spent at least $5 million to try to reelect Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who lost. Democrats also secured control of the Texas House and the U.S. Senate, partly by beating Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who effectively benefited from $158 million of Musk's spending but lost his Senate race against Democrat James Talarico.

It was the first statewide win for Democrats in Texas in more than 30 years, and the candidates won in part by hammering Musk, the tax breaks and grants his companies receive, and his relationships with elected Republicans.

“This era of open corruption is going to come to an end,” said Rep. Gene Wu, chairman of the state legislature's newly empowered Democratic Caucus.

Musk did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Slightly more than half of Texas voters said they had an unfavorable opinion of Musk, according to The AP Voter Poll of more than 5,000 voters in the state. While Musk is overwhelmingly viewed positively by MAGA Republicans, those numbers dip for non-MAGA GOP voters and plummet for independent and Democratic voters.

Those were the voters who Talarico and Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who beat Abbott in the governor's race, were targeting. The two often framed politics not through partisanship but as billionaires versus everyday Texans, and Musk's emergence as a major Republican benefactor played into that message.

“Paxton is funded by one dude. Elon Musk wants our land. He wants our water. He wants our tax dollars. He wants his very own personal United States senator,” Talarico told a crowd in his final rally of the election, just after Hinojosa gave a similar excoriation on the same Austin stage.

“We know that Elon Musk got a $1.7 billion property tax break here in Texas, property taxes that the rest of us have to pay full price on," Hinojosa said.

Even as Musk's money helped blanket Texas in negative ads largely against Talarico, the Democrats' message was aimed at the heart of an electorate whose median household income of $85,000 a year is under a pressure test as the prices of gas, groceries, rents and mortgages keep climbing.

Outgoing Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said there was a point where the sheer amount of Musk’s donations became unhelpful to the GOP’s effort.

“You’re reaching the upper bound of the benefit of any of these dollars,” he said in an interview. “People are so turned off by all of the ads, and all you’re doing is running the same ad every single time.”

Musk’s two publicly traded companies, Tesla and SpaceX, both saw prices for their shares drop considerably on Wednesday even as the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index climbed.

Tesla shares declined Wednesday afternoon and wiped out about $40 billion from the electric carmaker’s market capitalization, standing at $1.54 trillion. SpaceX also lost about $40 billion from its market value, now at $1.83 trillion.

Musk lost about $45 billion of his net worth on Wednesday, which stood at $865.6 billion, according to Forbes, though it could rebound.

Investors are signaling some jitters about the impact of the election on Musk’s businesses. Worries that he may face congressional investigations “contributed to the early plunge for his benchmark firms," said Joe Mazzola, head trading and derivatives strategist at Charles Schwab.

Musk’s genius is also his danger, said Michael Morris, a professor of leadership at Columbia Business School.

“I can understand that the same strategic mind that makes him so good at some of the business ventures and the hedging, it makes him think that he can also take control of politics, but it’s a different animal,” he said.

"He obviously has way more money than he will ever need, and his companies are doing well,” Morris continued. “I do think it’s kind of a game to him.”

Democrats have not forgotten Musk's time in Washington last year heading DOGE, which blitzed through agencies culling federal workers, and a recent fiasco in which SpaceX internet service in Ukraine, Starlink, was throttled amid the war with Russia.

“Elon Musk waved a chain saw on stage and laughed while he fired public servants and gutted the services Americans rely on,” wrote Rep. James Walkinshaw, a Virginia Democrat, in an X post just before the election. “He must answer for it under oath.”

Back home in Texas, with an incoming Democratic governor, Musk's dealings with the state, including tax breaks, could face similar scrutiny.

In August, Musk's companies received a $30 million grant through a state program to build a semiconductor plant that is estimated to create 3,000 jobs, one of several cash infusions he's received through state programs. And he's successfully pushed the state legislature to pass laws favorable to his businesses.

Musk has also railed against what he's called the “woke mind virus,” which appears to be a partisan motivation for him, and shot off a slew of posts on X leading up to the election against Talarico, almost entirely for past stances the Democrat has taken on transgender rights and other progressive causes. That was Paxton's central attack against Talarico, too, though it fell far short.

“You know you couldn’t pull the wool over their eyes anymore with these culture wars, and they are frustrated with the costs," said Rep. Christina Morales, a state Democrat from Houston now in the majority in the state's House.

Ortutay reported from Oakland, Calif.

Republican Senate candidate Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at an election night event Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

The Texas State Capitol is seen in Austin, Texas, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

FILE - Elon Musk speaks during an event with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)