Apple Watch Series 5: Same Watch, More Face

The new Apple Watch Series 5, revealed by Apple earlier today, goes heavy on the bling—but light on new health features.The new wearable now has an always-on display that dims, rather than disappears, when you lower your arm. Finally, almost like a real watch. All Apple Watch faces are tuned to the new display, making it easier to see your workout metrics without needing to raise your wrist. Or, you know, sneak a peek at the time in the middle of a boring meeting, just like your colleagues with analog watches.

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Apple announced new health and fitness features for its wearable that make the Apple Watch uniquely powerful as a personal monitoring tool. Beginning this fall, Apple Watch will track your activity trends over time, help protect your hearing by alerting you to harmful levels of ambient noise, and allow users to track their menstrual cycles.

Despite the always-on screen, Apple is claiming the same 18-hour “all day” battery life as previous models. The power savings come thanks to a new low-power display driver, which might one day make it's way to other Apple devices.

Video: AppleThe Watch Series 5 adds a built-in compass that can discern which direction you're facing, just like the iPhone. In addition to heading, the Compass app can also show elevation, latitude, longitude, and even incline. That's great news for hikers looking to score some bragging rights. Was that climb really a 40-degree slope? Yes, yes it was.

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For anyone still looking to interact with a fellow human being while wearing AirPods, Apple announced a sound-sharing feature, which allows multiple users to connect to the same audio source.

Apple also showed off two new titanium models of the Watch, a light brushed style and a "space black" option. There's also a new ceramic model in glossy white. As with iPads, the aluminum models are now made of 100 percent recycled aluminum. The high-end Hermes-branded models are now also available in space black, and there are updated Nike models as well.The new Apple Watch starts at $399 for a Series 5 with GPS, and $499 with cellular. The new watches go on sale today, September 10, and they become available on September 20. The Series 3 Watch gets a price drop, down to only $199. The Watch Series 4 appears to have gone the way of the iPhone X; it wasn't mentioned during the launch event.

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Health Check

For all the new features, what's conspicuously lacking in the Apple Watch Series 5 announcement is any mention of the sleep-tracking capabilities that were largely expected to make their way into the wearable this fall. Apple started off its Watch announcement with a video showcasing users whose lives had been saved or drastically altered in positive ways thanks to the Apple Watch's various health-related features, which made it a little odd that Apple then touted precisely zero new fitness features in today's presentation.

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Apple Watch Series 5: Same Watch, More Face

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The article source: www.wired.com