How Apple Took The Watch's Activity Tracking To The Next Level

How Apple took the Watch's activity tracking to the next level with an Ultra version for fearless adventurers

- Dan Grabham

INSIDE TECH APPLE WATCH ULTRA

The Ultra model is the first major ground-up redesign of the Apple Watch as we know it. So when Apple suggested that Stuff sit down (well, virtually) with three of the company's vice presidents to ask them about the key sensors on the device, we didn't have to think about it very long.

We spoke to Stan Ng, VP for Apple Watch marketing; Ron Huang, VP for sensing and connectivity; and Jay Blahnik, VP of fitness technologies.

So, first things first: Why is now the right time for the Ultra? "Over the years we've heard from customers who shared with us how they wanted to use Apple Watch for their extreme adventures," explains Stan Ng. "We wanted to create a watch that would be a meaningful tool, and it was driven by three use cases: endurance athletics, outdoor adventure and exploring the ocean."

PUSH HOUR

The action button is one of the key new features of the Watch Ultra-but why have a dedicated button? "When we thought about the ultra endurance athlete, it made a lot of sense to have a button that you can dedicate to do things during a workout without touching the screen," explains fitness guru Jay Blahnik.

"If you put together a custom workout - let's say you you're doing 30-second intervals followed by one-minute recoveries and you want to move past a recovery or an interval. You can do that manually by pushing the action button. When you're doing custom workouts, you don't want to have to look at the screen."