Apple Watch Series 10 Brings Sleep Apnea Detection And More To The Masses

In case you've been hiding under a rock, Apple's Glowtime event happened today, and some of the early parts of that slickly-produced video presentation (who else misses live demos? Just me?) were dedicated to the newly released Apple Watch Series 10. The hardware itself may not be very exciting, but some of the software features will be helpful to folks with active lifestyles. There are also some nifty software upgrades that come along with it. 

Apple Watch Series 10 Bores

First up, the Apple Watch Series 10 does not bring back the pulse oximeter that was disabled in software back in January. However, it does add some new sensors that swimmers might enjoy: a depth gauge and a water temperature sensor. The new S10 chip inside the Series 10 has a dual-core CPU, four-core neural engine, and 64 GB of onboard storage, all of which track with what the Series 9 had last year. Unless the new water-related sensors are important, it's probably not enough to get folks with a Series 9 (or even a Series 8) to upgrade. 


The Apple Watch Series 10 does at least look different from its predecessor. Both the 42 mm and 46 mm models are exactly one millimeter larger diagonally than the Series 9 they replace, and sport a slightly higher resolution (374x446 for the smaller and 416x496 for the larger) to maintain that 326 ppi pixel density. The rest of the display specs are holdovers from previous generations, including an LTPO OLED display with a maximum brightness of 2,000 nits. That bigger display is probably not going to be all that noticeable in practice. As Apple showed off in its demo, the text is slightly larger; you're not going to see another line of text on these displays. The company annoyingly claims that it's the Apple Watch's "biggest display yet" but then has a footnote to indicate that it's comparing previous Series generations, not the larger Apple Watch Ultra. 

The Apple Watch has been the same 10.7 millimeters thick since the introduction of the Series 6, but that thickness has been reduced to 9.7 millimeters. That's actually a nice upgrade in terms of aesthetics; this author's Apple Watch Series 6 borders on annoyingly thick and a lower profile option would be nice. We're not sure it's worth ponying up $399 for the 42 mm version or $429 for the larger model, though. Those are the prices for the aluminum-bodied Series 10 in Silver, Rose Gold, and Jet Black. Upgrading to Titanium will cost an extra $300 and comes in Natural, Gold, and Slate finishes. 


And by the way, there's a new black titanium color for the existing Apple Watch Ultra 2, just so we can get that out of the way. It still has a 49 mm display, the same S9 chip, and the same higher battery life as last year's version. There it is, the least interesting product announcement ever: it now comes in black. It still rings in at $799 like it has for the past year. It took Apple two and a half minutes to announce a new color. Two and a half minutes. 

Apple Watch Software: Sleep Apnea Detection and More

All of the other features of Apple Watch Series 10 come from software. The most impressive of these features is sleep apnea detection. Apple says its algorithm was born from machine learning research using a large dataset of clinical-grade sleep tests. The model was then validated in additional testing, which Apple says could help a huge number of folks that live with undiagnosed sleep apnea. Of course, if you already have a CPAP machine, this isn't going to tell you something you don't already know when you conk out on the couch watching an Apple Event.


In an uncharacteristic turn of events, sleep apnea detection will roll out later this month (pending FDA approval) not just to the Series 10 and new Ultra, but to existing Ultra and Series 9 owners, as well. Apple says sleep apnea detection will eventually roll out to over 150 countries as regulators approve it for clinical use. 

Most of the other features Apple discussed today are part of the larger watchOS 11 release and pending hardware support, should be available on all Apple Watch models supported by the latest update. There's a huge pile of specialized display modes for different workouts including swimming, hiking, cycling, and more. There are also new watch faces, including photos, the Smart Stack that piles on widgets when the device thinks you'll want them, and enhancements for electronic tickets. These will all land on Apple Watch Series 6 and later when it's released next week.