Apple Watch Series 10 review: a larger screen experience

Apple Watch Series 10 review: a larger screen experience

With the tenth iteration, the Apple Watch may have reached some kind of end point. Or at least a specific landmark. With a display that stretches over and around the device’s 46mm body (there’s also a 42mm version), it’s hard to see how much more screen real estate the designers wanted, given the limitations of ergonomics and formal elegance and engineers of the watch may be able to offer.

The Apple Watch Series 10’s display is 30 percent larger than that of the Series 6 and a whopping 75 percent larger than that of the Series 3. In fact, it’s larger than the screen of the far chunkier (and far more expensive) Apple Watch Ultra 2. The new OLED The display has a wider aspect ratio than previous models and is also 40 percent brighter when viewed from an angle.

Apple Watch Series 10

The Apple Watch Series 10 has a larger display

(Image credit: Apple)

Apple’s goal has always been for its watch to combine the excellent functionality of the world’s most advanced wearable with the always-readability of an analog watch. And the new version of the Apple Watch is just the thing.

New watch faces like Flux and Reflections, part of the watchOS 11 upgrade, feature a non-fading second hand. A small detail perhaps, but a sign of how far the watch’s digital but analogue display has come. At launch, the Apple Watch face was dead black until you brought it to life with an exaggerated flick of your wrist.

Apple Watch Series 10, Smart Stack Widgets

Apple Watch Series 10, Smart Stack Widgets

(Image credit: Apple)

The Series 10’s larger screen experience actually brings with it less weight. The new watch is also almost ten percent thinner than its predecessor (just 9.7mm), making it more comfortable and discreet while offering 18 hours of battery life. It also offers the fastest charging time, reaching 80 percent charge in 30 minutes.

The aluminum version of the Series 10 (including the Jet Black option, the Apple Watch’s first glossy aluminum finish) also weighs 10 percent less than its predecessor, while the polished titanium case option weighs 20 percent less than the now-discontinued stainless steel version.

Apple Watch Series 10

(Image credit: Apple)

The Apple Watch has always been the company’s most complex and interesting design and engineering challenge, where the intricate problems of operating system and interface design and industrial design are most closely intertwined. There were explicit problems at launch that remained unresolved.

A decade of new iterations has filled gaps while addressing the conflicting demands of increasing battery life while maintaining screen size and readability, evolving inputs and UI, constantly rethinking the relationship (and functional handoff) between Watch and iPhone apps, and much more advanced form and execution.

The new polished aluminum finish, jet black, for the Apple Watch Series 10

The new polished aluminum finish, jet black, for the Apple Watch Series 10

(Image credit: Apple)

As Alan Dye, Apple’s head of human interface design, says, the Apple Watch was launched just as Apple was bringing its human interface and industrial design team together in a shared studio for the first time. “The watch represents so many firsts for us and is very close to our hearts because it was one of the first products to emerge from this really close collaboration.”

“We want to create truly unique experiences where we deeply integrate hardware and software and where ideally you don’t know where one begins and the other ends.” So having a studio is really at the core of who we are and how we think about design.”

Another new band, the Hermès Torsade, “inspired by nautical necklaces”

Another new band, the Hermès Torsade, “inspired by nautical necklaces”

(Image credit: Apple)

And unlike any other product, the Apple Watch entered a market where there was a long-established language of form and materials, as well as a history of craftsmanship, metalworking, and advanced manufacturing to relate to, play with, and which could sometimes be undermined.

“We have a real reverence for watches as beautiful objects,” says Molly Anderson, Apple’s head of industrial design. “And historically, watchmaking has driven the development of new materials or the miniaturization of certain processes, as well as real refinements in manufacturing.”

Apple Watch Ultra 2 made of titanium

Apple Watch Ultra 2 in black titanium, from £799, Apple.com

(Image credit: Apple)

“We are constantly looking for things that have already been made and taking inspiration from them. Then we delve into that process and see how we can refine it.” Obviously, traditional watchmaking is very artisanal and we are making something on an incredible scale. And it is the mastery of what fascinates us.”

As Anderson says, the development of the Apple Watch was as much about advanced materials science and machining capabilities as it was about increasingly sophisticated sensors, fitness tracking, and smart stacking widgets. The fascination of the Apple Watch design has always been in the precise construction of form, workmanship and function.

Apple Watch Ultra 2 made of titanium

Apple Watch Ultra 2 with a titanium, black and natural Milanese loop strap

(Image credit: Apple)

“We really designed Series 10 from the ground up,” says Anderson, “but one of the big goals was to express the culmination of ten years of refinement and development in the design.” “There are a lot of things we don’t had, and it took time to get there.”