Daring Fireball: Apple Watch Ultra
If Apple Watch Ultra were the first (and thus only) Apple Watch, people would lose their minds. It’s big and very unsubtle. It makes a statement on the wrist.
But the Ultra is not the first Apple Watch. We’re eight generations in with the Series lineup. If anything, arguably Apple is overdue to offer something like the Ultra: an entirely different expression of what an Apple Watch can be. Ultra is definitely not for everyone. But it is also definitely for a lot of people.
I’ve neither dived nor climbed nor gotten lost nor really done anything a damn bit dangerous or exciting, but I’ve had a lot of fun wearing it for the last week.
Here’s a thing I’ve learned over the years as a somewhat serious watch enthusiast. A lot of people are very self conscious about wearing a large or even large-ish watch. “I’ve got small wrists, I don’t know if I can pull it off” is a sentiment expressed dozens of times per day, every day, on watch forums the world over. But it’s almost never the case that you, the wearer, look bad wearing a too-big watch. It’s that the watch itself looks too big. It’s the watch, not the wearer. But we humans are self-conscious beings, and a first-person perspective of your own wrist is not at all like the perspective of others looking at your wrist.
What I’m saying here is that if you go to a store and try on an Apple Watch Ultra, there is a very good chance your reaction is going to be “This is way too big for me.” If you’re thinking that because you don’t like the way it looks, well, then Ultra is not for you. Your watch should make you happy every time you look at it. But if you’re thinking “this is too big for me” because you’re worried about how others will think it looks on your wrist, you’re overthinking it. If you like it, wear it. People — men and women alike — with even small wrists can get away with surprisingly large watches. Buy the watch that makes you happy. That’s my advice for any watch.
