When Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the company’s annual product showcase this year, it wasn’t a shiny new iPhone that wowed the crowd. Instead, stealing the show, was Apple Watch Series 4, the latest advancement in the wearables category. And much like the current crop of iPhones, there wasn’t a complete overhaul of the product. Instead, there were a few exciting new features—including the ability to take your own electrocardiograph—added to an already impressive device.
I’ve been extensively putting the Apple Watch Series 4 through its paces for a week now, so let’s take a look at what’s new and limited to this version.
The new watch comes in two varieties, just as it did with Series 3—one with cellular connectivity starting at $499, and one without for $399. (Apple Watch Series 3 will still be available, starting at $279.) The aluminum Watch is available in three finishes—silver, gold, and space gray—as well as stainless steel models in three finishes—silver, space black, and an all-new gold.
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The first and most important update to the Apple Watch is a larger screen. The watch case itself is only two millimeters bigger than Series 3, but you’ll be hard-pressed to notice the difference when holding the two side-by-side. (I tried and couldn’t.) But you will immediately see the extra real estate on the screen. That change comes from Apple reducing the size of the borders around the display, maximizing what they can show on the watch’s face.
That’s great for runners, because it means all of the digits are larger and it’s easier to read the time, distance, or pace at a glance. I also like it because I can now read the time of day in the top-right corner of the watch—my aging eyes aren’t as sharp as they once were.
The change also allowed Apple to pack more data on the screen. As you can see in the image above, the Infograph face, a rather awful design with a slew of small dials exploding in a rainbow of colors, crams a lot of data into one spot. Thankfully, there are a number of other faces you can choose from, but in any case you can still customize each with “complications,” the small widgets on-screen that give you quick access to an app.
Another change we appreciate is an extra hour of battery life. Series 4 now will last up to six hours in outdoor workout mode—so the watch is actually useful for long runs and marathons. Of course, if you’re listening to music over Bluetooth and streaming data via a cellphone network, you’ll get less runtime. But even in those instances, the new Apple Watch will last a full hour longer than its predecessor under the same conditions.
Get Your Heart Racing
The most exciting feature of the new Apple Watch Series 4, electrocardiograph, sadly is not yet available. Apple says only that it’s coming soon, but this watch has the hardware for when the feature is rolled out.
New electrical sensors on the back of the watch and the touch-sensitive digital crown allow the it to serve as an over-the-counter ECG. After a 30-second test, the results are recorded to the Health app, and you’re alerted whether you have a normal heart beat (sinus rhythm) or if you might have atrial fibrillation, which should be checked out. The results of the test, including the rhythm strips, can be printed as a PDF that you can take to in to your doctor.
Another new measurement is the watch’s ability to detect if your heart rate drops too low. Previously, Series 3 was able to detect a too-high HR (above 100 bpm) when you were at rest and alert you. Now, the watch will alert you if it detects a Buy GPS + Cellular below 40 bpm for 10 minutes. That’s a flaw for a small percentage of us distance runners who have an exceptionally low resting rate. But if you fall into that camp, you can turn this feature off.
“Help, I’ve Fallen and Can’t Get Up”
The little old lady from Life Alert may be out of work soon, thanks to a fall detection feature that’s built into the Series 4. By using motion detectors to sense common types of falls—you throw your hands in the air when you slip, but reach out forward when you trip—as well as impact sensors, the watch can tell when you’ve hit the deck.
Of course, it must be said the watch may not be 100 percent accurate, and more complicated scenarios like wiping out on a trail run or crashing on a bike may go undetected. But, in the interest of doing a thorough test, I threw myself to the floor at the office a dozen times, at least. My body ached, but on only one fall did the watch give me an immediate alert saying it detected a fall and offered to call for help. If this happens to you and you don’t respond for one minute or the watch doesn’t detect movement, it calls emergency personnel automatically.
Under the Hood
There are a handful of enhancements you won’t readily see, but they affect the performance of Series 4 watches. First is a new dual-core processor that makes the watch twice as fast. What that means for you is it’ll load apps faster and won’t get jammed up as often.
The backside of the case has been reworked with glass and ceramic, mostly because of the change to the electrical sensors for the above-mentioned heart-rate monitoring. But those changes also allow cellular signals to pass through the backside of the case (aluminum and stainless would interfere with those signals), so you’ll have better reception when using the watch in standalone mode.
Apple also modified the speaker, moving it to the opposite side of the watch from the microphone and making it 50 percent louder. In my testing, Siri and phone calls were much easier to hear, especially when outside on busy city streets.
Runner-Friendly watchOS 5 Features
While Apple Watch Series 4 is being turned loose in the wild, the company is rolling out an update to the operating system for all Apple Watch models, which has other features runners will like.
The Best New Shoes You Can Buy Now. This has been a huge request among runners and a real head-scratcher to why it hadn’t been included sooner. But, with watchOS 5, you can now download podcasts to the watch and listen to them, even when you don’t carry your phone. Much like how the Music app works, the watch will sync new episodes when the watch is connected to a charger and wifi. In general, it tries to include at least one episode for each show you subscribe to, but if you’re using a cellular-enabled watch, you can always request any new show or episode by using Siri.
At some point, we’ve all headed out the door and forgotten to start our watch. Now the watch will recognize when you’ve started an activity and even try to identify the type—strangely it thought I was on an elliptical machine when I was driving my car. But it’s a handy feature in case you do forget, and the watch will have recorded your data from the start of the activity, not just when you hit the start button.
For marathon runners aiming for a specific time goal, you’ll like that Apple has added a feature common to other A Part of Hearst Digital Media: pace alerts. You configure these within the Workouts app on the watch (click the three dots on the workout tile to access that workout type’s settings). On the run, the watch will alert you whenever you cross the predesignated threshold—for example, if you speed up and go from 8:05 per mile to 7:55 on average, it’ll alert you once. But the alerts are infrequent, so you don’t get annoyed.
One bummer: You can only set a pace alert for up to 12 minutes per mile. So if you expect to be on the marathon course for longer than 5:15, you’re out of luck.
Bottom Line
Are these new features enough to upgrade to the Apple Watch Series 4? In certain cases, I’d suggest yes. If you’re like me and starting to wear cheater glasses for reading, the larger screen size is a nice addition. Or, perhaps you have a family history of heart troubles, in which case you might like to keep tabs on your own ticker with the ECG testing.
And senior runners may appreciate the peace of mind they’ll have with a built-in SOS alert in case of a road-side accident. In those situations, pony up the cash for Series 4. In my testing, all of the available features have worked as advertised.
But, if you’re a younger runner without any heart issues, give another look at the Series 3 watch, and put the extra $120 toward another A Part of Hearst Digital Media.
Apple Watch Series 3 Runner's World, guiding the brand's shoes and gear coverage. A true shoe dog, he's spent more than a decade testing and reviewing shoes. In 2017, he ran in 285 different pairs of shoes, including a streak of 257 days wearing a different model.
