Gone are the days when you had to wait over a year for cheap Apple Watch offers to surface online. In 2024, you can get the best Apple Watch, the Series 9, for nearly 20% off right now, months after it was announced. And not just any model, but the carbon-neutral variety which comes with the Starlight Sport Loop.
The Apple Watch Series 9 might look similar to the Series 8 or even the Series 7, but it has a brighter display, a faster processor, exclusive features, and somewhat carbon-friendly credentials – what else can you ask for? It's a superb wearable overall and an excellent upgrade for those with older Apple Watches (Series 6 and beyond).
As well as being way more capable from a hardware point of view, the Apple Watch Series 9 also has a killer feature set exclusive to the new watch. While more WatchOS 10 features, including Smart Stack and updated cycling and hiking modes, will trickle down to older models, some new interactions are unique to the Series 9, thanks to the latest processor and chipset.
The most exciting of the lot is the Double Tap interaction, which allows you to control the wearable without touching the screen. It isn't just a cool feature but also makes the wearable more accessible for people who might only have one hand or are otherwise limited in their movement.
Offline Siri is yet another feature that's more of a promise than a full-fledged feature. Thanks to the Ultra-Wideband chip, the Apple Watch Series 9 doesn't need an internet connection to process some Siri requests, such as, 'How did I sleep?' or 'Set a timer for five minutes'. Apple found that these represent the majority of smart assistant requests and made the right call by enabling the watch to deal with them offline.
