This is Technology Bytes, episode 136 for October 12th, 2025.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
So this week I’m talking about the Apple Watch Ultra 3.
I have now spent a week with my new watch and I am enjoying it.
I do like the color, we talked about it last week where I got the black.
It’s almost like a flat black.
It does go with just about everything.
I did like the natural colors, but I think they’re both equally good.
I’m not sure one over the other.
I don’t know.
I really have enjoyed having a black watch.
It kind of just fits with what I do and who I am maybe, but the natural was fine too.
Anyway, on to the newness of this watch.
So one of the things that I’ve noticed is that the battery life is significantly better.
So there’s a couple things that may challenge that in that the last so many weeks of using the Ultra 2, I was in the beta program.
And we all know that that means the battery is not always going to last as it will with the fully released version.
And yet I’m still on the beta with the Ultra 3, but there’s something, it’s still not the same.
I mean, I was coming home with my Ultra 2 with about 25 to 30% of the battery left and now I’m coming home with 40 to 45%.
So it is a better battery.
The other thing that they improved was the screen.
And I’m not a hundred percent sure.
Well, I may actually be a hundred percent sure that I can’t tell the difference between the two.
You know, they’ve taken some of the bezel out, they’ve made it a little bit bigger.
But the one thing that they’ve done because of the new screen technology is been able to manage it down to a one Hertz refresh rate.
And what does that mean?
Well, that means my second hand or my seconds indicator never disappears even when the watch is dim because it’s an always on display.
But in the Ultra 2, my seconds indicator on whatever watch face I was using would disappear when the watch was in the kind of semi sleep mode, I guess.
And it is very handy that that has not gone away with the Ultra 3 that I can see that seconds indicator.
So I really like that.
Other features about connection with the satellite and being able to text, and I do exercise a lot outside, but not in remote areas.
I’m walking on the streets of my neighborhood and I don’t carry my phone.
So I do like the cellular connectivity, but I don’t go anywhere at this time.
I’d still like to get into some other hiking, but at the moment, I really don’t need the satellite type features.
Some other thing that is interesting is I was hoping that the workout buddy that some people make fun of might work with the Ultra 3 because of the better processor that’s in it, the better battery life, and it doesn’t.
It still needs you to carry your phone.
I sure hope Apple changes that in the near future.
Interestingly enough, I thought it turned off because I wasn’t carrying my phone with me.
And these last two days, as I’ve started the workout from my front porch, it’s still close enough to my phone for the workout buddy to give me some highlights.
And man, I wish it would just stay with me the whole time, but I don’t want to carry my phone.
I don’t have a way to carry it easily and safely, and I don’t want to be thinking about it at all when I’m exercising outside.
But it works for about the length of my apartment driveway, and then it finally stops talking.
But it’s cool, the part that does work when it’s talking about, hey, way to get out on Saturday morning.
You’ve walked 16 miles already this week, and you’ve closed your rings every day, and you’re on your way to it again, and you’ve done 506 workouts in a row, and all those kinds of things I really like.
But at the end, it still doesn’t work unless you have your phone with you.
I listened to a podcast that talks about Apple technology, and one of the things that one of the participants always says is don’t buy for the future.
Don’t buy for what might be coming to an Apple product.
Buy for what it does today.
And I may have been not thinking about that when I bought my Ultra 3, in that I hope there’s future updates coming to it that wouldn’t work very well on the Ultra 2.
The fact is that I kind of lost the, which is it, blood oxygen.
I know it’s kind of back, kind of not back.
So at that point, I’ve taken kind of a step backwards.
But this guy says never buy for the future promise of things to come.
And maybe I did that a little bit, or maybe I just thought it was time to buy a new watch.
I don’t know.
I probably didn’t need to buy it.
Maybe shouldn’t have bought it.
But it was really, really fun to give my Ultra 2 to my son when I know he would never get one.
And he is enjoying it to the maximum.
And I don’t know, that just does something for a dad, even an old dad like me, to be able to do those things for their children.
But overall, I like the new watch.
Did I need it?
No.
Is it cool?
Yes.
Am I enjoying it?
Yes.
But I think the purchase I’m enjoying more is what I was able to give my son than what I have on my own wrist.
Well, that is all I have for today.
As always, if you have questions, comments, or suggestions, you can send them to technologybytes at merrickfamily.com.
Thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes…
Thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast.
And I look forward to the next time we are together, taking another bite of technology.
