The Apple Watch Ultra 3 didn't make it, but these are the upgrades for the Watch Ultra 2

To round this new dark design, there are updated black bands with titanium hardware. There's a new Milanese Loop titanium, a mesh-like bijou that looks impressive. It's made from corrosion resistant material and designed for scuba. There's a parachute-style buckle with dual-side release buttons that close with an audible click. Cool!

The new Milanese Loop is available not only in Black, but in Natural (grayish) titanium hue. The Milanese Loop joins the Trail Loop, Alpine Loop and Ocean Band options.

Also, Apple extends its partnership with luxury fashion brand Hermes for the Ultra 2. There's a sleek dark-blue band with a titanium buckle and an exclusive Hermes maritime watch face.

What did we expect?

Overall, there weren't many leaks and rumors about the alleged Watch Ultra 3 in recent months. Apple was quite cryptic about it, and this just sparks our imagination.

We didn't expect any major upgrades and serious improvements over its predecessor (the Apple Watch Ultra 2).

For example, even if the Watch Ultra 3 did materialize alongside the iPhone 16, we would not expect it to come with a different display. After all, the 1.92-inch OLED display (with peak brightness of 3,000 nits) is classy and capable. The maxed-out 3,000 nits feature does come with a certain fine print "Terms and conditions apply", though. Users cannot manually set the brightness to its maximum level of 3,000 nits on the Apple Watch Ultra 2. Instead, this feature automatically activates in bright environments, adjusting the display for optimal visibility based on the surrounding light, regardless of the user’s brightness settings.

However, we did expect the Watch Ultra 3 to come with Apple's next-generation timepiece silicon: the S10 chipset.

The new dark Watch Ultra 2 starts at $799 for the GPS+Cellular option, you can pre-order starting today (September 9) and it'll be available from September 20, 2024.