Apple Watch Series 6

Apple’s wearable is a masterpiece in miniaturisation

- Carrie Marshall

The Apple Watch has come a very long way in a very short time. It’s just five years old, and in that time we’ve seen Apple enhance it in every conceivable way: better battery life, an always-on display, 4G connectivity, apps that run without a connected iPhone and most importantly of all, a whole bunch of sensors to provide useful insights into your health and fitness.

As the Apple Watch has evolved, it’s delivered a masterclass in miniaturisation: the Series 6 may look much like the first generation, but what’s inside is much more advanced and much more useful.

Now you see it

The main output of the Apple Watch is, of course, its display. In the Series 6 the display is an always-on OLED: unlike standard LED displays the pixels are self-illuminating and don’t require a separate backlight. The particular flavour of OLED here is LTPO, which is short for low-temperature polycrystalline oxide, and it was developed by Apple to deliver dynamically controllable refresh rates. That’s what made the always-on display possible: before LTPO, the display was too power-hungry and had to be woken up to tell you the time.