Apple Watch 7 arrives

New–gen Apple Watch is shipping

- By Alex Summersby

APPLE WATCH SERIES 7 is expected to be available by the time you read this. After Apple announced the latest generation of the world’s best– selling watch in a virtual event on September 14, orders opened on October 8.

Apple Watch 7 starts at $399, the same price as the previous generation. It is available in two sizes, 41mm and 45mm (as compared with 40mm and 44mm in the previous generation). The design has been subtly refined with softer, more rounded corners, and the display has a refractive edge that makes full–screen watch faces and apps appear to seamlessly connect with the curvature of the case, Apple says. At just 1.7 mm, the narrower borders maximize the screen area of the re–engineered Always–On Retina display, while the dimensions of the watch body are barely changed from the previous version.

The interface has been optimized for the larger display, offering greater readability and ease of use, with two additional larger font sizes, a new QWERTY keyboard that can be tapped or swiped with QuickPath — allowing users to slide a finger to type — and predictive text powered by on–device machine learning. With watchOS 8, larger menu titles and buttons in apps like Stopwatch, Activity, and Alarms also make the screen even simpler to interact with. There are two new watch faces for the larger display, dubbed Contour and Modular Duo, along with other new faces also suitable for previous models, including a World Time face and Portraits face.