Apple Watch Series 9 officially launched: Price, Features & Availability

Apple today announced the launch of its latest smartwatch, the Apple Watch Series 9. The Series 9 is Apple's most advanced smartwatch yet, packed with new health and connectivity features.

Headlining the new watch is the S9 chip, providing faster performance and enabling new capabilities like the double tap gesture. The S9 SiP features a 4-core Neural Engine, allowing the watch to process machine learning tasks up to 2x faster than the previous generation.

The Series 9 introduces a new double tap gesture, allowing users to control the watch by tapping two fingers on the watch face. This enables quick access to common controls like stopping a timer or pausing music. The gesture is enabled by the S9's Neural Engine, which can detect the unique wrist movements and blood flow changes associated with a double tap.

Apple has also packed the Series 9 with a brighter, always-on display, reaching up to 2,000 nits outdoors. Siri requests can now be processed directly on the watch rather than relying on an iPhone connection, delivering quicker response times. Siri on the Series 9 can also access health data like sleep, activity, and medications.

On the design front, the Series 9 features a familiar style but with new aluminium case colours like pink, starlight and midnight. Apple is also rolling out its first carbon-neutral models, with select cases and Sport bands.

Other updates include Precision Finding support for quickly locating a paired iPhone, new watch faces, advanced cycling metrics, and mental health logging. The Series 9 runs the latest watchOS 10 software.

The Apple Watch Series 9 starts at ₹41,900 and is available for pre-order today, with retail availability starting September 22. Meanwhile, the Apple Watch SE starts at ₹29,900.