The budget-conscious Apple Watch SE 3 features an S10 chip, an always-on display, a new Sleep Score feature, Double Tap gesture support, wrist temperature sensing for retrospective ovulation estimates, sleep apnea detection, fast charging support, 5G support on cellular configurations, on-device Siri, and many other improvements.
Here is how the new Sleep Score feature works, according to Apple:
Sleep quality is influenced by several factors, such as sleep duration, bedtime consistency, how often a person wakes up, and how much time is spent in each sleep stage. With sleep score, Apple Watch helps track each of these categories to offer users a transparent and easy-to-understand metric for their overall sleep quality. After each night, sleep score provides an overall score and classification in the Sleep app on Apple Watch, plus a clear breakdown of the most critical components so users know what to prioritize to improve their sleep.
Apple Watch SE 3 is available in Starlight and Midnight, in 40mm and 44mm sizes. In the U.S., pricing starts at $249. Pre-orders begin today, ahead of a Friday, September 19 launch.
With watchOS 26, which will be released on Monday, September 15, the Apple Watch SE will support the new Workout Buddy feature powered by Apple Intelligence.
Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more.
Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1.
Release Date
Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
Monday October 27, 2025 4:51 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is designing an updated version of the Apple TV 4K, and rumors suggest that it could come out sometime in the next couple of months. We're not expecting a major overhaul with design changes, but even a simple chip upgrade will bring major improvements to Apple's set-top box.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up all the latest Apple TV rumors.
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Apple Maps could feature integrated ads as soon as next year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
In his latest "Power On" newsletter, Gurman said that Apple's plan to bring more ads to iOS is moving "gaining traction," with the Maps app being next in line. The project will apparently give restaurants and other businesses the option to pay to have their details featured more prominently in...
Friday October 24, 2025 2:30 pm PDT by Juli Clover
In the fourth iOS 26.1 beta, Apple added a "Tinted" option that reduces the translucency of Liquid Glass for those who prefer a more opaque look. I saw some comments wondering whether the setting might preserve battery life, so I thought I'd do some testing.
Test Settings
I did four separate tests using the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and I kept the parameters as similar as possible. Here are the...
Monday October 27, 2025 9:15 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple this month refreshed the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, and higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are expected to follow in early 2026. However, these machines will represent the final update to the current design, with Apple reportedly developing a completely new version of the MacBook Pro packed with next-generation hardware...
Wednesday October 29, 2025 4:22 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to drop iOS 26.1, the first major point release since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least six notable changes and improvements to look forward to. We've rounded them up below.
Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1, which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible...
Tuesday October 28, 2025 1:07 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS Tahoe 26.1, tvOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, and visionOS 26.1 updates for testing purposes. The RCs betas come a week after Apple released the fourth betas.
The new betas can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software...
Wednesday October 22, 2025 6:15 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more.
iOS 26.1 is currently in beta testing. The update will likely be released in the first half of November, and it is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer, but some...
The first preview release of the Swift SDK for Android was published this week, allowing developers to build Android apps in Swift with official tooling and making it easier to share code across iOS and Android.
The SDK enables Android apps to be built in Swift using officially supported tooling rather than community workarounds. In June, it was announced that Apple's Swift programming...
This seems like a really solid value. I'm torn between getting an Apple Watch SE with cellular for my 6th grader who needs some cellular connectivity for calling us for various after school activities, or if I should try to hold out for another year and get her a used iPhone. Don't really feel like a 6th grader needs a smartphone, but she says most of her friends have one. If I get her an SE, it might hold her off on bugging me about it for a couple more years and save some money on the phone bill, lol.
Good for you on not giving a smartphone to your daughter. The more we learn about smartphones & social media for children, especially girls, the grimmer the outlook is. Go read "The Tech Exit" by Clare Morell, find some like-minded families, and hold out as long as you can! You won't regret it.
This seems like a really solid value. I'm torn between getting an Apple Watch SE with cellular for my 6th grader who needs some cellular connectivity for calling us for various after school activities, or if I should try to hold out for another year and get her a used iPhone. Don't really feel like a 6th grader needs a smartphone, but she says most of her friends have one. If I get her an SE, it might hold her off on bugging me about it for a couple more years and save some money on the phone bill, lol.
This seems like a really solid value. I'm torn between getting an Apple Watch SE with cellular for my 6th grader who needs some cellular connectivity for calling us for various after school activities, or if I should try to hold out for another year and get her a used iPhone. Don't really feel like a 6th grader needs a smartphone, but she says most of her friends have one. If I get her an SE, it might hold her off on bugging me about it for a couple more years and save some money on the phone bill, lol.
If this Apple Watch is capable of cell phone calls by itself, without a smartphone (I don’t know, I’ve never had an Apple Watch), it’s definitely the right tool for a kid.
If a 6th grader is an 11 year old child, the phone bill is the last thing you should worry about giving open, unrestricted, unsupervised internet access. I mean, sometimes I get the feeling most parents haven’t used the internet like a younger person would, but there are many dangers to a child’s mental and sexual health out there, accessible either through the browser, through social media apps, or now through the use of AI. The safest way to introduce a child to the internet is through a supervised internet connected PC in a shared environment such as the living room.
Keep in mind that most of us who were born before the 2000s had Internet access while we were almost adults, with a well developed brain at 17 or 18 years old. What’s happening now to kids being exposed to such intense stimulus at such early stages is something unprecedented and with unknown consequences…
You could, of course, buy her a feature phone, but that will make her be pointed by her classmates. Little does she know, that the ones doing the wrong thing for their age, are their classmates and not her. And that, ultimately, the responsible of all of this, are the parents, teachers and education institutions that allow this.