Step counts now sit at the top of the Series 12's smart stack, and you can add them to a watch face as a complication. Lifehacker's Beth Skwarecki, who has been testing the watch against a chest strap, found that nine steps from her desk to her door registered as nine steps. Apple builds the count on a pedometer model inside the new processor, which is why it isn't coming to the Series 11 or anything older. Apple also says this is the most accurate heart rate in a wearable. Skwarecki ran indoors and out with a chest strap and a Garmin Forerunner 570 on at the same time, and came away unsure the Series 12 beat the Series 11 she was replacing. It still samples every five seconds during a workout, where the strap and the Garmin sample every second.
Three of the features Apple spent the most time on aren't on the watch yet. Live Rewind and Siri Recap are due later this year, and they aren't in the version of watchOS 27 that shipped with it. Readiness needs about a week of sleep data before it will show a score. That leaves the sensor and the battery as the parts you can judge today. Reviewing the $799 Ultra 4, WIRED's Boutayna Chokrane found the gap between the two watches shrinking again, with many of the Ultra's software gains shared with the cheaper Series 12.