Those are like $1200 though; same price as Apple Watch Ultra with 5 years of scuba subscription; and have substantially worse displays, ergonomics, and smart watch UX. I went diving with a friend wearing a Suunto smart dive computer, and he couldn’t figure out how to silence the smart watch notifications because the UX was poor; I’ll never have that kind of issue with Apple device.

To me, it seems that your friend was too lazy to read the manual rather than poor UX.

“read the manual” is part of the UX.

There’s a huge market for the Fenix/Epix/Descent line from Garmin, which has always been (much!) more expensive than an Apple Watch. The fitness features and general activity tracking on those is far, far better than what you get from an Apple Watch. The UX is amazing, especially when you’re underwater/wearing thick gloves/running hard. The screens are adequate, if you really want super bright punchy colors you can get that but you’ll pay for it in worse battery life. Oh, and also air integration.

True! I’m speaking as a consumer who was considering several $1200+ options actively - like, I had the tabs open and a Notion DB to catalog the pros and cons of different options. But once I saw the news about the Apple Watch Ultra, I closed the tabs, deleted the Notion DB, and ordered an Apple Watch. I’d like air integration, but vastly prefer spending $800 on an all-day every-day watch to a $1200 sometimes watch.

The Apple Watch is just too limiting for me. Between the types of activities it can track, the actual feedback during an activity being pretty barebones, the lack of competitions, and the terrible battery life I don’t understand who it’s for.