In September, Apple announced a new wearable called the Apple Watch Ultra, and one of the company’s key pitches for the device was its use as a diving computer. Now Oceanic+, the app that makes that feature possible, launched exclusively for the Ultra, Apple announced today.
The Watch Ultra has depth gauge and water temperature sensors that drive some of the features in the app. To access a few of those features—such as decompression tracking—you’ll have to subscribe to the app’s premium version for $4.99 per day, $9.99 per month, or $79.99 per year. There’s also a family plan at $129.99 annually. If you don’t subscribe, you can still use some key features like dive logs, depth tracking, and so on.
The app—which was developed in partnership with Apple by a company called Huish Outdoors, lets you track dive conditions like tides, water temperature, and more. Here’s a quick summary from Apple’s blog post announcement:
In the dive planner, users can set their surface time, their depth, and their gas, and Oceanic+ will calculate their No Deco (no-decompression) time—a metric used to determine a time limit for a diver at a certain depth. The planner also integrates dive conditions, including tides, water temperature, and even up-to-date information from the community, such as visibility and currents. Post-dive, users will see data—including GPS entry and exit locations—automatically pop up on Apple Watch Ultra, along with a summary of their dive profile. The summary on the Oceanic+ iPhone app provides additional information, including a map of entry and exit locations, as well as graphs of depth, temperature ascent rate, and no-decompression limit.
A lot of the features focus on either planning dives in advance or viewing dive reports after you’re done, but for those that you use underwater, the app utilizes haptics to send you alerts. The Watch Ultra’s very bright screen can help with legibility underwater, too.
The app doesn’t work with other Apple Watch models. To use it, you’ll need an Apple Watch running watchOS 9.1, and that Watch must be paired with an iPhone 8 or later running iOS 16.1.
