Every new Apple product announced on September 9 that has a radio list carries the same phrase, second-generation Ultra Wideband, and Apple publishes nothing else about it. No range, no accuracy figure, no frequency band, no power number, and no named feature on any spec sheet that says what the chip is there to do.
The phrase appears on the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, on iPhone Duo, on Apple Watch Series 12 and on Apple Watch Ultra 4. One new product leaves it out, and the omission is easier to read than the inclusion: AirPods 5 do not list Ultra Wideband at all, while Apple lists a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip in the case of the AirPods Pro 3.
What Apple publishes, device by device
| Key fact | What Apple lists |
|---|---|
| iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max | Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip |
| iPhone Duo | Second-generation Ultra Wideband |
| Apple Watch Series 12 | Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip |
| Apple Watch Ultra 4 | Second-generation |
| Apple Watch Series 11, Ultra 3, SE 3 | Second-generation, per Apple’s compare rows |
| AirPods 5, both models | Not listed |
| AirPods Pro 3 | Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip in the case |
| Range, accuracy, band, power | Not published for any of them |
Read the watch column again, because it settles a question people are asking this week. Apple’s own comparison rows give Series 12, Ultra 4, Series 11, Ultra 3 and SE 3 the same Ultra Wideband entry, second-generation, alongside the same Wi-Fi 4 and the same Bluetooth 5.3. On the watch side the generation number is not a 2026 change at all.
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The one new product that leaves it out
The AirPods 5 spec sheets list Bluetooth 5.3, an H2 chip and no Ultra Wideband line on either the $129 model or the $149 model with the Wireless Charging Case. What the $149 case does add is a speaker, which is the part of Find My that makes a sound. The base case does not have one.
Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 sheet, by contrast, lists a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip in the case. So within one accessory family Apple has drawn a line: the $249 product gets the radio, the $129 and $149 products do not, and Apple has published no explanation of the split beyond the spec sheets themselves.
The radio lines side by side
| Product | Wi-Fi | Bluetooth | Ultra Wideband |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max | Wi-Fi 7, 802.11be, 2×2 MIMO | 6 | Second-generation |
| iPhone Duo | Wi-Fi 7, 802.11be, 2×2 MIMO | 6 | Second-generation |
| Apple Watch Series 12 | Wi-Fi 4, 802.11n | 5.3 | Second-generation |
| Apple Watch Ultra 4 | Wi-Fi 4, 802.11n | 5.3 | Second-generation |
| AirPods 5 | Not listed | 5.3 | Not listed |
| AirPods Pro 3 | Not listed | 5.3 | Second-generation, in the case |
That table is the whole of Apple’s published short-range radio story for this launch. The Series 12 and Ultra 4 pages spend their specs on sensors and battery hours rather than radios, and the Ultra Wideband row is one line in both.
What a generation number does not tell you
Apple is perfectly willing to quantify hardware when it wants to. The A20 Pro GPU is up to 40 percent faster than A19 Pro. The C2 modem uses 15 percent less energy than C1X. Series 12 takes heart rate readings up to 60 times more often than Series 11. Ultra Wideband gets a generation number and a full stop.
So the honest reading of the phrase is narrow. It tells you the chip is not the older one. It does not tell you the distance it works over, how precisely it places another device, what changed from the previous generation, or whether any feature shipping in iOS 27 on Monday depends on it. Apple’s published iOS 27 feature list does not mention Ultra Wideband once.
What Apple has not said
- Any range or maximum distance for the second-generation chip, on any product.
- Any accuracy figure, in centimetres or otherwise, for any use of it.
- Which frequency band or channel width the chip uses.
- What changed between the first generation and this one, in any measurable form.
- Whether any named iOS 27, watchOS 27 or iPadOS 27 feature requires it.
- Whether iPhone Duo’s Ultra Wideband behaves differently folded and open.
- Why AirPods Pro 3 cases carry the chip and AirPods 5 cases do not.
Pre-orders for iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max open at 5 a.m. PT on Saturday, September 12, iOS 27 arrives free on Monday, September 14, and the phones reach stores on Friday, September 18. iPhone Duo pre-orders follow on Friday, October 16, so the first chance to compare two second-generation Ultra Wideband devices from this launch is six weeks away.
