There may be some extra room inside of the Apple Watch 7, according to the latest rumor. And that's all thanks to the rumored inclusion of a smaller doubled-sided ‘S7’ chip.
That’s according to a report from DigiTimes, which claims the next Apple Watch will feature a double-sided System in Package from Taiwan’s ASE Technology.
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ASE Technology’s website confirms that its double-sided technology allows for ‘module miniaturization’, which could free up some space inside the Apple Watch Series 7. The question there is, what would that hypothetical space be used for?
The obvious suggestion would be a larger battery. The Apple Watch Series 6 features the same 18-hour battery life as the previous three models, and it’s about time Apple made some changes to improve that figure.
In terms of battery size, the Apple Watch 4 had a 292 mAh battery, the Apple Watch 5 a 296 mAh battery and the Apple Watch 6 a 265.9 mAh battery. So a bump in battery size could be a huge deal for the Apple Watch 7.
Having enough power to get through the day is great, but having to recharge your Apple Watch every single night means users could be missing out on the Apple Watch’s sleep tracking capabilities. Even if the battery life is only increased by a few hours, that could be enough to help people get even more out of their wearable.
The is double-sided S7 chip might also free up space for brand new features that Apple may want to include in the next Apple Watch. Blood glucose monitoring has been rumored before, though a recent Bloomberg report claims the Apple Watch 7 will skip this feature.
That being said, there are other health and fitness features that could be added. Swim-tracking has been rumored, though it’s unclear whether that will require any additional components.
In any case, there are plenty of possible features that are reliant on brand new hardware, and having the extra space inside the watch means Apple doesn’t have to increase its size too much.
This doesn’t mean that Apple is working on decreasing the size of the Apple Watch 7. According to Bloomberg the next Apple smartwatch will actually be slightly thicker — though not in a way that’s really noticeable.
The Apple Watch 7 is also rumored to come with thinner bezels, and possibly even a flat-edged design. Apple is expected to launch the new watch sometime in September, and given rumors claiming the iPhone 13 will arrive that same month we wouldn’t be surprised if it all happened at the same event.
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