Apple has been on three-year re-design cycles with its smartwatches, and the forthcoming Apple Watch Series 10 (or Apple Watch X, depending on who's doing the leaking) would be the third watch to come out since the Apple Watch Series 7 introduced a larger display to the lineup.
We've seen a number of rumors claiming some radical redesigns for the Apple smartwatch, but a new report from 9to5Mac draws on recent posts by 91mobiles and Bloomberg to suggest that any design overhaul claims have been a tad overblown.
Previously we've seen claims of the Apple Watch Series 10 growing from 41mm and 45mm to 45mm and 49mm. The upcoming watch was also supposedly going to be much thinner. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported last year the Series 10 would see the biggest overhaul to date. Gurman is generally pretty accurate with his Apple news.
Much of the redesign chatter we've seen suggests that the bands and how they connect to the watch face will undergo the biggest changes in this updte. It's been hinted that the redesign will make the Watch 10 incompatible with bands from previous Apple watches.
Last week, leaked CAD renders of the Apple Watch Series 10 posted at 91mobiles showcased a 2-inch watch face, making it potentially one of the largest smartwatches on the market and bigger than the current Apple Watch Ultra 2. However, the design looked exactly like the Series 9, just bigger.
Additionally, Gurman claimed in a recent column that the Apple Watch Ultra 3 will look much the same as previous iterations: "This year's third-generation Apple Watch Ultra will have roughly the same look as the original, and the other watch models still resemble the Series 4 launched in 2018."
What happened to the radical redesign and "biggest overhaul" ever?
Gurman chalks it up to a combination inflation pressuring consumers to hold on to their tech for longer, while companies like Apple have responded to that by making their devices less durable, even if it means fewer design changes. Instead, the effort is being put to new features that extended functionality, provided the hardware can support them. (See Apple's efforts with Apple Intelligence, coming later this year.)
That's the challenge of rumors, which can paint some pretty enticing pictures of products only to wind up spectacularly wrong. Take the aforementioned Apple Watch 7, which was tipped to arrive as a "flat-edged" device with a supposedly revolutionary design. That didn't really pan out.
So maybe the Apple Watch 10 won't be that much of a departure after all. At least those of us with Apple watches already may not wind up shelling out for new bands.
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