All Band, No Face: Apple Dials Back the 2026 Black Unity ‘Collection’

Alongside a relatively quiet debut of the “AirTag 2” yesterday, Apple also unveiled this year’s “Black Unity” Apple Watch band, continuing the trend that it kicked off five years ago.

Apple has commemorated Black History Month in various ways for years, but in 2021 it went big, with a new Black Unity Sport Band and the first and only limited-edition Apple Watch model has ever released to date. It also leaned heavily into the occasion with watch-related content, including a Unity Activity Challenge on the Apple Watch, a collection of themed workouts on Apple Fitness+ featuring Black artists, and a Time to Walk workout session hosted by Ibram X. Kendi in which the author reflects on racial justice and resiliency.

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However, it didn’t stop there. Apple also featured curated content in the App Store, Apple Music, the Apple TV, app, Apple Books, Apple Podcasts, and Apple News to highlight Black-owned app developers, artists, books, films, TV shows, podcasts, and more, plus curated guides in Apple Maps to help users find and support Black-owned restaurants, virtual Today at Apple sessions led by Black creatives, and a “Hometown” Shot on iPhone campaign to highlight the work of Black photographers.

After a Black History Month like that, Apple didn’t really have anywhere to go but down, and it’s scaled back the initiative considerably in the years since. Last year’s Black Unity Collection featured only a Unity Sport Loop with a matching watch face and iPhone and iPad wallpapers, similar to what it’s done for Pride Month over the years. Apple also hasn’t announced any featured content in recent years, and even the Black Unity Challenge only ran for three years, from 2021–2023; it vanished without comment in 2024 and hasn’t reappeared since, suggesting Apple quietly retired it.

This year, Apple has taken things down another notch, offering only a new Black Unity Braided Solo Loop — without even offering any matching watch faces or wallpapers like it did last year.

That’s a rare exception for Apple’s limited-edition bands, which have nearly always at least had a watch face to go with them, starting with the Pride Bands in 2018 and even expanding to Apple’s “International Collection” in 2021 — a set of faces and bands to accompany the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games, which had been delayed due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

While the watch faces were fun, one could also argue that they were a bit of a gimmick — more about matching the band’s style than providing useful functionality; many didn’t support even a single complication, for instance, so it’s unclear how much they were used. Apple likely has some metrics on this, which could be why it’s decided to save itself the effort of creating a new one this year, but that’s pure speculation.

Either way, there may be no watch face or wallpapers, but the new Unity Connection Braided Solo Loop looks nice, and will help support “under-resources communities” around the world of all colors and creeds.

Of course, a four-trillion dollar company doesn’t need to release shiny new consumer products to support these causes, and statistics show Apple is doing a lot more behind the scenes. Since launching its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI) in 2020, Apple has committed over $200 million to various programs, including the Propel Center and Apple Developer Academies, and it makes other grants to organizations like the Boys & Girls Clubs that serve over 3.6 million youth across the US and on military bases worldwide. It also continues to buck the anti-DEI trend that’s gained momentum under the current administration, not only refusing to change it, but increasing the representation of Black employees and other under-represented groups in its US operations.

The Unity Connection Band itself follows past Black Unity bands in being designed by Black creatives and allies at Apple, and echoes the previous theme of showing the colors of the Pan-African flag, in this case by “weaving recycled polyester yarn filaments around ultrathin silicone threads using advanced precision-braiding machinery.”

In case there was any doubt that Apple is skipping a custom Unity watch face this year, the illustrations in its press release clearly show the new Unity Connection band attached to an Apple Watch Series 11 showing the Unity Lights face that was released for Black History Month in 2022, in one of the shortest Apple newsroom announcements we’ve seen in a while.

The Unity Connection Braided Solo Loop is available from the online Apple Store today for $99, and will be showing up in physical Apple Store locations later this week. It comes in all the same sizes as the standard Braided Solo loop, so it’s technically compatible with all current and past Apple Watch models, although it officially only lists the 2018 Series 4 or later as the fit of the Solo Loops is a bit awkward on older models.

Over the Years: Apple Watch Black Unity Collections