The Infinite Loop of Apple Watch Redesign Rumors Continues
iDrop News / Wilson Nicklaus
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A new set of leaks suggests that Apple may finally move forward with its supposed plans to give the Apple Watch a major design overhaul next year — but we don’t recommend holding your breath.
After all, if this sounds like a recycled rumor, that’s because it is. To make matters even sketchier, it’s not even from the reliable sources we’ve typically heard from on this topic in the past.
Instead, this round comes from Weibo-based leaker Instant Digital, who is literally rehashing the same prediction they made in August 2023, when they claimed that the Apple Watch Series 10 would be getting an entirely new band attachment system.
However, back then the leaker was at least in good company. In fact, it’s never been clear if that was even an original thought, since Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman had said the same thing only days before in that week’s Power On newsletter:
People involved in the development of new Apple Watches say the [current band attachment] system takes up a considerable amount of space that could be better filled with a bigger battery or other components. To that end, the company has explored a new magnetic band attachment system, though it’s unclear if it will be ready or used in the Watch X revamp.
Mark Gurman
The machine-translated version of Instant Digital’s Weibo post from two days later reads: “The Apple Watch Series 10 features a redesigned band and case connection, intended to increase internal space for the battery.”
Throughout the second half of 2023 and into the early months of 2024, Gurman had a number of optimistic predictions for a so-called “Apple Watch X,” none of which materialized that year. “Even bigger changes are coming as well,” he said in his August 2023 newsletter, including “a microLED display that tops the color and clarity of the current OLED screens, as well as a technology for monitoring blood pressure.”
By July 2024, Gurman had backed away from most of those bolder predictions, falling in line with other leakers and analysts who predicted little more than a thinner design. Still, when Apple’s September 2024 event was scheduled for the day of the Apple Watch’s tenth anniversary, many wondered if Apple had something bigger in store.
It did not. While the Apple Watch Series 10 was indeed thinner and lighter and also boasted some nice display improvements, the overall design remained unchanged. The internal specs were also remarkably similar to the Series 9, featuring a repackaged version of the same chip, and no actual new health sensors; Apple announced sleep apnea detection alongside the Series 10, but this was actually a watchOS 11 feature that was also supported by the older Series 9.
Needless to say, we wouldn’t put too much stock in this latest round from Instant Digital. While there could be a germ of truth to it — Gurman’s information that Apple was exploring other band attachment systems didn’t come out of nowhere, so maybe the timing was simply off — this latest report has yet to be corroborated by any other sources, and it’s lacking any meaningful details.
Rumors of when such a redesign will happen also continue to be all over the map. Instant Digital previously said a redesign wouldn’t happen before 2028, while DigiTimes has pointed to a 2026 design upgrade for at least one model — although that’s widely expected to be the Apple Watch Ultra 4, not the Series 12, which all reports agree will maintain the status quo in terms of aesthetics.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that this is not even close to the fever-pitch of rumors we heard back in 2021, when nearly everyone pointed to a major redesign for the Apple Watch Series 7 — a prediction that turned out to be so wrong that some even tried to backpedal by saying Apple swapped designs at the last minute.
If that were true (which it’s not), then surely the new design would have come to the Series 8, or maybe the Series 9. Surely Apple should have figured out these manufacturing challenges by the time it released the Series 11, right?
The fact is that no company that’s mass-producing millions of high-tech wearables can pivot its entire supply chain only days before a product is slated for release. Plus, it’s not like Apple simply went back to the old design; the Series 7 had a new display that was a “unique challenge” to create, not something its engineers and designers threw together overnight as a “Plan B.”
We’ll probably never know exactly what happened. Perhaps Apple was exploring an ambitious redesign with squared-off edges, but the company also isn’t above planting false information to deliberately mislead leakers or even conducting sting operations to plug holes.
If there’s one thing that the 2021 debacle taught us, it’s to treat any reports of Apple Watch design changes with a gallon of salt. The Series 7 was a significant redesign — just not in the way many thought. The same could also be said for the Apple Watch Series 10; it didn’t look much different at a glance, but a ton of engineering goes into making something that’s already as small as an Apple Watch even smaller while still maintaining adequate battery life and adding even more health monitoring features.
Apple does change up its Apple Watch designs every few years. The Series 4, Series 7, and Series 10 were all design inflection points, with design changes that weren’t visually overwhelming, but that moved the needle forward in subtle but important ways. There’s every reason to believe the Series 13 will be due for a similar shift next year, but Apple has a proven track record of iterative updates to its wearable’s design, and there’s no reason to believe it’s going to change course anytime soon.
