New ‘International Collection’ Apple Watch Faces Unveiled (Here’s How to Download Them for Free)

There’s no doubt that the global COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a monkey wrench into a lot of Apple’s product plans, but not all the delays were due solely to engineering or technical problems. With the health crisis also resulting in the postponement of the 2020 Summer Olympics, we also missed seeing the return of Apple’s international watch band collection last spring.

However, now that life is starting to return to normal and the Summer Olympics are back on, so is Apple’s fashion sense, and it looks like it’s going beyond merely offering international country-themed watch bands this year.

We first saw hints from internal watchOS 7 betas that Apple was working on international watch faces, but when the actual developer betas came out in June, those faces were nowhere to be found. At the time, some suggested that perhaps Apple was holding them back to be part of the Apple Watch Series 6 announcement, but even though Apple did debut some new watch faces, the rumoured international ones weren’t included.

For some reason, it never occurred to anybody that these new Apple Watch faces may have been part of a bigger plan until enigmatic leaker @L0vetodream hit us in the face with leaked photos of country-specific watch bands that were very obviously following the same style as those created for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

It was one of those “forehead-slapping” moments that seem obvious in retrospect, and with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games now slated to start next month, Apple has officially unveiled its new Apple Watch International Collection, with all the matching watch faces we heard about early last year — and more.

To be fair, perhaps the reason we had forgotten about the 2016 collection is because very few people were fortunate enough to get their hands on one. The set of 14 bands, representing Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States, were only available for purchase in Brazil during the games.

In other words, if you wanted to get your hands on a limited-edition 2016 Olympic Apple Watch band, you had to hop a plane to Rio de Janeiro and visit the Apple Store at Village Mall in Barra da Tijuca, about fifteen minutes away from the Barra Olympic Park. Needless to say, these bands turned out to be pretty rare.

The 2016 Olympic watch bands also arrived at a time when themed Apple Watch bands were already intended to be special edition versions made available only to limited audiences. For example, even though Apple now sells its Pride Edition Apple Watch Bands online and in its retail stores, there was a time when these were exclusive perks for Apple employees.

Since then, however, Apple has clearly decided there’s more to be gained by making these products available to all of its customers, so for the first time, Apple’s 2020 Summer Games International Collection will be available for purchase online and in select Apple Store locations around the world.

The designs are once again based on Apple’s Sport Loop, but this time there are 22 countries on the list: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the US — and a matching “Stripes” watch face for each band.

How to Get the New International Apple Watch Faces for Free

While the international watch faces aren’t on the Apple Watch yet, the good news is that they don’t require a watchOS update.

Instead, Apple is taking the same approach that it used for its Pride Edition Watch Face — the new straps will feature an App Clip on the packaging to let them easily download the corresponding Stripes Apple Watch face.

The good news, however, is that there’s no purchase necessary if all you want is the watch face and not the band. Apple is making all 22 of the watch faces freely available for direct download using your iPhone.

Here’s how to get any of the Stripes watch faces from the new International Collection. Note that the Stripes watch faces require you to be running at least iOS 14.3, and are only available on the Apple Watch Series 4 or later.

1. On your iPhone, visit Apple’s ?Watch page.
2. Scroll down to the International Collection.
3. Tap on See the Countries.
4. Choose the country you want to download the Stripes Watch Face for.
5. Scroll down and tap Add Apple Watch Face.
6. Tap Allow in the prompt that appears to grant permission to download the face.
7. After the Watch app opens, tap Add to My Faces.

The face will be added to your Apple Watch and automatically set as the default. You can also repeat the steps above to add as many more of the International Collection Stripes faces as you like — even all 22 of them if you’re a hardcore fan and can’t quite decide which country you’re rooting for.

The Apple Watch bands are being sold in 40mm and 44mm versions for $49, although like all Apple Watch bands, these will fit the older 38mm and 42mm models as well.