Apple Unveils its 2025 Black Unity Collection
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In a tradition that began in 2021, Apple is once again commemorating Black History Month with another special Apple Watch band and a collection of matching watch faces and wallpapers.
The products and wallpapers are likely only part of what will be a much broader initiative to celebrate Black culture and history, although Apple hasn’t elaborated on what else it has in store. Today’s newsroom announcement unusually focuses only on this year’s Black Unity Collection; if Apple plans to delve into featured media from Black creatives, that will presumably be coming in a separate announcement later on.
Apple says that this year’s Black Unity Collection is “inspired by the rhythm of humanity” and features a special-edition Apple Watch Black Unity Sport Loop with a matching watch face, plus corresponding iPhone and iPad wallpapers.
This year’s “Unity Rhythm” collection comes as a result of a collaboration of Black creatives and allies at Apple. As with past Black Unity special editions, the design is made up of the colors of the Pan-African flag: black, green, and red. This year, they’re being woven together in “a custom pattern of raised and recessed loops that creates a lenticular effect, revealing green on one side of each loop, and red on the other.” Apple notes that the design will provide a dynamic shifting of colors when the band is worn, with yellow also appearing in the transition.
The band is accompanied by a dynamic Unity Rhythm watch face that’s coming “in an upcoming software update” — most likely watchOS 11.3, which is due for release this week. Here’s how Apple describes it:
The matching Unity Rhythm watch face features custom numerals formed by intertwined threads of red, green, and yellow. The watch face reacts to the gyroscope, so when a user raises their wrist to check the time, the strands coalesce from a series of abstract brush strokes into digits. When using the Unity Rhythm watch face, distinctive, rhythmic chimes mark every hour and half hour.
The corresponding Unity Rhythm wallpapers will also likely show up in iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3 and use an abstract collection of intertwined threads to spell out the word “Unity” across the Lock Screen.
Apple has also announced that it’s supporting “several global organizations whose work focuses on elements of rhythm, creativity, and community” as part of the Unity Rhythm launch. However, it hasn’t said precisely what form this support will take, whether it’s donating proceeds from sales of the Unity Rhythm watch bands or in the form of direct financial or material support.
When Apple launched its first Black Unity collection in 2021, it was also accompanied by a limited edition model of the Apple Watch — the only one the company has ever produced. The Black Unity Limited Edition was mostly a standard Apple Watch Series 6, set apart only by the words “Black Unity” laser-etched in the text around the rear sensor next to the model number.
Other than this, it was a standard space gray aluminum Apple Watch Series 6, so there was little reason to rush out and buy one unless you were a collector or already in the market for a new Apple Watch.
It’s unclear how sales of that limited edition model performed, but it seems likely to have been a failed experiment on Apple’s part, as it was never repeated. Apple continued to release Black Unity watch bands each subsequent year, along with custom watch faces tied into the corresponding watchOS releases of those eras — typically “.3” versions — and also began creating complementary iPhone and iPad wallpapers to go along with the watch faces, taking advantage of the new customizable Lock Screen features that were introduced in iOS 16.
Apple has also often used the occasion to highlight Black artists across all of its services, from featured guests on Time to Walk workouts in Apple Fitness+ to special sections in the App Store, Apple Music, the Apple TV app, Apple Books, Apple Podcasts, and Apple News. Apple’s announcement doesn’t specifically call any of these out, so it’s possible we may just see these things appear more quietly over the next few weeks.
The Unity Rhythm Sport Loop sells for the usual $49. It’s available for order on the Apple Store now and should be in Apple’s retail locations later this week. The Unity Rhythm watch face and iPhone and iPad wallpapers will be coming in “an upcoming software update” that almost certainly refers to watchOS 11.3, iOS 18.3, and iPadOS 18.3, all of which launched earlier today.
