Apple Unveils Its 2025 Pride Collection for Apple Watch
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It’s that time of year again when Apple expands its wallpaper and watch bands with new entries to celebrate Pride Month. Today, the company announced its 2025 Pride Collection, featuring a new Pride-themed Sport Band with a matching dynamic watch face and companion iPhone and iPad wallpapers.
This marks the tenth year that Apple has commemorated Pride Month with special edition watch bands, although it’s only the ninth version that’s available to the public — at least officially.
Apple’s first rainbow-colored Apple Watch band was given as a gift to employees in 2016. The event was intended to celebrate 30 years of Apple Pride — the company’s first Diversity Network Association. Employees were told the limited edition band was “a symbol of our commitment to equality.” It wasn’t long before the word got out, and the bands ended up selling for $400 or more on eBay.
The demand for these bands outside of Apple likely inspired the company to turn this into an annual event. In 2017, Apple released the same version for sale to the general public for $49 (with no apologies to the folks who paid $400 for one of the originals). It was a Woven Nylon Apple Watch band with the standard pride flag colors, and it wasn’t purely a new sales opportunity; Apple also pledged to donate a portion of the proceeds from each Pride Edition band to benefit the important work being done by LGBTQ advocacy organizations to bring about positive change.
Apple followed up that 2017 classic with another woven nylon band in 2018. In 2019, it switched to the Sport Loop style and moved to a Sport Band in 2020 — the first version to drop nylon in favor of fluoroelastomer. Apple returned to the braided Solo Loop in 2021 while also expanding on the original rainbow colors to represent more diverse groups, including black and brown to symbolize Black and Latinx communities as well as those who have passed away from or are living with HIV/AIDS, plus light blue, pink, and white to represent transgender and nonbinary individuals.
The 2022 edition was another Sport Loop. Then Apple changed things up in 2023, returning to the fluoroelastomer Sport Band of 2020 and replacing the traditional vertical stripes with a confetti-like array of colors — “a joyful rainbow of geometric shapes.”
Last year’s 2024 edition marked a return to form with a Braided Solo Loop that wove together “a vibrant, fluorescent design inspired by multiple pride flags.”
In 2018, Apple also began offering custom Pride watch faces to match the bands. These were initially built into watchOS 4.3, watchOS 5.2.1, and watchOS 6.2.5 updates. Thanks to downloadable watch faces in watchOS 7, the 2021 release switched to letting users download the new face directly, with an App Clip on the Pride Band package for quick access (although you didn’t have to buy a Pride Band to get the new watch face). In 2023, the customizable Lock Screens of iOS 16 allowed Apple to add Pride-themed iPhone wallpapers to the mix.
The original Pride watch faces have been lost to time as they were built into now-defunct watchOS versions. However, Apple incorporated their designs into the Pride Analog and Pride Digital faces for its 2020 Pride Collection. This was followed by Pride Woven (2021), Pride Threads (2022), Pride Celebration (2023), and Pride Radiance (2024).
The 2025 Pride Collection
Apple has gone in another creative direction for this year’s Pride Collection. We’re back to fluoroelastomer with the Pride Edition Sport Band, but this one is made from a “tapestry of rainbow stripes that vary in shape and size.”
More significantly, Apple notes that since each Pride Edition Sport Band is assembled by hand from these individual stripes, no two bands will turn out exactly alike.”
Featuring a tapestry of rainbow stripes that vary in shape and size, each Pride Edition Sport Band is assembled by hand from individual stripes of vibrant color that are compression-molded together, creating subtle yet striking variations. No two bands are exactly alike, reflecting the individuality of all members of the LGBTQ+ community.
This year’s watch face and wallpapers to complement the watch band have been dubbed “Pride Harmony.” It’s an analog face that “presents bold, individual rainbow stripes, which dynamically shift in sequence across the face of the display to form large hour numerals as users raise their wrist to check the time.” The accompanying wallpapers also have colors that change position when you move, lock, or unlock your iPhone or iPad.
These will be coming in watchOS 11.5, iOS 18.5, and iPadOS 18.5, which should be released in the next few days. The Pride Harmony watch face can also be downloaded through the Apple Watch app, but you’ll have to wait for the iPhone and iPad wallpapers. The Pride Edition Sport Band is available to order online at the Apple Store now and will be in stores next week.
