10 Years of Apple Watch: Will Apple’s ‘Glowtime’ Event Mark the X?
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Yesterday, Apple officially announced that it will be holding its first fall event for 2024 on September 9. While the company hasn’t said what it plans to unveil, it doesn’t take a crystal ball to know that this will herald the unveiling of the new iPhone 16 lineup. If Apple follows tradition, we’ll also likely see this year’s Apple Watch models debut.
After all, that’s been the norm since Apple moved to fall iPhone events with the iPhone 4S in 2011. That one was a bit later than most, landing in October, but since then, all but one other iPhone release has occurred during a September event. Since 2014, those same events have also included new Apple Watch models.
The only time Apple broke with tradition was in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the arrival of the iPhone 12, pushing the event into October. That year, Apple still held a September event to get the new Apple Watch Series 6 and Apple Watch SE models on the market as quickly as possible, along with some new iPads, but the iPhone 12 wasn’t unveiled until October.
However, this year’s “Glowtime” event has an interesting twist that could mark something special for the Apple Watch. For the first time in Apple history, the company is holding its event on a Monday, and it just so happens that September 9, 2024, marks the tenth anniversary of the date the original Apple Watch was unveiled at Apple’s iPhone 6 event on September 9, 2014.
That 2014 event was on a Tuesday that fit Apple’s regular pattern — Apple’s iPhone events have always been held on Tuesdays unless they conflicted with Labor Day or 9/11. Apple’s switch to a Monday is a noticeable departure from that tradition, and, as Tim Hardwick of MacRumors observes, it could be an intentional nod to the tenth anniversary of the Apple Watch.
The Mythic ‘Apple Watch X’
Apple doesn’t typically make a big deal about product anniversaries since it prefers to look forward rather than wax nostalgically about its past successes. However, that doesn’t prevent it from using the occasion to mark watershed moments when it wants to transition a product lineup into something new and different.
That’s what Apple did with the iPhone X in 2017. While many called it the “Anniversary Edition” of the iPhone, Apple merely presented it as the device for the next ten years of iPhone development. The “X” was probably partly intended to be a Roman numeral 10 to mark ten years, but it also gave the new iPhone a futuristic mystique. Apple wasn’t primarily celebrating ten years of the iPhone’s past so much as ushering in the iPhone’s future.
Still, regardless of Apple’s motivations or spin on this, many have expected it to do something similar with the Apple Watch. Even before last year’s Apple Watch Series 9 was revealed, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman predicted an extensive redesign of the wearable that would be as significant as the transition from the iPhone 8 to the iPhone X.
At the time, Gurman suggested that this would be called the “Apple Watch X” rather than the “Apple Watch Series 10,” but that appeared to be based more on speculation than solid information. Granted, the “X” would make even more sense this time since Apple wouldn’t be skipping any numbers to get there. It would also be an interesting synergy with the 2017 iPhone X. However, like most of Apple’s product names, nothing is ever sure until the company takes the stage and announces it.
Whatever it was to be called, reports persisted that Apple was working on a special edition Apple Watch to mark ten years of the wearable (or, more likely, to set the tone for the next era). Details were murky about what this new “Apple Watch X” would look like, but it seemed that a larger screen and a new band attachment system were on the table.
Unfortunately, by late June, purported CAD renders seemingly scuttled the idea that this year’s Apple Watch would be a radical change. At most, it appeared we’d be getting a bigger screen in an otherwise unchanged design.
While those renders may not have been authentic, Gurman chimed in a few weeks later with an update that added extra weight. He reversed his previous prediction that the new Apple Watch would be “the biggest overhaul yet” and instead told us not to expect too many changes.
Gurman still believes Apple will do a few unique things for the Apple Watch’s tenth birthday, but they’ll be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The bigger screen seen in the renders will reportedly be joined by a thinner design — possibly making it the thinnest Apple Watch ever — but most folks will probably have a hard time telling it apart from a Series 9 at a glance.
The larger screen could be significant since most reports put it on par with the Apple Watch Ultra. However, the wearable won’t likely grow as big as that extreme sports model since there won’t be a rugged titanium casing around it. Meanwhile, the ‘Apple Watch Ultra 3’, which is expected to arrive next month, will have even fewer changes.
It’s perhaps a bit ironic that history seems to be repeating itself here. The last Apple Watch model to get a bump in screen size was the Series 7, which was also the last time we’d heard about a revolutionary new design for the wearable. Months of leaks, reports, and renders suggested a flat-edged model that never arrived. However, unlike this year, those reports held out for the new design until the bitter end, and some even insisted that Apple changed its mind at the last minute and fell back on the old design due to production problems.
At least this year, the most reliable sources have adjusted our expectations well ahead of the Apple Watch Series 10 (or whatever Apple calls it). That doesn’t mean Apple won’t have a few surprises for us with this year’s wearable — the internals and software are lesser-known quantities — but the external design will likely stick with the Apple Watch style we all know and love.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
