This could be a big year for the Apple Watch - in fact, according to a new claim, it could be the biggest in the range’s history, with three new models possibly launching.
That’s according to Mark Gurman in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg. He has a great track record for Apple information, and he claims that as well as the Apple Watch 8, we’ll also see the Apple Watch SE 2 and an Apple Watch geared towards extreme sports.
These notably are all wearables that we’ve heard about before, and from multiple sources, so there’s a good chance Gurman is right.
He also says that all three of these will land towards the end of the year (presumably in September alongside the iPhone 14). However, they might not be big upgrades, which could be a bit disappointing given that the Apple Watch 7 was also quite a small upgrade.
Gurman claims that there won’t be any major new health sensors this year, other possibly than a body temperature sensor, which has been rumored for a while. But he doesn’t sound sure that we’ll even see that, and not so long ago suggested that this feature might not make it in 2022.
However, the wearables will apparently sport “major updates to activity tracking” along with faster chips. That latter point should be extra desirable, since the Apple Watch 7 had an almost identical chipset to the Apple Watch 6.
Finally, Gurman claims that the Apple Watch 3 might be retired this year. That’s currently the cheapest Apple Watch option, but presumably another model will take its place, and it’s really getting on a bit now, so discontinuing it could make sense. That said, we’d take all of this with a pinch of salt for now.
Opinion: big competition requires big changes
From what Gurman is saying, it sounds like the Apple Watch 8 might not be much better than the Apple Watch 7, which itself wasn’t much better than the Apple Watch 6.
That’s not totally surprising, given that Apple’s wearables are among the most polished and powerful around. But this year could be a big one for Wear OS, giving Apple more competition.
Following Samsung’s switch to Wear OS for the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 range late last year, we’re soon expecting to see an overhauled Wear OS experience on numerous existing and upcoming watches.
Plus, Google itself is possibly set to finally launch the Pixel Watch, and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 is sure to offer tough competition too. So Apple can’t afford to get complacent.
- These are the best Apple Watch apps
Via Apple Insider
