A major design change is expected for Apple Watch Series 10 – or Apple Watch X if Apple follows the iPhone naming scheme. Based on the latest rumors, AppleTrack’s Sam Kohl and ConceptCentral prepared a video with some renders highlighting what the new Apple Watch could look like in addition to a roundup of rumors.
For the tenth anniversary of the Apple Watch, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman reports that Apple is planning a major overhaul for its smartwatch. The company is working on a thinner case for the Series 10, but it could also change the mechanism for connecting bands.
People familiar with the matter told Gurman that the way Apple engineered the bands takes a lot of space, and it could be remade to add a bigger battery or other internal components. Apple is also considering a magnetic band attachment system, which would end retro compatibility with older bands but could bring other improvements. This is highlighted in the renders:
Even though Apple is no longer working on in-house miniLED for the Apple Watch Series 10, a report suggests Apple could add a more power-efficient OLED display for the upcoming model, which means the display could be even brighter while still not consuming too much battery. But even with the Apple Watch body becoming slimmer, the new band design and the OLED display could continue to deliver the same 18 hours of battery life.
In addition to the Apple Watch Series 10 design change, Apple might be adding new health sensors. According to Mark Gurman and Drake Bennett, Apple has an “enticing road map for 2024, including hypertension and sleep apnea detection for the watch.” For sleep apnea detection, the watch would use sleep and breathing patterns to estimate whether someone has the condition and then direct users to see a physician.
For the blood pressure sensor, Apple will do the rollout in phases. In the first iteration, it will just tell a user if their blood pressure is trending upward and offer a journal for the user to note what they were doing when hypertension occurred. At all times, this feature will tell users to talk to a doctor or check their blood pressure with a traditional cuff, Bloomberg reports. A future version of the system, on the other hand, will have the ability to provide exact numbers, even diagnosing related conditions, but it remains “far off.”
Apple reportedly plans to launch these new capabilities as “good-to-know” features, just like it did with the oximeter sensor. It shows a person their blood oxygen percentage – or the blood pressure trending upward – but not what the data means, as it’s not intended for medical use.