Apple Watch Series 9 could be getting a long-awaited feature and new leak claims

This fall, the Apple Watch Series 10 is expected to launch. But there’s a feature that’s been missing from every Apple Watch since the first launched in Spring 2015. A new report claims it’s on its way.

May 2 update below. This post was first published on April 29, 2023.

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May 2 update. Not every update brings welcome news, and that includes the Apple Watch. There have been rumors for some time of an updated version of the Apple Watch Ultra, which was first released last fall. Nothing surprising about that. What’s less certain, however, is whether or not the Ultra will change its display technology. Currently, all Apple Watch models use OLED technology for their displays, but it is reported that this will be updated to microLED, a technology that can provide greater brightness and higher pixel density. arousing.

But the timing seems to be the most volatile. It was really all over the place, being the rumored first arrival of the year. I’ve always been skeptical about this: Apple never introduced the design of the Apple Watch one year only to drastically change it the next year, throughout the history of the smartwatch.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman previously said microLED is coming, and suggested that the second half of 2024 was when we should expect it. This seems more likely, and it doesn’t rule out an update to the Ultra this fall either, although that would likely focus on a processor update. While it’s possible that the current model could have a lifespan of up to two years, it would be weird if the Series 10 had a new processor while the Ultra had last year’s chip.

Anyway, the latest report changes things again. Display analyst Ross Young tweeted that the new display technology will appear later. here Link to the tweet, but you must be subscribed to Young’s content to see it. The gist is that microLED is coming to the Apple Watch Ultra in fall 2025. More than two years later, then, it’s still a long way off.

This seems perfectly reasonable: It wouldn’t be the first time that Apple had to delay introducing new technology to one of its devices, after all.

There’s another question to be answered: Will Apple bring microLED to just the Apple Watch Ultra, or to all of its models at the same time? While it’s true that in the early days of the Apple Watch the only difference between the cheapest and most expensive models was just the metal casing, the Ultra broke the mold by offering a completely different design. Does that mean that the new screen technology will land on the Ultra first, and only for the other models later? We don’t know yet, although that seems likely to me.

Plenty of time for the full details to become clear between now and late 2025, of course.

Update April 30th. It comes on the heels of the latest rumor, a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. According to Gorman in his latest book Power On NewsletterThe way you use your Apple Watch is going to change dramatically with the arrival of watchOS 10, and it’s likely that the platform the sync feature will run below will be on.

Gurman says Apple is “ready to give its watch suite one of the biggest software updates since the original release — with a new focus on tools and fundamental changes to how the device works.” This is intriguing, and Gorman says it’s designed so that you can get more information with less scrolling. It’s only fitting that saving time should be a priority on a device like a watch, of course.

The widget focus returns to the Glances interface found on the first Apple Watch but long since discontinued. As Gorman points out, “Apps have remained central to the Apple Watch. The best way to get information on a device — besides viewing the intricacies of a watch face — is still to launch apps. To make this as easy as possible, the Home screen can be accessed with a single tap on the Digital Crown, a highlight button per hour.”

But with watchOS 10, it looks like widgets will be back and central to the experience, possibly meaning that a single press of the Digital Crown will take you to widgets, not the home screen. “The plan is to let users scroll through a series of different widgets — to track activity, weather, stock tickers, calendar appointments, and more — rather than having them launch apps,” Gorman explains.

If that sounds like a big change, that’s because it is. So big that such a change, like that of the Digital Crown, might be optional at first.

It is believed that the big updates to the watch this year will be software-based, and this will certainly be a drastic change.

According to the Twitter account of Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, who describes himself as an Apple software analyst, the future Apple Watch can sync with multiple Apple devices. Here’s why that matters.

Right now, though you can sync more than one Apple Watch to your iPhone, each watch can only be paired with one phone. Which means if you don’t have an iPhone, but do have an iPad and/or a Mac, you can’t even set up an Apple Watch.

Of course, this is because Apple likes to keep you safe within the walled garden ecosystem, and the company would say this is to protect the user experience.

However, if you can sync your Apple Watch to your iPad or Mac, a whole new series of options appear.

If you have more than one phone, even if they’re both iPhones, you can only pair your Apple Watch with one of them. If one of these phones is for work and the other for personal purposes, you need to carry the device the watch is paired with to make sure it stays updated with notifications, for example.

Here’s what @analyst941 had to say in their tweet: “The Apple Watch can sync across more than one Apple device too, finally. I don’t know how that will play out. All I know, again, **ALL** I know, is that the Apple Watch will Sync them across multiple iOS/iPadOS/Mac devices, and they will no longer be tied to a single iPhone.”

No details, then, of how it will be achieved or how it will work, but it’s a good move. Remember how much freedom it felt to wear the Apple Watch once it had LTE connectivity on some models?

It’s also not clear if you’ll still need an iPhone for the initial setup. I’d think the accompanying iPad might work, but maybe not the Mac. I feel confident that the Apple Watch isn’t about to pair with an Android phone.

like 9to5Mac A recent report that the Health app on the iPhone is about to appear on the iPad with iPadOS 17 may indicate that setup with the iPad is coming.

Whatever the setup procedure, the main feature will be the addition of syncing with multiple Apple devices. In fact, the only downside I can see is one that many new users encounter: scaling up information until you set exactly email accounts etc. that will send data to the Watch. But this is easy to fix.

We’ll almost certainly get an idea of ​​this at WWDC in June, though full implementation may be delayed until the Apple Watch Series 10 release this fall. Either way, it’s likely that watchOS 10 will work with more than one generation of Watch.