Apple Watch Concepts

Apple Watch 8 arrives in September and Watch OS9 in June and the speculation about what each might contain hasn’t been too crazy this year.

Must Read: Apple watch 7 Review

Apple will most likely plough on their current trajectory with only limited innovations. However, that doesn’t stop the Creatives from dreaming. Try these…

@FonsMans’ Custom Face

Dutch designer, Fons Mans, suggests a highly plausible new watch face for Apple to introduce… another benefit? It looks really good!

 

 

What he seems to have done here is to re-think Apple’s fitness rings and change the watch dial into a calendar ring to give a nice, quick visual cue for your day ahead. Apparently, the activity for the current time period is highlighted orange (walk/exercise) however I don’t think that fits well with the time shown as 10 o’clock? I’d expect the highlighted period to be somewhere close to where the hour-hand points.

The calendar ring would be clickable and would open up details in the owner’s calendar item.

It would of course be great if Apple let the likes of Fons Mans’ design custom watch faces…but it doesn’t! And that isn’t likely to change as Apple needs to very tightly control the resources that watch faces and complications use in order to maintain battery life.

Verdict: Looks great but not my kinda thing as I’m not a calendar-focussed person. That said MANY people are and this is the sort of thing that Apple could implement. There is usually a new watch face or two every year so, hey, why not this.

More: linkedin.com

Baseus Rope Watch Band

The Baseus Let’s Go rope band for Apple Watch is an unusual and novel design that features a locking mechanism, perhaps well-suited for some sports as it combines lightweight and breathability.

Shown on the image above, the watch is not held tightly to the skin which could be a problem for HR recording however the ‘rope’ look exudes a certain kind of casualness that might appeal to the odd surfer or two?

Verdict: Apple will never sell something like this as the design is too complicated for their tactic of selling expensive, cheap-to-make straps. But that doesn’t matter as you can buy 3rd party straps that fit for a fraction of the cost.

 

 

More: ibaseus.com

Apple Watch Loop Concept

Felipe Duarte imagines a circular, Apple Watch Loop as a low-cost successor to the Apple Watch 3. The novel pop-out band probably wouldn’t be sufficiently durable over the long haul but it’s a nice-looking concept in any case. Prosser/RendersByIan imagine something similar but, sadly for both, a circularly-imagined Apple Watch isn’t going to happen any time soon.

 

 

 

 

Apple Watch 8 – MAYBE !

Widely-known Apple leaker, Jon Prosser, has apparently seen designs of the next Apple Watch case variant and his associate, RendersByIan, re-visualises them.

I would say that it’s reasonably possible that a flat-sided Apple watch could hit the shelves this year as a replacement for the smoothed-edged Watch 7.

Why? It would match the iPhone design! such minor design overhauls introduce an element of visual redundancy into recent models making it obvious that you have an old watch. This is a way of encouraging some types of image-conscious owners to fork out some cash on an upgrade.

Why Not? In some ways, the larger Apple Watch 7 WAS the design overhaul. The increased internal space in the AW7 is probably awaiting the arrival of a larger battery or some other exciting sensor in the years to come.

 

 

Rugged Apple Watch 8

The talk last year was of a ruggedly made Apple Watch 7 to compete in some fantastical way with the Fenix 7. Or at least compete for the eyes of the weekend adventurer. And why not?

I have some quite significant doubts about all of this despite the quality and reliability of some of the information from the leakers in question. Certainly, a new Apple Watch version that’s made from more rugged materials makes some sense for an occasional weekend adventurer.

However, I think this product already exists. It’s called the Apple Watch 7! If you buy an AW7 Stainless Steel then you get the harder gorilla-like glass, you also get the AW7’s increased resistance to dust compared to the AW6 and both have the water resistance you need for hiking slightly off-piste. If you add in a decently rugged strap from the likes of Nomad (as shown on the image below) then you’ve got a fairly rugged solution. You can then add a screen protector and use apps, maps and the existing inbuilt sensors to give you pretty much everything else you’d need.

Verdict: Nah! but maybe 😉

 

 

 

Apple Watch 8 Predictions

When predicting the next Apple Watch, it’s best to let your imagination run wild and then totally ignore what you came up with. Well, totally ignore it except for your predictions of improvement in battery life which you should then immediately slash by 95%.

Think, instead about an almost imperceptibly boring and incremental change and you’ll be close to the truth. Take a quick peek at the sensors that aren’t being used, have a closer peek at June’s new software features and then work out what the next new sensor could most easily be.

Play with various combinations of always-on screens (including the ones that aren’t REALLY always-on) and then contemplate faster battery charging.

If you are still awake and not dying of boredom you will have come up with this

1. AW8…very very similar to the AW7 in competency but with flat sides
2. Body Temperature sensor for sleep, illness and women’s health algorithms
3. A few more hours battery life and a bit faster charging
4. An SE Gen 2 model with always-on screen
5. Discontinuation of Apple Watch 3
6. Watch SE (gen 1) becomes the entry-level watch.
7. Other new features? nah. use the app store.