Apple will update its Series 12 and Ultra 4 watches with better specs, but no design overhaul.
Upcoming Apple Watch updates won’t be much different from existing models, but they’ll offer a lot more processing power, according to the latest Bloomberg report. In the To light up In the newsletter, Mark Gurman reported that Apple is in “advanced testing” for the refreshed Wi-Fi and cellular-only Apple Watch Series 12, as well as the Ultra 4. Gurman added that the Apple Watch SE is not expected to be refreshed this year, given that the Apple Watch SE 3 was just released last year.
For anyone ready to upgrade their Apple Watch, Gurman reported that Apple doesn’t have a “major design overhaul” for this year’s models. Instead, Apple will focus on improving performance by introducing improvements to health and fitness tracking, as well as improving specs and speed with new chips, according to Gurman. It’s still unclear what the performance improvements will look like, but Gurman noted that the last major processor change for Apple Watches came in 2023, when the company introduced the S9 chip.
Anyone looking for a more radical cosmetic change to the Apple Watch may just have to wait a little longer. Gurman noted that there will be “a more significant redesign of the Apple Watch,” but not for a year or two. Along with this expected redesign, Gurman said Apple is still working on its blood sugar detection feature. We’re still a long way from a wearable device that can measure a user’s blood sugar non-invasively, but Apple’s blood sugar detection feature would line up nicely with its own software, which it’s reportedly working on in 2024.
