Apple is reportedly planning to release a rugged version of its Apple Watch later this year. According to Bloomberg, this new Apple Watch model will target extreme sports athletes and come with a bigger screen with a rugged metal casing, as well as a larger battery.
This new rugged Apple Watch is expected to be released alongside the Apple Watch Series 8 and an updated Apple Watch SE model later this fall. The screen on the new rugged model is expected to be 7% bigger than the largest current Apple Watch, and Apple could use the additional screen estate to display more fitness metrics while users are exercising. Watch faces could also be tweaked for the larger screen as well.
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“The extreme sports watch will use a strong metal material rather than aluminum, have a more shatter-resistant screen and include a larger battery compared with standard Apple Watches — letting athletes track workouts for longer periods of time, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the watch details haven’t been announced,” Bloomberg reported.
According to the report, the three upcoming Apple Watch models will use the same S8 processor, which should deliver a similar level of performance as Apple’s previous S7 and S6 chips. However, it will be interesting to see if the larger battery in the rugged Apple Watch could make it last more than a day on a single charge (Apple promises up to 18 hours of battery on current Watch models).
The Apple Watch was the company’s last big product launch back in 2015, and we’ve seen the company iterate with new models every year since then. The same goes with the watchOS operating system, and the upcoming watchOS 9 will bring new watch faces, a new Medications app, sleep stage tracking, as well as other new features.