Insider says the next big Apple Watch may not look like a watch at all

Those include devices with no display, different screen types and sizes, round screens (which he says are unlikely to reach the market), a premium tier sitting above the Ultra and Hermès models, and something more affordable than the current SE.



So this is early, and it appears everything is still on the whiteboard. That's worth keeping in mind before anyone starts picturing a round Apple Watch on their wrist.

The pressure is coming from wrists that aren't wearing watches

For anyone shopping, the reason this matters is that the Apple Watch has looked essentially the same since the Series 4 arrived in 2018, and the Ultra hasn't changed its silhouette since 2022. Apple isn't revisiting that out of boredom, though.

Gurman points to the rise of screenless fitness bands and smart rings, which are cheaper, lighter and, for plenty of people, just more pleasant to live with. There's a business reason too, since Apple's Wearables, Home and Accessories segment grew nearly 7% last quarter while overall product revenue jumped 18%.



It should be noted that we've already spent time with most of what Apple is reacting to. Our own Apple Watch Ultra 3 review concluded that it gets better rather than different and that it still feels like overkill for the regular user.

On the Android side, our Galaxy Watch 8 review liked the new squircle design but called the price hike unjustified.

So if you're wearing a Galaxy Watch, an Oura Ring or a Whoop band right now, none of this changes your wrist for years. It does suggest Apple thinks you were onto something, though.

The numbers behind that shift are smaller than they sound. IDC's Worldwide Wearable Device Tracker projects 4.9 million smart rings in 2026, up 12.8% year over year, while wristbands are forecast to fall 6.8% to 40.2 million units and smart glasses climb 41.4% to 13.6 million.

Set against roughly 163 million smartwatches shipped, rings are still a very small slice of the market, they're just the part that keeps climbing. That lines up with the Q1 figures we covered in June, where Apple's smartwatch share grew while Samsung slipped. So Apple's problem isn't that the watch is losing, it's that the growth is turning up somewhere else.

What this means if you're shopping this year

None of it should change a watch you buy in September. The Series 12 and Ultra 4 are still lined up as internal upgrades, with what Gurman describes as their first real performance boost in years, plus a ceramic case option returning, new colors and bands, and a set of health and fitness additions.



Our Apple Watch SE 3 review called it the best upgrade of the year despite a design that looks outdated, which is roughly the position the whole lineup is in. Buy on what ships next month, not on a concept Apple hasn't picked.

I'd rather Apple commit than keep exploring

I'm glad the company is taking this seriously, because the jelly-bean look has been running since 2018 and Apple has been comfortable with it for a long time. Still, evaluating several directions at once is not the same as choosing one, and we've been reading about a major Apple Watch redesign since the Watch X chatter back in 2023, so I'm keeping my expectations low.

Hopefully Eddy Cue's Health app overhaul forces the issue, given that he reportedly wears an Oura and a Whoop himself. I'd personally love to see Apple ship the screenless one and let it be strange.