Apple Watch S might be in the cards for this year, with major 2017 update
According to KGI Securities chief analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple Watch fans will have to wait until 2017 to see a more comprehensive redesign of the wearable. A refresh of the Apple Watch, in the form of the Apple Watch 2, is expected to be released this Summer, with no visible changes to the casing, and with some improved specs along the lines of battery life improvements, and better display visibility in daylight.
As of 2017, Kuo is predicting that an Apple Watch “S” could hit the markets, with a completely redesigned casing, and new hardware specs that will largely surpass the current version.
While no specific information has been released about the new specs for 2017, it’s entirely possible that the new Watch S could feature a redesigned round casing, as well as a thinner profile, the latter information of which was also included in KGI’s note to investors.
The most interesting part about Kuo’s predictions, however, is not the Watch S, but rather the “S” part, which is one more indication that Apple will continue on its path to brand cohesiveness and simplification, away from branding “spinoffs”, like the “Plus” for the premium-sized iPhone 6, which is expected to turn into “Pro”, with the release of the iPhone 7.
By this token, it seems that Apple is converging on a small but carefully selected branding pattern, that consumers are likely to see more strictly applied to each future iteration of Apple products. More specifically, the “Pro” suffix is something that Apple seems to want to apply universally to products targeted to enterprise customers, like the MacBook, and the iPad. Entry-level versions of Apple’s devices aren’t likely to carry any suffix whatsoever, as it happened with the 2015 12 inch MacBook Retina.
The “S”, seems to be recurrent in mobile devices, and Samsung has been using it for years in almost all releases of its Galaxy phones. The Apple iPhone has followed a similar pattern since the iPhone 3GS, and it seems appropriate for the Apple Watch, as Apple has a history of using the “S” in naming conventions referring to new features. For instance, when Siri was first introduced in the iPhone 4S, the S stood for “Siri”, while the in the iPhone 3GS, the S meant “Speed”, in reference to the improvements brought by a new processor.
It’s unclear what the S will stand for in the 2017 Apple Watch 2S, but there’s a chance that the suffix will have something to do with either battery life, or wireless charging, at least according to some of the recent patents revealed.