Apple Watch X to have bigger screen and be thinner, no design update coming to the Watch Ultra

The next Apple Watch, due to launch this September, and previously referred to as Apple Watch X, is now rumored to come with a larger screen, and it will be overall thinner than its predecessor, but no other design changes are expected.

The information comes from the usually reliable Mark Gurman reporting for Bloomberg. Both sizes of the Watch X will have bigger screens, with the larger version sporting a display roughly the size of that seen in the Apple Watch Ultra.

Speaking of which, the Apple Watch Ultra won't get any major changes this year, design-wise. Inside, things will be different. Both the Apple Watch X and the Apple Watch Ultra will be powered by a new chip, one that might in the future enable some Apple Intelligence features. But those won't come this year, as right now Apple is focused on bringing AI only to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and the Vision Pro as the next step.

The much-anticipated release of blood pressure tracking may not come this year, since Apple has allegedly "run into some serious snags" with it, finding it hasn't been as reliable as hoped during testing. This happened particularly on pairing the feature with the new Apple Watch X design (we assume the thinness might be the culprit, but only Apple knows for sure of course).

Anyway, even when it does launch, this feature won't actually give you a reading of your precise blood pressure - it will figure out your baseline and monitor if it's relatively higher than that and notify you.

Another troublesome feature for Apple is sleep apnea tracking, which is tied to your blood oxygen saturation. Apple is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Masimo about this, and so Apple Watches can't measure blood oxygen levels until that gets resolved. So either the lawsuit is concluded by September, or Apple finds a workaround. Or, the more likely scenario, this feature will continue to be delayed.

Apple is also reportedly working on a new entry-level Apple Watch SE, which could be made from hard plastic instead of aluminum to cut costs further and compete head-on with Samsung's Galaxy Watch FE, which is $199 compared to $249 for Apple's current Watch SE.

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