Credit: YouTube / CNET
More evidence has appeared suggesting that Apple won’t be tying the release of this year’s Apple Watch to its iPhone launch event, and in fact the launch of the Apple Watch Series 6 could be right around the corner.
Traditionally, Apple has always announced new Apple Watch models during the annual September events where it also unveils the year’s iPhone lineup. However, part of the reason for this may have simply been convenient timing, and with the iPhone launch being delayed into October this year, it stands to reason that Apple would want to get the Apple Watch out sooner, especially since it would allow the company to salvage some of the loss it will see in quarterly revenue from the lack of a new iPhone.
So we weren’t entirely surprised when we heard a report earlier this month from leaker Jon Prosser that Apple could simply announce the Apple Watch Series 6 via a September press release, rather than waiting until it’s ready to hold its iPhone event.
It’s not unprecedented, either. Apple is doing a lot more new product announcements via press release these days — a new iPad hasn’t gotten stage time since 2018, for example — and the new Apple Watch actually wouldn’t be a bad candidate, since it’s unlikely Apple has much to show off in the hardware, and it’s already laid out everything that’s coming in watchOS 7.
Now, in line with the earlier leak by Prosser, it appears that Apple has already registered a whole slew of new Apple Watch models in the Eurasian Economic Comission (EEC) database, as discovered last week by French site Consomac.
A total of eight Apple Watch models have been filed, almost certainly representing the Apple Watch Series 6 in both cellular and GPS-only models and the standard two sizes.
Apple Watch Series 6 New Features
The Apple Watch Series 6 is still expected to introduce a few surprises beyond what’s already in watchOS 7 by offering a variety of new health sensors for things like blood oxygen monitoring, although recent reports suggest that the predicted blood pressure monitoring may have been scrapped since it wasn’t accurate enough.
The Series 6 is also expected to improve battery life, which would be a big boon for the new sleep tracking feature in watchOS 7, since it would make it more practical to wear your watch to bed at night, not to mention additional sensors that might make the sleep tracking feature more informative.
Still, these are all things that Apple could easily announce via press release. After all, the 2020 iPad Pro gained a LiDAR Scanner, for the first time in any Apple device, and that’s something that would have been much more impressive to show off on stage, yet it also made a quiet debut purely via a press release back in March.
When’s the Series 6 Coming?
It’s typical for EEC database filings to precede the launch of new Apple products, since the company is legally required to make the filings for any devices that incorporate encryption technology that are sold in Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. Since they also become a matter of public record, however, Apple makes the submissions with as little lead time as possible, meaning new EEC filings usually appear within only 2-3 weeks of a new product release.
While Jon Prosser has a mixed track record for recent Apple product leaks — he came up with a pretty outlandish prediction regarding Apple Glass and was duped by a fake AirPower photo — his track record for actual Apple product launch dates has been pretty reliable.
He accurately reported the launch of the iPad Pro and iPhone SE earlier this year, as well as Apple’s newest 27-inch iMac earlier this month.
For the Apple Watch Series 6, Prosser is pegging the week of Sept. 7 — that is, next week — with the suggestion that it will come out only via a press release, alongside new iPads that could possibly include a new 11-inch iPad Air.
Meanwhile, Prosser predicts that Apple won’t hold an actual press event until October, closer to the actual iPhone 12 release date. While Apple hasn’t held an iPhone event in October since 2011 when the iPhone 4S was launched, it’s also the first time since then that it hasn’t had even a single iPhone model ready to ship in September, and it hasn’t ever held a fall iPhone event more than a few days in advance of opening up preorders.
Still, whether Apple holds a September event or not — and in the current climate, it’s guaranteed to be a virtual event anyway — it seems very likely that we won’t have to wait to see the new Apple Watch Series 6.
let adhesion = document.querySelector(‘.adhesionUnitContainer’);
var height = document.documentElement.scrollHeight – 400;
console.log(height);
window.addEventListener(‘scroll’, () => {
if(window.scrollY === 0) adhesion.style.opacity = 0;
if(window.scrollY >= height) {
adhesion.style.opacity = 0;
} else {
adhesion.style.opacity = 1;
}
})
