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The Apple Watch Series 10 could be the biggest Apple Watch upgrade in years

Control Center on the Apple Watch Series 9.
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Over the past few months, we’ve come across multiple rumors claiming that the 10th-anniversary edition of the Apple Watch will finally bring a major design and functional refresh. Now, TFI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is also backing those predictions.

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In an investor post shared on Medium, Kuo writes that the Apple Watch Series 10 will be thinner. This comes just a day after Bloomberg reported that Apple is also eyeing a thinner iPhone and MacBook for the 2025 product upgrade cycle.

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Notably, the upcoming smartwatch won’t only be thinner, but will also introduce new size options. It will reportedly be offered in 45mm and 49mm sizes, up from the 41mm and 45mm variants that Apple currently offers for the Apple Watch Series 9.

Another crucial change is that Apple will shift to 3D-printed parts for its upcoming smartwatch portfolio due to lowered production costs. “Intensive testing over the past year has significantly improved the production efficiency of 3D printing,” Kuo writes.

The Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Series 8, seen from the side.
The Apple Watch Series 9 (left) and Apple Watch Series 8 Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Regarding the smartwatch, the leak landscape has been relatively quiet about new fitness and biosensing capabilities. According to Bloomberg, the Apple Watch Series 10 (or Apple Watch X) will also embrace a new band attachment design that requires magnetic parts.

It seems that the hardware charges — which include a larger, but thinner chassis — will accompany yet another crucial upgrade. “People involved in the development of new Apple Watches say the system takes up a considerable amount of space that could be better filled with a bigger battery or other components,” says the Bloomberg report.

Apple is also said to be ditching the OLED panel in favor of microLED screens for the smartwatch. On the wellness side, the report mentions blood pressure sensing, a feature that the likes of Samsung and Huawei already offer on their respective smartwatches.

Experts tell Digital Trends that blood glucose analysis is currently the moonshot, but promising progress is also being made in the field of microfluidics. The most notable objective is to develop noninvasive methods for measuring biomarkers like blood glucose level and alcohol concentration. Another objective is for the watch to perform sweat analysis.

The Apple Watch Series 9's case back and sensors.
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The latter is itself a mine of crucial health and workout data and could be particularly appealing for athletes. Right now, there is no concrete leak around the asking price, but given the recent wave of Apple products that have embraced a design refresh, we can safely expect a generation-over-generation price hike for the Apple Watch X as well.

Apple’s next hardware event will likely take place in the fall, and will likely serve as the launch platform for the iPhone 16 and possibly a few Mac updates as well.

Nadeem Sarwar
Nadeem is a tech and science journalist who started reading about cool smartphone tech out of curiosity and soon started…
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