The Apple Watch upgrade cycle is more trick than treat

This time of year is pretty tough if you’re a journalist who writes about Apple products. (I know, I know. First world problems.) First, there’s the September event, which means a lot of urgent news in the blink of an eye. Then you spend several weeks carefully testing the new devices and writing in-depth reviews. And then, just when you think the worst is over, you get hit in the face with a series of October launches, as is expected to happen this week.

Last week I finished my review of the Apple Watch SE 3 and then, like the tireless Stakhanovite journalist that I am, I jumped straight into the Apple Watch Series 11. I don’t say this to gain your admiration, although I certainly deserve it. But finding that using three different watches in the space of three weeks – Series 9, SE 3 and now Series 11 – is a strange experience, and one that demonstrates how much Apple’s launch strategy depends on direct comparison.

By any reasonable measure, all three of these products are excellent smartwatches that won’t disappoint. They all have always-on displays, a wide range of applications and medical sensors and powerful components. My Series 9 was two years old when I stopped using it, which is unusual for a grotesquely privileged reviewer like me, but at no point did I feel that it was outdated, slow, or unequipped for its assigned role in my life. For the uninitiated, and frankly for the initiated too, they are all as good as each other.

But when you place them next to each other, the small differences are obvious. The jump from Series 9 to SE 3 made the latter’s screen terribly small, at least initially. (It didn’t help that I moved from the larger Series 9 to the smaller SE 3.) I missed the ECG and blood oxygen sensor, even though I almost never used them on the Series 9, and I worried, unnecessarily, that the lack of precision tracking would make life more difficult. A subjective comparison highlighted very minor flaws in an objectively solid product. And then the journey from the SE 3 to the 11 series made the latter much better than it would have been from a 9 or 10 series.

The fact is that, like the iPhone and iPad, the Apple Watch has reached a point in its evolution where the chances are low that anything truly significant will change in the space of a generation or two: all the low-hanging fruit and nutritionally important fruits were picked a long time ago. In fact, despite being younger than the other two, the Apple Watch has progressed further down this path because it is inherently more limited as a product. He does fewer things, so it’s easier to be good enough at all of them.

The apps and features I use and love most on my Apple Watch are ones that have been around for years: workout, activity rings, sleep tracking, on-wrist message notifications, and the ability to beep my iPhone when I can’t find it. With rare exceptions (the radical redesign of the iPhone Air is one, and we might get a similar redesign of the Apple Watch at some point), these products tend to reach a kind of evolutionary equilibrium where a wholesale strategic shift in any direction can only make them worse, and the logical path forward is barely perceptible iterative improvements to the underlying technology. Microwave ovens are like that, and no one is surprised when a new microwave comes out and it doesn’t change the entire microwave paradigm. Nor are we all excited about buying a new microwave every three years.

But Apple, somehow, manages to sell the small upgrades like they’re going to make a dent in the universe. And its annual iPhone and Apple Watch updates, which are nine times out of 10 minor and iterative, are major news events worth mentioning in the news and poor overworked journalists who have to clear their schedules and work until very late at night.

This isn’t to say that upgrades are useless or that Apple should stop releasing new Apple Watches. (None of this is aimed at the Apple Watch SE 3 in particular, either, which more than deserves its 4.5-star review. The fact that the products have little to differentiate them means it’s more important than ever to look for good value.) Just observe that much of the company’s upgrade strategy depends on technological desire: comparing the perfectly usable product in your pocket to the one at the store that does a few things slightly better and in depositing a big wad of money. of pure, undiluted FOMO.

It’s my job as a reviewer to describe and evaluate how the Apple Watch has changed since last year; It’s hard work, but someone has to do it. And it’s your job as a customer to appreciate that, as nice as the watches are, most of these changes don’t make enough of a difference to justify paying for a new device.

Foundry

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in one handy summary. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it pairs really well with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you also want to read it during lunch or dinner hours.

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