At the height of my Apple fandom, I purchased one of the company’s most iconic and quixotic designs: a used Power Mac G4 Cube, the beautiful floating computer Apple initially described as “revolutionary” before putting it on ice — Apple’s words — less than a year later. Like many other people, I had fallen in love with the Cube’s design the first time I saw it, but wouldn’t spend $1,800-$2,300 to own one. So I waited until the price fell significantly and bought it used on eBay.
Back then, I wondered why Apple had discontinued its “revolutionary” computer so quickly. And why it hadn’t opted to “reintroduce an upgraded model of the unique computer in the future,” as its discontinuation press release had suggested was possible. After rebuilding my Cube inside and out, I completely understood the answer: Apple and technology had both moved on. Old replacement parts were still available, but new parts were smaller, faster, and more reliable. Apple had effectively redesigned the Cube to become the more reasonably priced Mac mini, unsympathetically abandoning the original form factor because it had fundamental problems.
Just like every major new Apple product released over the past decade, the Apple Watch’s first-generation design will give way to a better second-generation design in the not-too-distant future. Recall that Apple discarded the first iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV enclosures after only a single generation, in each case making major design changes to address early concerns. So although some people have suggested otherwise, this means that there won’t be an “upgrade” program to swap the S1 core of the Apple Watch when the S2 is introduced. Instead, there will be a whole new watch designed to entice new customers, and remedy early adopters’ complaints…
The key lesson I learned when upgrading the G4 Cube — admittedly years after it was discontinued — was that doing so wasn’t financially practical. Once I added up the costs of swapping the Cube’s CPU, RAM, hard drive, and (infamously easily damaged) exterior shell, I could just go out and buy a completely new Mac mini with identical or better specs, bolstered by a brand new motherboard, faster ports, and more efficient power consumption. Nostalgia was the only reason to spend time and money restoring a Cube.
It’s hard to accept this with any brand new Apple product — particularly a watch that Apple’s pitching to its own retail employees as “#timeless” — but Apple never freezes its products in time rather than improving them with evolving technologies, engineering, and industrial design concepts. This is the company that released an “iPad Air 2” with a 1.4mm thinner body as a major selling point over the year-old iPad Air. Even early Apple Watch adopters tend to acknowledge that there’s nothing so perfect in the first-generation design that it couldn’t be improved upon in a new model.
So what will the second-generation Apple Watch look like? History suggests that it will follow several key principles:
- The screen(s) will be extremely similar to the original model. If you’re expecting Apple to shift to a round display, don’t hold your breath. Apple never makes a major change in screen technology (or orientation, aspect ratio, size, or shape) in the second-generation version of a product.
- The colors will likely change, at least a little. It’s extremely common for a second-generation Apple product to introduce additional or improved colors. The iPhone and iPad both went from one color to two, while the iPod shuffle and nano bloomed in rainbow colors during their second-generation models. For the Apple Watch, expect anything from new anodized aluminum colors to new metals, but almost certainly no changes to screen bezel colors.
- It will rectify at least one obvious functional problem��identified in the original model. Now that watches are in the wild, some users are already reporting problems with inductive charging and the Digital Crown, while Taptic Engine failures were blamed for manufacturing delays across the entire line. You can be certain that Apple is working on fixes, and that something bigger — creating a more comprehensively waterproof housing where the Crown doesn’t develop issues — is on Jony Ive’s list. Creating a less skin color-sensitive heart rate monitor is likely on Apple’s engineering list, as well.
- It will be a more ergonomic design that Apple plans to keep around for at least two years. With rare exceptions, the second-generation version of an Apple product tends to stick around for a while. The iPhone 3G continued with the only-slightly-tweaked iPhone 3GS housing, and the iPad 2 shell stuck around for the third- and fourth-generation iPads. In each case, Apple really worked to make the products more comfortable to hold; the Watch may well be tweaked to become more comfortable to wear.
It goes without saying that Apple will want to make functional improvements, too. Additional health sensors, improved speaker and microphone performance, electronic watch bands, and perhaps even a camera could be on tap. Any of these changes could require changes to the shape and size of the next-generation Apple Watch, or be implemented invisibly with the right components.
Yes, it’s possible that Apple will do something different with the Apple Watch, and keep the initial enclosure basically the same for another year. This happened with the original iPod, which added a port cover and swapped Wheel technologies, as well as the iPad mini, which stayed the same outside except for a rear-facing microphone and Retina display. But even if Apple’s external tweaks to the Apple Watch design were on that scale, it wouldn’t offer internal upgrades to past customers. Every externally obvious change requires improvements inside, and letting customers swap internal parts is very, very low on Apple’s list of design priorities.
So if you’re thinking of buying an Apple Watch today, my advice is to be realistic: the only things that may change inside your first-generation Watch are the OS and the battery, when it’s in need of replacement. If you’re hoping for improved internals, start saving your money for the sequel.
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If you look at Apple’s product history, each product goes through at least 2 or more years of the same case before they make any drastic changes to the actual case. I wish they would design their products so that when a newer model comes out that uses the same outer case design, customers could simply bring the computer in, pay a marginal cost to have the guts replaced, get a new warranty for the new “upgrade” and be able to get increased computing power and lifespan from the same “box”. It SHOULD cut costs of replacing the entire computer and the recycling costs from having to recycle the entire system, when only a small part is actually getting replaced.
They had old S100 buss computers back in the 70’s where you could simply unplug a processor card and put in a new one, to get increased computing power. Having that type of system design would be cool, but the problem is miniaturizing it for a laptop, AIO, or small desktop form factor.
Depends on the product line. For iPod, iPhone, iPad, it’s most commonly 1 year of first-gen casing then 2 years of second-gen casing. With Macs, it’s multiple years.
I wonder if on Gen 2 they’ll have an option to purchase the body only. My guess (hope) is, barring any major body modification, the bands attachment system will not change so soon. I agree with the author that an upgrade process is unlikely, so maybe this will be a way to pass some savings to customers.
Wait did I just say that? This is Apple! :-)
On what planet did you think they would offer an upgrade? They never offer upgrades. This post is somewhat nonsensical. You’re comparing a watch to a G4 cube.
Stop assuming the author thinks that, he’s addressing conversations MANY MANY people have wanted to discuss even before the Apple Watch came out, namely, would the Apple Watch be upgradeable rather than becoming obsolete in 2 years? Which in my humble opinion is a perfectly rational concern to want one watch for more than a couple years
Crap, gotta put mine up on CraigsList already?
i at least hope they don’t change the band mechanism for at least a couple of generations so i don’t have to buy new bands with each iteration. from my defective watch that was sent for repair, the replacement cost of the watch itself is $419 CAD (for the stainless steel model)
I think the one thing we know for *sure* is that the next one will be thinner. It always is (just about).
When do watches get thinner?
When Jony Ive has something to do with them.
Making comparisons with the history of desktop computers can be misleading. There are many reasons to make desktop computers in a different form factor, or smaller. With a watch there is a natural size that most manufacturers have converged towards and it wouldn’t be particularly smart to make it larger or smaller ( other than the two sizes already on sale ). If the case size remains the same for a few years, then updating the internals might well be a possibility.
We have already seen that the marketing of Watch is significantly different to previous Apple products and I believe that we will see further departures from the norm for Apple with how it deals with Watch. Offering internal upgrades or trade-ins may still be on the cards. It also fits better with Apple’s green principles.
You forget that Jony Ive works for Apple. Next year’s model will be thinner. If he could make it a tattoo he would.
You use the words “skin-color sensitive” while linking to an article about tattoos interfering with the heart rate sensor. We’ve already established that SKIN COLOR is not the issue, it’s the ink. Stop being sensational.
I agree with the post. I think the last time Apple offered any major internal component upgrade was in ’86 when they allowed you to replace an Apple IIe motherboard with an Apple IIgs motherboard, so I don’t expect the Apple watch to get any internal upgrades. It is what it is and it’s going to stay that way.
I can see the upgrade path argument in terms of things like laptops … previous MacBooks were great for this and it was useful. I’d like to see that come back – particularly for things like upgrading memory – on the new generation MacBooks
Personally I can’t see it so much with a watch. Never had a watch you could internally upgrade. Only thing I can remember doing is replacing batteries.
I also doubt that there will be any sort of internals upgradability. That’s never been Apple’s style. However, I do question the notion that there will be a revised Apple Watch every year like the iPhone. People are not in the habit of replacing their watch every year or even every couple of years, and Apple’s push for this to be considered jewelry and even an heirloom (the Apple store employees kept telling me that if I buy an Apple Watch, it could be an heirloom) makes me wonder if there’s a different plan here. There’s are other Apple products that are not revamped every year. Apple TV is only revised every few years, and I think the Mac Mini also goes long long stretches without updates. Maybe minor tweaks (like when they upped the storage on the iPad), but they’re going to seriously hurt their whole “heirloom” thing if we get Apple Watch 2 being announced in 9 months.
This is a Watch, so no doubt they’ll come out with different Watch styles and maintain their current models. The Watch icons are round and it’s obvious the UI is flexible enough for a round watch as well. Also many Apps rely on the SOC in the connected phone. So upgrading your phone will affect your Apple Watch app performance positively without needing a newer watch…
This might well be the case where Apple changes the watch the same way it did with the 1st gen iPhone and iPad. But I personally think this case might be different from the iPhone and iPad. One is that Apple now has much more money it had then to spend on R&D, to make sure they are doing the best design possible. Secondly Apple indeed now has more experience on these devices than it had then, which means it might already have dodge bad design decisions from the very beginning. Back then Apple had to build completely new technologies, both hardware like the capacitive touch screen, new sophisticated chips, screens, etc, and software like the whole new multitouch interface. This could have meant that with so much ground work to do, they could not possibly have thought the design that much, which they later did with the 2nd gen. But now most of these hardware and software technologies are already available, so Apple might already have had the change to get the design right from the very beginning.
Now in the case where Apple does change the design in a considerable manner, which imho it won’t, perhaps it could give the upgrade internals option only to the watch editions. With the amount of resources Apple has, it can certainly allocate some to make that upgrade service a reality, even though it might only mean upgrading the chip, battery and sensors. That way people who spent $10000+ on an watch edition will not end up having to spend that same amount on a new one after just a year. If you consider a price of $500 for the upgrade service, it is easy to see why it would make sense only to watch editions, and not the 2 cheaper models.
$$$$ for R&D yes…. But…..
Apple copied Samsung Ativ S and HTC desire 816 for iPhone 6 forms and the antenna lines HTC One …. ;-)
And Samsung copied the first iPhone for ALL of their smartphones. Your point?
Not really. They might look similar, but most candy bar phones generally look much the same; they’re just peppered with tiny differences.
Back in the day, before I bowed down to the great and almighty Apple, and became a fan boy, I had a couple of PCs that I built myself from parts.
First you buy that nice case, with the good power supply, a mother board with plenty of upgrade potential and so on.
A couple of years goes by and you’re thinking of upgrading. Except now it turns out the RAM slots on your motherboard have been superseded. The new graphics cards, need a different power supply. The new hard drives are using a different connection protocol.
In fact by the time you’re done, a few upgrades turns into you just throwing the old machine away and starting again.
I think there were a few years, when you could buy a PC, upgrade some stuff along the way. But these days technology seems to be moving so fast, it’s unlikely there will be too many upgrades that make sense before a whole other technology takes over.
This is likely true of the Apple Watch. Version 2.0 will likely include a few improvements that will be so significant, it won’t be worth trying to upgrade the old one.
The good news is, I suspect there will be a used market for these things. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Gazelle or companies like that offer trade ins. So I’d be surprised if I couldn’t offload a 1.0 stainless for at least 20-35% of the original price. Which will go some way to soften the sting of a new purchase at full price.
Analysts think it’s some great insight to say the next gen is better (WELL< DUH) … a) if the next one is not better, what's the point and b) are you buying to stash in your closet. If you use it everyday, it's a worthy purchase. How many people tell you to wait a year to buy a TV? Because if you watch your TV 6 hours a day, you're USING IT – same as buying a car versus walking a year to save on the depreciation lost … and same with upgradability – do you replace your cars transmission 15 years later when something else might go?