Apple says that the aluminum Apple Watch Series 9 is its first carbon neutral product. You need to pair it with the new Sport Loop for it to be fully carbon neutral though. That makes it interesting that Apple didn’t add one new band option this year: no band at all.
Regular upgraders have advocated for a no-band configuration for years.
Many Apple Watch customers enjoy the opportunity to add a new band to their collection. Others complain that they have enough of the same rubber strap already.
Top comment by Jeroen
The problem with not shipping a band is that customers will expect to pay $49 less for their watch, as $49 is the price of a Sport Band. Apple of course knows a Sport Band, to them, really only costs a dollar to make. It's a pure profit product.
Just like with the iPhone charger, they could not leave it out and have the iPhone cost $19 less because the charger hardly costs them anything, it just costs us a lot.
Personally, I fall into the former camp. If Apple did sell a band-less Apple Watch, I’m confident it would be priced no different from the band-bundled Apple Watch. The Sport Band would be like the earbuds and charging brick that used to come with iPhones.
On the other hand, I might be persuaded by the leaf logo Apple is using to denote carbon neutral products. My white Sport Band from years ago might not be carbon neutral on its own, but using it with an aluminum Apple Watch Series 9 that shipped without a band could reduce waste.
Apple will eventually reengineer all of its bands to be carbon neutral one way or another. Even when that happens, though, having a no-band option would still seem like the greener option.
Apple already packages the watch and band separately within the same package, and Series 9/Ultra 2 packaging reduces the volume compared to Series 8/Ultra. Reducing the band altogether would shrink shipments down a little more. At Apple’s scale, that’s a lot.
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