Why 2023 could be a quiet year for Apple Watch

It could be a quiet year for Apple wearables, according to a recent report.

The hugely influential – although sometimes wide-of-the-mark – Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, reported in his PowerOn newsletter that this year would mark minor changes for Apple Watch Series 9, SE, Ultra, and AirPods.

“I wouldn’t anticipate major changes to the Apple Watch’s hardware this year, save for some minor performance boosts,” Gurman wrote.

“The AirPods probably won’t get any updates of note in 2023 either,” he concluded.

It’s an interesting take. Last year the Apple Watch Series 8 took a back seat, bar the addition of the temperature sensor for women's cycle tracking.

That was natural with the all-new Ultra taking center stage. But we felt that Apple's flagship would naturally come back strong in 2023 with Series 9.

But on consideration, what is there left to add? Which new major hardware features are left to add? The answer, right now, is not many. 

It’s clear that Apple’s next big steps will be to the major new health metrics of blood pressure and glucose – but there’s next to no chance either of these will drop in 2023.

Then there’s micro LED, which would enable better battery life and thinner designs. 

There have been recent rumors – coming from a Jan 2023 research note from analyst Jeff Pu – that the Apple Watch Ultra could get micro-LED in 2024. But there have been no rumblings of a 2023 release.

We’re increasingly at a crossroads, where wearables are waiting for new technologies to come down the pipe. This will mean a slowdown in innovation – which has arguably been going on for over a year.

But that doesn’t mean that 2023 will be a quiet year for Apple Watch altogether. WWDC will likely reveal watchOS 10, which we’d anticipate being a bumper edition.

There are still plenty of software applications to be gleaned from the Watch’s enormous array of sensors – but in terms of hardware, Apple fans should steel themselves for a year of minor gains.