Apple’s next-gen Apple Watch SE may feature and “unapologetically plastic” chassis meant to lower the retail price and reach even more users, especially in third world countries.
Charles Martin for AppleInsider:
This future Apple Watch SE might switch to an all-plastic housing to cut costs, reports Bloomberg. The device retails for $249, some $50 higher than Samsung’s similar low-cost smartwatch.
The current SE model adopted a redesigned back case that changed to a color-matched “nylon composite” plastic material in 2022. If true, this report would see the entire chassis of the Apple Watch SE changed — making the device less environmentally friendly.
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MacDailyNews Take: Make in plastic, less expensive – it’s the entry-level model, after all – with no apologies.
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Just what the world needs: the Apple Swatch.
Long run away from refined-minded Liquid-Metal pursuit-rumors. When one purveys the Apple Watch Hermès paradigm for so long, I guess there comes of time of reality to be inclusive and a bit ghetto…when everything else is tipping that way, anyways?
Along those lines, why doesn’t Lamborghini make a low-cost model to compete with the Ford Fiesta?
As a shareholder I like it. The plastic iPhone XR was a harder sell for people because it wasn’t that much less expensive than a “real” iPhone. $50 off of $250 is a much bigger reduction percentage wise and will serve as a great entry point for lower income iPhone users. Although I use it differently, I use my Apple Watch Ultra nearly as much as my iPhone from reading notifications to starting workouts, asking quick Siri questions, checking the weather or reviewing my calendar. These quick bite use cases are the “killer app”.
Follow The Science!…
So let me get this straight:
– Apple eliminates leather cases and bands to save cows? Or that is, to now have so many cows killed for products? However, zero cows are killed for leather – N O N E. They are herded for meat – period. So many leather circuses are thrown away it’s crazy great material we should be utilizing…
So Apple instead moves to using more plastics and they are crappy cases completely…
Apple’s rush to look politically environmentally correct, does nothing of the sort and has nothing to do with science, and rather plays to mass ignorance instead…
Now we have plastic watch chassis coming? More oil, recycled plastic (that comes from oil originally and gotta have it to make recycled plastic in the first place) is now the environmental play over Aluminum, or steel or stainless steel? What?! So dumb, so dumb.
Apple had better not try to sell this as another stupid enviro initiative, and instead just do it and say it’s allowed the watch to be more affordable than ever before, and leave it in reality.
But people don’t like to live in reality much anymore. Ugh…
In the country near Finland where I used to live and where temperatures can reach -22F to -31F in winter I would easily switch my Ultra watch to a plastic SE. Also, iPhone XR had a clear advantage over its higher-end siblings, similar to what plastic Samsungs had to metal chassis iPhones. People can argue with me in forums but try to use these devices in these circumstances and then come back with your perspective.
Also extreme cold does not play well with batteries. IPhones used to have an image of “nice, but unusable in winter” due to blanking out quicker than plastic phones. I bet that metal chassis played a role there.