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conversationtreepress.com - beautifully designed, letterpress-printed, finely bound booksBy Jason Snell for Macworld
Why Apple doesn’t need to release a Series 5 Watch this fall
The tech industry’s reach often exceeds its grasp. The dreams of the people who design and build tech products couldn’t be more ambitious, but executing on those dreams can take time, and sometimes even the invention of whole new industries. That’s why young tech product categories sell the promise, even though the reality falls far short.
These products usually reach their ideal form eventually. With the Apple Watch, it feels very much that we’ve reached that point in the past couple of years. If the cellular capabilities in the Apple Watch Series 3 weren’t final piece of the puzzle, the upgraded display in the Apple Watch Series 4 was.
The past three years, Apple has introduced a new Apple Watch at the same September event where it has unveiled new iPhone models. Apple is often a creature of habit, so the most likely scenario is that in a couple of weeks Apple will unveil the Apple Watch Series 5 on stage at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino.
And yet… something tells me that this year doesn’t need to follow the patterns of the past few years. The Series 3 and Series 4 were enormous updates. Short of a breakthrough in battery life or screen technology that nobody is expecting, it’s hard to see why the pace of Apple Watch releases needs to continue. And there are plenty of ways for Apple to keep the Apple Watch fresh without a new generation of watch hardware.