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Apple Watch
Apple Watch is a smartwatch developed and marketed by Apple. It has fitness tracking, health-oriented capabilities, and wireless telecommunication, and integrates with watchOS and other Apple products and services. The first Apple Watch was released in April 2015, and quickly became the world's best-selling wearable device: 4.2 million were sold in the second quarter of fiscal 2015, and more than 115 million people were estimated to use an Apple Watch as of December 2022. Apple has introduced a new generation of the Apple Watch with improved internal components – labeled by Apple as a 'Series', with certain exceptions.
Each Series has been initially sold in multiple variants defined by the watch casing's material, colour, and size (except for the budget watches Series 1 and SE, available only in aluminium, and the Ultra, available only in 49 mm titanium), and beginning with Series 3, by the option in the aluminium variants for LTE cellular connectivity, which comes standard with the other materials. The band included with the watch can be selected from multiple options from Apple, and watch variants in aluminium co-branded with Nike and in stainless steel co-branded with Hermès are also offered, which include exclusive bands and colours. Any user may use digital watch faces carrying those companies' branding.
The Apple Watch operates in conjunction with the user's iPhone for functions such as configuring the watch and syncing data with iPhone apps, but can separately connect to a Wi-Fi network for data-reliant purposes, including communications, app use, and audio streaming. LTE-equipped models can also perform these functions over a mobile network, and can make and receive phone calls independently when the paired iPhone is not nearby or is powered off. The oldest iPhone model that is compatible with any given Apple Watch depends on the version of the operating system installed on each device. As of September 2025[update], new Apple Watches come with watchOS 26 preinstalled and require an iPhone running iOS 26, which is compatible with the iPhone 11 or later.
The Apple Watch is the only smartwatch fully supported for the iPhone, as Apple restricts the APIs available in other smartwatches, so other smartwatches always have less functionality.
Apple design chief Jony Ive became interested in building a watch shortly after Steve Jobs's death in October 2011. That December, The New York Times reported that Apple was exploring various ideas, including a "curved-glass iPod that would wrap around the wrist", which users would interact with through the Siri voice assistant, and which "could relay information back to the iPhone". In February 2013, the NYT and The Wall Street Journal again confirmed that Apple was working on a smartwatch with a curved display, and Bloomberg News said the team had grown to about 100 designers.
In March 2013, Apple hired ex-Adobe chief technology officer Kevin Lynch, reporting to Bob Mansfield, to lead the watch project, which would become the company's first major new product without input from late co-founder Steve Jobs. Apple started the project without specific use cases in mind, not knowing what problems the watch would solve, but felt that "technology was going to move onto the body", according to Alan Dye, who was in charge of its user interface. According to Kevin Lynch, the team felt people spent too much time on their phone, nagged by notifications, and a watch would provide "that level of engagement [...] in a way that's a little more human, a little more at the moment when you're with somebody".
In July 2013, Financial Times reported that Apple had begun hiring more employees to work on the smartwatch, and that it was targeting a retail release in late 2014.
The software evolved more quickly than the hardware. To test it, the team created a prototype, an iPhone strapped to the wrist with Velcro, which showed the Apple watch software in its true size and an onscreen watch crown for input. The crown was later turned into a physical dongle plugged into the headphone jack. Early on, the user interface and bundled apps were inspired by the iPhone, but they were too complex and underwent three rounds of redesign to avoid awkwardly long interactions that would annoy users. The team worked on notification vibrations and sounds for more than a year, attempting to make them reflect the nature of different notifications. They also added a way to show a contextual menu by pressing the display more deeply, called Force Touch. In contrast with Apple's usually narrow design options, the team thought a watch would need to appeal to users' diverse tastes in fashion, so they opted to give a choice of bands, models (like the gold-plated Apple Watch Edition), and watch faces.
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Apple Watch AI simulator
(@Apple Watch_simulator)
Apple Watch
Apple Watch is a smartwatch developed and marketed by Apple. It has fitness tracking, health-oriented capabilities, and wireless telecommunication, and integrates with watchOS and other Apple products and services. The first Apple Watch was released in April 2015, and quickly became the world's best-selling wearable device: 4.2 million were sold in the second quarter of fiscal 2015, and more than 115 million people were estimated to use an Apple Watch as of December 2022. Apple has introduced a new generation of the Apple Watch with improved internal components – labeled by Apple as a 'Series', with certain exceptions.
Each Series has been initially sold in multiple variants defined by the watch casing's material, colour, and size (except for the budget watches Series 1 and SE, available only in aluminium, and the Ultra, available only in 49 mm titanium), and beginning with Series 3, by the option in the aluminium variants for LTE cellular connectivity, which comes standard with the other materials. The band included with the watch can be selected from multiple options from Apple, and watch variants in aluminium co-branded with Nike and in stainless steel co-branded with Hermès are also offered, which include exclusive bands and colours. Any user may use digital watch faces carrying those companies' branding.
The Apple Watch operates in conjunction with the user's iPhone for functions such as configuring the watch and syncing data with iPhone apps, but can separately connect to a Wi-Fi network for data-reliant purposes, including communications, app use, and audio streaming. LTE-equipped models can also perform these functions over a mobile network, and can make and receive phone calls independently when the paired iPhone is not nearby or is powered off. The oldest iPhone model that is compatible with any given Apple Watch depends on the version of the operating system installed on each device. As of September 2025[update], new Apple Watches come with watchOS 26 preinstalled and require an iPhone running iOS 26, which is compatible with the iPhone 11 or later.
The Apple Watch is the only smartwatch fully supported for the iPhone, as Apple restricts the APIs available in other smartwatches, so other smartwatches always have less functionality.
Apple design chief Jony Ive became interested in building a watch shortly after Steve Jobs's death in October 2011. That December, The New York Times reported that Apple was exploring various ideas, including a "curved-glass iPod that would wrap around the wrist", which users would interact with through the Siri voice assistant, and which "could relay information back to the iPhone". In February 2013, the NYT and The Wall Street Journal again confirmed that Apple was working on a smartwatch with a curved display, and Bloomberg News said the team had grown to about 100 designers.
In March 2013, Apple hired ex-Adobe chief technology officer Kevin Lynch, reporting to Bob Mansfield, to lead the watch project, which would become the company's first major new product without input from late co-founder Steve Jobs. Apple started the project without specific use cases in mind, not knowing what problems the watch would solve, but felt that "technology was going to move onto the body", according to Alan Dye, who was in charge of its user interface. According to Kevin Lynch, the team felt people spent too much time on their phone, nagged by notifications, and a watch would provide "that level of engagement [...] in a way that's a little more human, a little more at the moment when you're with somebody".
In July 2013, Financial Times reported that Apple had begun hiring more employees to work on the smartwatch, and that it was targeting a retail release in late 2014.
The software evolved more quickly than the hardware. To test it, the team created a prototype, an iPhone strapped to the wrist with Velcro, which showed the Apple watch software in its true size and an onscreen watch crown for input. The crown was later turned into a physical dongle plugged into the headphone jack. Early on, the user interface and bundled apps were inspired by the iPhone, but they were too complex and underwent three rounds of redesign to avoid awkwardly long interactions that would annoy users. The team worked on notification vibrations and sounds for more than a year, attempting to make them reflect the nature of different notifications. They also added a way to show a contextual menu by pressing the display more deeply, called Force Touch. In contrast with Apple's usually narrow design options, the team thought a watch would need to appeal to users' diverse tastes in fashion, so they opted to give a choice of bands, models (like the gold-plated Apple Watch Edition), and watch faces.