Get ready for a very different Apple Watch
According to rumors, the Series 8 could go rugged for the very first time.
Greetings, fellow tech enthusiasts, and welcome back to Wiretapped. Next Friday is July 15th, which will mark the seventh anniversary of Matridox. After taking last year off to bask in the glory of having a tech blog for six years, this year I’ll be sharing some announcements and shedding light on the direction I’ll be taking Matridox moving forward. I’m super pumped about everything I wanna do with the site so I can’t wait to share my plans with you all!
Okay, onto the news. With the 4th of July being this week here in the States, news has been really slow with very few breaking stories, but that of course means nothing for Leak Land which continues to thrive as we lead up to the fall and Techtember/Techtober.
One of the stories I’ve been looking into is the Apple Watch Series 8 which has been popping up in a lot of reports lately. The biggest news comes out of Bloomberg which suggests that for the first time in its history, the Apple Watch will go rugged.
The “Apple Watch Extreme”
Obviously, a rugged Apple Watch won’t be the only one Apple sells this year. As per usual, the company is planning to release a standard version of the Series 8 in finishes like aluminum and stainless steel. The new rugged version, or as some are calling it the “Apple Watch Extreme,” would come with a tweaked design that uses a much stronger metal material to brace for more intense activities, like a heavy-duty Garmin watch.
According to Mark Gurman who authored the Bloomberg piece, the rugged Series 8 will come with a display that measures 1.99-inches, the biggest ever on an Apple Watch and about seven percent larger than the current 45mm model. It’ll offer a resolution of 410x502 and be capable of showing more information at a glance, which would be ideal for more intense workouts.
The screen will also use a stronger glass than the current Apple Watch does, and the battery will get bigger thanks to the larger size of the enclosure.
It’s not exactly clear what the rugged Apple Watch will look like beyond a thicker, beefier version of the Watch as we know it, but rumors have pointed to the Series 8 line sporting flat sides like the Series 7 was rumored to include last year. There will also likely be plenty of new bands that go with the rugged nature of the device.
The standard Series 8
As for the rest of Series 8, Apple is expected to include a feature that’ll serve as a common denominator across the entire lineup: a body temperature sensor. This will give the watch the ability to check your temperature and alert you if it believes you have a fever.
The entire lineup will run on a new S8 processor, which reports indicate will be very similar in terms of performance to the S7, which in turn was similar to the S6. In other words, Apple is sticking with very incremental performance jumps for the Apple Watch, and honestly, I don’t find this to be an issue at all. The company’s so far ahead of the competition in terms of overall quality with their watches that it virtually doesn’t matter how much faster each gets year-over-year, kind of like A-series chips on the iPhone.
In addition, unlike the rugged Apple Watch, the standard Series 8 is expected to retain the same screen sizes as the current Series 7 and ship in identical 41mm and 45mm case sizes.
Apple Watch SE 2
I also wanted to highlight the second-generation Apple Watch SE which is also expected to ship later this fall. Reports indicate that the new watch will retain the same sizes as it’s available in now which are 40mm and 44mm. It’ll offer some form of an upgrade over the current SE, but it’s very unclear what those upgrades might entail. A new chip? New sensors? No one seems to know at this point.
There’s gonna be a lot of Apple Watch news leading up to September when Apple will likely debut the Series 8 lineup. I’ll be working on some pieces rounding up what there is to know about Apple’s fall lineup for Matridox in the coming weeks, and I’ll be sure to share them across social media (so make sure you’re following!).
I could sit here and rattle off a few headlines that I found interesting this week, but I have a feeling the one true headline you’re all paying attention to right now (myself included) is this one: “Elon Musks terminates Twitter deal”.
Look, the deal isn’t technically terminated: Musk can’t back out without both parties consenting to it, and Twitter says it’ll take legal action to close the deal which chairman Bret Taylor says the company is “confident” about.
I know we all kinda wanna see this massive show fall apart (who doesn’t like a little media drama?), but it’s important to keep in mind that the person we’re dealing with here is Elon Musk. He’s quite literally the billionaire that plays with his toys, and right now his primary focus is on Twitter and whether he can get exactly what he wants from it. There’s literally no telling what the future holds for this deal.
Musk said in a letter sent from his lawyers that the information pertaining to bots on Twitter wasn't up to the standards he outlined initially in the parties’ agreement, which he found to be reason enough to terminate. Twitter, on the other hand, suggests it’s done nothing but comply with exactly what Musk wants, so there’s definitely a discrepancy somewhere buried in the sand.
What that discrepancy is remains unclear, so I’ll be following this story for the next few weeks to see where it takes us. Who knows, maybe Musk and Twitter will talk to one another this weekend and smooth things over. Maybe shit will hit the fan. Honestly, who knows?
If you wanna read up on the news, I’ve got a piece on Matridox, and I recommend checking out articles from Reuters (Greg Roumeliotis), CNN (Clare Duffy), The Verge (Alex Heath), and Axios (Kia Kokalitcheva, Dan Primack).
I have not one, but two pieces of tech I’m using that I’d like to highlight.
The first one… I can’t talk about yet. It’s a product we call “embargoed until a future date,” or at least that’s what I’ve been led to believe. I can tell you that it is a smartphone, it’s on the budget side, and I’m incredibly impressed with it so far (besides a handful of weird bugs I’ve run into). I’ll have much more to say about it much sooner than you think, so stay tuned.
The second piece of tech is the Withings ScanWatch (affiliate plug!), the first hybrid smartwatch I’ve ever used. I’ve been fascinated by this category of watches for a long time, so I’m excited to get to spend some time with Withing’s offering. I’ve heard nothing but terrific things about it, and it ties in with Google Fit and (most importantly for me) Apple Health, which will help with replacing my Apple Watch for a few weeks.
If you have any questions about this gadget, please feel free to hit me up! I’ll be doing a formal review of it over on Matridox once I’ve cleared some of the reviews I have in the pipeline.
The review up next? Lenovo’s ThinkVision P34w-20 monitor. Stay tuned!
“What’s the deal with that new iPhone 14 that’s like the same size as the Pro Max 13 Pro? Is it actually happening?”
It looks like it is! There was actually a leak just yesterday that showed off four supposed cases for the iPhone 14 series, and it includes a case for a rumored “iPhone 14 Plus” which would offer the same experience as the regular iPhone 14 (two rear cameras, slower A15 chip, 60Hz screen) but in a larger 6.7-inch form factor. So far, all signs point to it shipping this September in place of another iPhone mini, along with the 6.1-inch iPhone 14 and 14 Pro and 6.7-inch 14 Pro Max. Obviously, nothing’s confirmed yet, but this seems to be the way things will work out.
“Is there a todo list app that you would recommend using?”
Lately, I’ve been using Todoist. I subscribed to the premium version because… well, I guess I just want the most features I can get. It’s worked really well for me so far, making it easy to jot down things I need to remember in the many areas of my life and set reminders for when I need to get something done. I recommend checking it out - it’s available for free on basically every platform (iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux).
Keep sending your questions in at max@matridox or on Twitter @LegendaryScoop!