Apple Watch 5 ‘accidentally leaked’ revealing new titanium and ceramic designs – alongside rumours of better battery life
APPLE appears to have accidentally revealed new details about its next smartwatch.
References to unreleased Apple Watch models have turned up in the beta test software for the new watchOS 6 update.
The so-called Apple Watch 5 is described as coming in ceramic and titanium versions, as first spotted by .
Apple has never released a titanium model, and only offered ceramic versions for the Apple Watch 2 and 3.
These slick casings will likely be designed to attract customers looking for a fancier design that the normal aluminium or stainless steel models.
Importantly, this latest leak comes from official Apple software – so it can be trusted.
The only possible niggle is that Apple may have planned these models, but then scrapped them at the last minute.
In any case, there's no shortage of Apple rumours circulating online.
According to top industry expert Ming-Chi Kuo, the Apple Watch will come with a fancy OLED screen.
An OLED screen gives a device like the Apple Watch a huge advantage when it comes to battery life.
Unlike regular LED-backlit LCD displays, an OLED screen has pixels that produce their own light.
This lack of need for a backlight saves energy, because individual pixels can be turned off when they're supposed to be showing black.
It means you'll get more accurate colours on-screen, but it also means the display will use less energy.
After all, much of an Apple Watch screen is already black, so turning those pixels off can save large amounts of power.
The news comes just days after Apple "accidentally" revealed possible details about the next iPhone.
Hidden code inside Apple's upcoming iOS 13 update reveals "assets" that suggest a September 10 reveal.
That's no surprise: The Sun already predicted September 10 as the most likely date for the iPhone 11 launch.
But Apple has now hinted at the exact same date itself.
This week, Apple released a new version of beta test software for September's big iOS 13 update for iPhones.
And inside the code for that update is a hidden image that's named "HoldForRelease", also first spotted by tech site .
The image shows an iPhone home screen with the calendar app displaying the date Tuesday, September 10.
This is the image Apple will use for when you first set up the iPhone.
Last year's iOS 12 update included a similar image showing a September 12 date – which is when the 2018 Apple phones were announced.
This is a huge hint at a possible iPhone launch event.
Why is Siri called Siri?
Here's the origin story of Apple's AI assistant...
- Although the virtual Siri assistant lives on every iPhone, it wasn't actually created by Apple.
- It was actually a spin-off project from the SRI International Artificial Intelligence Center.
- The tech was eventually bought up by Apple for the iPhone, but Apple had no say over the name.
- No one has ever revealed who came up with Siri, but we do know why it was chosen.
- Siri co-creator Adam Cheyer said the name Siri was picked because it's "easy to remember, short to type, comfortable to pronounce, and a not-too-common human name".
- Writing in Forbes, he said: "Once Siri became the leading candidate, everyone on the team had their own favourite explanation of the meaning.
- "Dag Kittlaus, our Norwegian-American CEO, once considered using Siri as the name of his child and liked the Norse meaning 'beautiful woman who leads you to victory'.
- "For me, Siri, which means 'secret' in Swahili, was a tip of the hat to our pre-named days when we began as stealth-company.com.
- "I also liked the fact that it was the reverse of Iris, a software system I helped build as part of the CALO project which Siri was spun out of.
- "Some liked the resemblance to SRI, which was the research institute that ran the CALO project."
- In any case, no one at the team expected Apple to actually keep the name – but Siri lived on.
So is September 10 the likeliest date for a new iPhone and Apple Watch 5 reveal?
Apple is a creature of habit, sticking to an obvious pattern for iPhone releases each year.
The big launch event always takes place in September, and generally falls early on in the month – on a Tuesday or Wednesday, typically.
This year, the likeliest dates for an Apple event are Tuesday, September 10 or Wednesday, September 11.
Of course, Apple is very unlikely to host an event on September 11, given that the day is a memorial for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City in 2001.
So our money is on the former, so mark it in your calendars.
In recent years, Apple has sent out event invites on the last Thursday in August.
So this year we can probably expect to find out the real event day on August 29.
But the iPhone won't actually arrive in stores on launch day. You'll have to wait about a week and a half to actually buy one.
Pre-orders will likely become available on Friday, September 13.
And our best guess is that the phone will turn up in your local Apple Store on Friday, September 20.
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