It seems Apple Watch Series 7 performance won’t be any greater than that of the Apple Watch Series 6, after reports emerged suggesting that the new smartwatch uses exactly the same chip as its predecessor.
Despite the glitz and glamour of Tuesday’s ‘California streaming’ event, it seems to have produced marginal gains when it comes to device performance.
After initial benchmarks emerged to suggest that the iPhone 13 might not provide a considerable performance improvement over the iPhone 12, a new report claims that the Apple Watch 7 is no more capable than the Apple Watch 6.
As highlighted by 9to5Mac, developer Steve Troughton-Smith has performed a deep dive on the latest version of Xcode, Apple’s app development platform. It revealed that the Apple Watch Series 7 runs on the ‘t8301’ CPU, which is the code name for the Apple S6 chip. That’s the same Apple S6 that powers the Apple Watch Series 6.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with the Apple Watch Series 6’s performance. It remains extremely fast and fluid. But we would have hoped that an Apple S7 chip might at least improve efficiency, thus addressing the Apple Watch line’s Achilles’ heel – battery life.
It’s fair to say that not everyone is bowled over by the Apple Watch Series 7’s showing thus far. Most of us were expecting a bold redesign to bring it in line with the flatter, sleeker iPhone range.
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We had also hoped for an advance on the usual 18-hour battery life, which has been surpassed in recent times by rival smartwatches like the TicWatch Pro 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4.
The fact that so few changes have been made, and now this latest news of a recycled chip, has fuelled theories that Apple ditched a more extensive Apple Watch overhaul late in the day.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
