Fast Charge: I hope the Apple Watch 7 redesign is hiding a major feature in plain sight

Between offline Deezer support for Apple Watch, and the announcement of Google’s partnership with Samsung for a revamped version of Wear OS, this has been quite the week for wearables, but the biggest piece of news has been the major leak of the upcoming Apple Watch 7 design – and not for the reasons you might think.

For those who missed it, serial leaker Jon Prosser returned with some eye-popping renders of the Apple Watch 7, based on images that were shown to him. With straighter edges than what we’ve typically seen on the Apple Watch, the Watch 7 feels as if it’s taken a cue from the iPhone 12 range.

According to these renders, there are some interesting indentations on the left-hand side of the Apple Watch 7 which could have something to do with the rumoured blood glucose monitor that’s set to appear. That in itself would be fantastic, particularly as the presence of a medical grade blood glucose monitor on a consumer smartwatch would be a game-changer, but I believe there’s more to this design than meets the eye. Of course, nothing is official until Apple makes it so.

One of the biggest problems the Apple Watch has had since launch is its lacklustre battery life. Particularly now as the Apple Watch can track your sleep – a daily charge is a must if you want to get the most out of the device. Having a more component friendly design could be a means of finally fixing this glaring issue.

One of the biggest problems the Apple Watch has had since launch is its lacklustre battery life

If the new flat-edge design allows the Apple Watch 7 to pack a larger battery cell, then this boost to battery life would be perfectly timed in conjunction with the supposed leaps to Wear OS that is set to be fully unveiled later this year.

Teasing the final product during the Google I/O livestream, Google announced that one of its key goals in its partnership with Samsung is to significantly improve battery life for future Wear OS smartwatches. Certain Wear OS devices like the TicWatch Pro 3 can already last for two days on a single charge, but if Google-infused wearables are able to go even further, then Apple will be seriously left in the dust.

This is without mentioning the absolute battery goliaths in the realm of fitness tracking – like the recently released Garmin Venu 2 which can go for up to 11-days on a single charge. Apple may dominate in almost all other areas of the smartwatch concept, but it’s so woefully behind the competition in terms of battery life that it’s almost laughable.

If ever there was a time that Apple needed to step up and make a significant changes to Watch battery life, this is it.