Apple Watch SE 3 next week?

The tech press thinks an Apple iPhone SE 4 is due next week.

Watch SE 3 is also expected in some quarters to arrive at the start of the year and break with the Watch N and Watch Ultra release cycles that we see in September. So it might make sense to launch the two SE products together in one of Apple’s lower key launches (no official announcement date has been stated).

Watch SE 3 could get a swathe of older hand-me-down features…or not. Here is a likely best-case scenario

• New plastic case materials to reduce the bill of materials and maintain a similar cost to the consumer (from $250)
• Larger case and screen sizes in line with Watch 10 (41mm, 45mm)
• big question: Will it get an always-on display? Maybe not. Something has to be missing to make Watch 10 worthwhile.
• 3rd Gen Optical HR (Same as Watch 10) – such a move might signal a 4th gen sensor for Watch 11 later this year
• Wifi (802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) – -the latest comms chip might signal a 5G Redcap/wifi 7 sensor for Watch 11 later this year
• an older U1 UWB chip would be nice. Unlikely to get UWB 2.
• Likely to get the latest GNSS chipset, adding Beidou support (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and BeiDou). Single frequency only, like Watch 10.
• I probably would get the slightly older S9 system chipset.

As I said, an SE 3 has been leaked, but those specs are all intelligent guesses.

It’s tricky to discern what Apple considers the key technical differentiator between Watch SE and Watch. Remember, SE3 will not be replaced for a further 2-3 years, so there is a reasonable chance it will get a decent number of current components to prove it for that duration in the future. Unfortunately, not that much has been boosted significantly in the last couple of years with the Watch N models, so Apple might end up with SE3 looking quite a lot like Watch 10 but lacking AOD.

thoughts welcomed