Extreme Sports Apple Watch Coming With Larger Screen, Metal Case

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Apple Inc. plans its largest smartwatch display to date, a bigger battery and a rugged metal casing as part of the upcoming Apple Watch geared toward extreme sports athletes, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

The rugged version of the Apple Watch will get a screen that measures almost 2 inches diagonally, while a new, standard Apple Watch Series 8 will keep the 1.9-inch diagonal screen size of the current Apple Watch Series 7. A planned update to the low-end Apple Watch SE also will retain the current screen size.

The larger display on the extreme sports model, which is planned to be announced later this year with the other two models, will have about 7% more screen area than the largest current Apple Watch. The display will have a resolution of about 410 pixels by 502 pixels and retain the same overall sharpness as the existing models.

Apple could use the larger screen area to show more fitness metrics or information on watch faces at one time. The company added several new fitness features in watchOS 9, including multisport workouts and improved intensity tracking during exercise routines.

First released in 2015, the Apple Watch has become a key piece of Apple’s hardware lineup. The watch models are included in the wearables, home and accessories division, which generated $38.4 billion -- or 10% of the company’s total revenue -- in the past fiscal year. But smartwatches and fitness wearables are crowded markets and Apple competes with products from the likes of Google’s Fitbit and Samsung Electronics Co.

The extreme sports watch will use a strong metal material rather than aluminum, have a more shatter-resistant screen and include a larger battery compared with standard Apple Watches -- letting athletes track