42mm Apple Watch Series 4 to Feature Resolution of 384x480

[Mac 128]

Phew!

Roll on Wednesday! My wallet is SOOOOOOOO ready.

Yes, the more I look at this, the more I'm convinced this is what they plan to do.

Take a look at the 42mm and 38mm side by side. This uses the slightly wider ratio I’ve speculated than the original display ratio on which this article is based (orange and green).

Now look at the watches overlaid on top of each other. I never realized how carefully Apple engineered the dimensions. Looking at them this way, you see a definite symmetry. The 42mm watch will have a new display area almost exactly the same size as the 38mm watch glass bezel. And the 38mm watch will have a new display only slightly larger than the old 42mm display (light green) -- meaning the 38mm theoretically may have larger displays overall, even when using legacy apps without upscaling anything. The 42mm could have this too, but it would require upscaling which Apple might not want to do if it looks bad, figuring the 42mm display is already big enough.

And finally, the rounded corners fit almost perfectly inside this 42mm Huawei digital watch. This gives me confidence that Apple will eventually add a round watch to their collection, as all the original apps will fit neatly within the round watch display, with only slight scaling if any, giving the round watches instant access to all the existing apps without having to wait for custom UI adoption. That's another reason why I wouldn't expect any round watches to be introduced next week, since they'll need at least a year for developers to optimize their apps for the larger display area ratio with rounded corners.

So if Apple does go this route, your watch bands will continue to fit the next couple of models at least. That's a pretty good run for any Apple product. My guess is next year we may see 3 watch models -- the "Classic" watch we have now, a thinner/narrower classic watch with new band connectors (perhaps the Edition), and a round watch. It would be a real trick indeed if Apple could adapt the round watch to use the existing bands as well. That would go a long way to getting existing customers to buy a second watch to change up their look, or have the best of both worlds with a watch display design optimized for specific tasks like sports vs. work.

 

[WLS]

I'm interested in seeing how the 36mm size watch will look now with the larger display. from what I read it may have as much as the older 42.

 

[PickUrPoison]

I'm interested in seeing how the 36mm size watch will look now with the larger display. from what I read it may have as much as the older 42.

If the leaked dimensions are accurate, the display for the new 38mm will be larger than that of the current 42. Think 2mm of bezel, with rounded corners to follow along the radius of the current case.

Here’s a mock-up from phonarena.

 

[enduro0125]

My came off my wrist when I dived into a water hole at a quarry last Monday. Series 2. Not happy about it, I'm rapidly trying to save something up to get a 4 though.

Same thing happened to me on 08/28

Grabbed a series 3 off eBay for now
Three days of using my old Pebble made me really miss my Apple Watch

Interested to see what tomorrow brings and determine if I want the 4

 

[Mac 128]

I'm interested in seeing how the 36mm size watch will look now with the larger display. from what I read it may have as much as the older 42.

Yes, per my examples above, if accurate the new 38mm display should be about the same (dark green) as the current 42mm (light green). Moreover, it should be able to use the current 42mm display size on existing apps without scaling if Apple supports that. The 38mm users are set to immediately get the best value of the increased display size.

 

[WLS]

Apple would have to support those scalings. I'm hoping they do and have a compatibility mode that would allow the old 42 mapping to be used on the new 38. We shall see on Wednesday. Interesting speculation.

 

[WLS]

Yes, the more I look at this, the more I'm convinced this is what they plan to do.

Take a look at the 42mm and 38mm side by side. This uses the slightly wider ratio I’ve speculated than the original display ratio on which this article is based (orange and green).

Now look at the watches overlaid on top of each other. I never realized how carefully Apple engineered the dimensions. Looking at them this way, you see a definite symmetry. The 42mm watch will have a new display area almost exactly the same size as the 38mm watch glass bezel. And the 38mm watch will have a new display only slightly larger than the old 42mm display (light green) -- meaning the 38mm theoretically may have larger displays overall, even when using legacy apps without upscaling anything. The 42mm could have this too, but it would require upscaling which Apple might not want to do if it looks bad, figuring the 42mm display is already big enough.

And finally, the rounded corners fit almost perfectly inside this 42mm Huawei digital watch. This gives me confidence that Apple will eventually add a round watch to their collection, as all the original apps will fit neatly within the round watch display, with only slight scaling if any, giving the round watches instant access to all the existing apps without having to wait for custom UI adoption. That's another reason why I wouldn't expect any round watches to be introduced next week, since they'll need at least a year for developers to optimize their apps for the larger display area ratio with rounded corners.



but how do your calculations play out when the new watches are going to be 40 and 44mm?? Pretty good I'd bet.

 

[Mac 128]

but how do your calculations play out when the new watches are going to be 40 and 44mm?? Pretty good I'd bet.

Yes, very similar. I was changing the ratio of the rumored pixels to make the display wider to fit the same bezel symmetry, but it appears that they actually lengthened the watch, without widening it to accomplish the same thing. I was thinking Apple wouldn't go to the expense of retooling the case if they didn't need to -- just to enlarge the screen -- without thing they could actually use the extra 2mm for battery and what not ... and adding 1mm to the top and bottom will have a negligible impact to the fit.