Ever since Apple introduced the Apple Watch back in 2014, it has been a revolutionary add-on that enhances how users communicate with their loved ones as well as monitor their health. Over time, the Apple Watch has become more advanced in what it can do. Most notably, the biggest speed improvement happened in 2018 when Apple brought the 64-bit architecture to the Apple Watch Series 4’s S4 system-in-package (SiP).
The last actual speed improvement happened with the S6 SiP on the Apple Watch Series 6, and since then, there have not been any modest speed improvements for any Apple Watch generation. Essentially, the S7 and the S8 found in the Series 7 and Series 8, respectively, use the same chip as the S6; in other words, they’re just rebranded packages.
Now, according to this week’s Mark Gurman Power On newsletter, it looks like we’ll get getting the long-awaited performance improvement since 2020. He reported that the next generation Apple Watch Series 9 will feature an updated processor that will be based on the A15 chip found in both the iPad mini and iPhone 14. The current S8 (and the S7/S6 beforehand) uses a processor that’s based on the efficiency cores of the iPhone 11’s A13 chip.
The current processors found in today’s lineup of Apple Watches are already fast enough for most core tasks, but any modest speed bumps are welcome. The updated processor would certainly take advantage of the more advanced capabilities of both the hardware and software, especially when Apple is gearing up to announce its biggest leap in watchOS. This includes a major overhaul of the user interface with a new system of complications found on the watch face.
