​Rugged Apple Watch incoming for 2022 – and new Apple Watch SE 2

It’s pretty quiet in the world of wearable tech right now, so what about some piping hot Apple Watch rumor news to keep you warm this Holiday season?

Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, author of the Power On newsletter and probably the best connected Apple-watcher going, has revealed the rugged Apple Watch project is going ahead for 2022. He believes it will be launched alongside a new Apple Watch SE 2 and Apple Watch Series 8.

Gurman has been on this rumor before, and revealed its existence back in March 2021.

The rugged Apple Watch is said to be designed for extreme sports, increasing scratch resistance and, we presume, upping water resistance.

The current Apple Watch is rated WR50, which is good up to 50 meters. But Apple’s guidelines advise against ‘high velocity’ water, which means some sports are off the menu.

It would open the Apple Watch up to a new subset of users – although we feel that there would have to be some movement on battery life. Adventure sports watches tend to measure battery life in weeks, and offer days of GPS tracking.

Also mentioned in the Gurman newsletter was a follow up to the Apple Watch SE.

The SE was launched in 2020 as a mid-range alternative to the Series 6 – without many of the bells and whistles. There’s no ECG and SpO2 sensor, and the always-on display is also left off. However, it retains all of the core features, at a more wallet-friendly $279/£269 for the 40mm.

We felt it offered much better value than the Series 6, although the new design of the Series 7 has addressed that imbalance.

What could the Apple Watch SE 2 bring? That’s the big question. Apple has rarely updated SE products, and hasn’t moved to improve the Series 3 one iota, which has remained on sale since its launch in 2016.

So color us a little sceptical.