The Apple Watch Battery Will Be Replaceable

Apple Watch MagSafe Inductive ChargerNew details are still emerging about the Apple Watch following yesterday's big "Spring Forward" event in San Francisco, with a new report pointing to a completely replaceable battery for Apple's new wearable.

Following the event yesterday, an Apple spokesperson disclosed to TechCrunch that the Apple Watch "battery is replaceable." The big missing piece of information of course relating to how much the process will cost, if it will be done in both Apple's retail stores and online, and how long it will take.

There's still well over a month to the Watch's launch, so no doubt this will be another piece of information Apple fills out as the April 24 release date gets closer.

Well, when it comes to the battery at least, owners of Apple Watch will be able to extend its lifespan. An Apple spokesman confirmed to TechCrunch the “battery is replaceable”. Albeit, it’s not clear how much it will cost to send in your wearable to Apple to get it returned with a new cell in place.

The other potential obsolescence issue relates to the processor. It’s not clear whether Apple will offer any kind of CPU and/or RAM upgrade to existing owners. At the time of writing Apple had not responded to our request for clarification.

There had been much talk over the Watch's battery life leading up to the event, with Apple yesterday confirming all-day battery life with mixed usage for the device. This boils down, according to the company, to 90 time checks, 90 notifications, 45 minutes of app use, and a 30-minute workout with music playback via Bluetooth over the course of 18 hours.

As TechCrunch points out, given the Apple Watch Sport's target audience, the battery itself may face the most intense usage compared to the other models, which means its lower entry point makes more sense for yearly, or bi-yearly, upgrades.

A large amount of information came out of the Apple event yesterday, including detailed prices of the numerous versions of the Apple Watch, specific information on its battery life, and the pricing tiers of the various bands. The Watch will be available for pre-order April 10 and launch officially in the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and United Kingdom on April 24.

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Top Rated Comments

Agent OrangeZ Avatar
135 months ago
Define "investment".

(not angling for anything, I'm genuinely curious! Do you think it's going to raise in value?)
Well... in this case, the investment may not be designed for a monetary form of return. The return on investment could be in the form of increased productivity the features/services of the Apple Watch might provide. That rate of return may seem miniscule to you, but it would be well worth it for other people.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Aluminum213 Avatar
135 months ago
17k Apple watch purchase now justified
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Klae17 Avatar
135 months ago
I walked into an apple store and had my old iPhone 5 battery swapped out in about half an hour. Is this not common?

----------

Who only works out for 30 minutes?

Who works out?
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
X-X Avatar
135 months ago
No idea why Apple didn't mentioned it yesterday. This is huge.

WHY is this "huge"?

Apple always offered to replace the battery on every product they ever made, for a lot of dollars of course.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BMcCoy Avatar
135 months ago
Surely THIS is the sort of information that would have been useful in the keynote yesterday..
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
richwoodrocket Avatar
135 months ago
Finally! A solution to the endless poor battery life threads!!!
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)