Apple's employees who participated in the company's annual Close Your Rings Challenge have begun to receive a limited-edition Apple Watch band and a special enamel pin marking the 10th anniversary of the internal challenge.
This year's band is a black Sport Loop with special lugs and an end piece that are colored similarly to the Apple Watch's Move, Exercise, and Stand rings.
Given that these bands are limited to Apple's employees, rather than being sold directly to customers, they are relatively rare. You can keep track of hundreds of Apple Watch bands released since 2015 through the Bandbreite app on the iPhone.
Thursday June 18, 2026 12:35 pm PDT by Juli Clover
watchOS 27 is the new version of watchOS that's coming to the Apple Watch this fall. It's a little light on features, but there are some useful new additions, including access to Siri AI.
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watchOS 27 will have Siri AI, so you'll be able to use many of the same Siri features that you have on the iPhone on your wrist. Right now, the...
Apple's decision to drop watchOS 27 support for five Apple Watch models – the Series 6, 7, 8, SE 2, and the original Ultra – likely caused some hand-wringing at this year's WWDC. The software's compatibility list cuts off three years of devices in one update. Fortunately, Apple today confirmed that unsupported watches will still work with iOS 27 when it's released in the fall.
Speaking to Tec...
Apple's watchOS 27, previewed at this month's WWDC, removes four built-in apps from all supported Apple Watch models, folding three of them into a single Find My app and dropping Walkie-Talkie entirely, based on the first developer beta released this month.
The largest change affects Find My. watchOS 27 developer beta 1 replaces the separate Find Devices, Find People, and Find Items apps...
I cringe at the thought of my employer monitoring how I exercise or manage my weight. Are there fat people working for Apple? It is it a hinderance to be pudgy in your career there? This is what I get from this.
It’s an opt in ‘challenge’. The only thing work will know is if you received a prize or not. It’s super open and pretty much everyone gets a participation prize.
There’s plenty of fat people at my store. I’d say around a 3rd of the staff are fat.
There’s been challenges in the past which focused on weight loss, but the feedback was it wasn’t inclusive. So no we have the Close Your Rings challenge and the Mindful Minute challenge.
So yeah. If you wouldn’t want to participate, then you wouldn’t have to.
I cringe at the thought of my employer monitoring how I exercise or manage my weight. Are there fat people working for Apple? It is it a hinderance to be pudgy in your career there? This is what I get from this.
It’s optional to participate and just seems like a fun event to encourage people to exercise. If you work for Apple and don’t like it, you can just not participate.
Health and exercise affect things like work performance, sick days, annd overall quality of life, so I don’t think it’s weird for an employer to care about their employees’ health. I don’t really see the issue, especially when voluntary.
Apple's first foldable iPhone, with a book-style design featuring a ~5.5-inch outer display and a ~7.8-inch inner display with a minimal crease down the middle.
