Over the years, we’ve seen a handful of unreleased Apple Watch bands emerge outside Apple, but this one might be my favorite. The Apple Watch will celebrate its 10th anniversary later this month, and it turns out Apple made a special edition anniversary Apple Watch Sport Band to celebrate.
Here are a bunch of images showing it off…but you’ll probably never be able to buy it.
9to5Mac reader Mike, who also runs a Discord server dedicated to Apple Watch band collecting, shared a gallery of images with me showing off this unreleased anniversary band.
The anniversary Apple Watch Sport Band features a speckled design similar to the Pride Edition Sport Band released in 2023 and recent Nike bands. However, the speckles on this one are meant to represent the seasonal colors of Apple Watch bands released by Apple over the years. The back of the band is engraved with a special message: “2014-2024: Ten Years of Apple Watch,” with a “10” encircled in the center. It features a jet black pin.
It’s unclear how many of these Apple Watch bands were manufactured. So far, only four of them have materialized in the real world. Two of them were sold on eBay last October and were still in the special packaging that Apple uses to send accessory samples to its Color Evaluation Team in Cupertino.
It’s likely that Apple ran a small manufacturing test run, but ultimately decided not to go forward with mass production and a release to the public. While Apple has gifted employees with limited-edition Apple Watch bands in the past, it doesn’t seem the anniversary band ever made it out of the evaluation stage.
It’s highly unlikely this Apple Watch band will ever see a public release. The Apple Watch is celebrating its 10th anniversary later this month, having originally been released on April 24, 2015. It was announced during Apple’s special event on September 9, 2014, hence the “2014-2024” lettering on this band. There has also been evidence that Apple is planning a special Activity Challenge to celebrate the Apple Watch’s anniversary.
Check out more pictures below. What do you think of the design? Should Apple release this band to the public?
And if you’re an Apple employee who knows more about the story behind this Apple Watch band, find my contact information here.
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