The next Apple Watch Ultra will be released later this year and will be partially made with a 3D printer. But why is Apple doing this?
New Apple Watch Ultra is made with 3D printer
Usually reliable Apple connoisseur Ming-Chi Kuo says in a post on Medium that we can expect a new Apple Watch Ultra this year. Good news, but we had heard rumors before that a new Ultra is coming.
More striking is the second piece of news that Kuo came up with. According to him, the new Apple Watch Ultra is (partly) made with a 3D printer. This does not mean that the entire Apple Watch Ultra is made that way. According to Kuo, only some of the mechanical parts of the Apple Watch Ultra are printed.
Special 3D printer for titanium
Well, you shouldn’t immediately think of the home, garden and kitchen printers that you sometimes see in the attic room of a student with a multimedia education or a hobbyist. No, these are huge, very expensive machines that can also print titanium parts.
The parts of the Apple Watch Ultra that are then made by a special (titanium) 3D printer are the Digital Crown, the side button and the action button. These parts are currently still made with a CNC machine (simply put: a computer-controlled machine). These are the machines that you now encounter in almost every manufacturing process.
Cost savings and faster production
According to Kuo, Apple is switching to a 3D printer for the Apple Watch Ultra in part because of cost savings. In addition, according to him, it also ensures a lower production time. So it could very well be that Apple will soon make more parts in this way. How about the iPhone case? Or from a MacBook Air?
Apple Watch Ultra: a new version every year?
Until now, only Mark Gurman had said that Apple would release a new Apple Watch Ultra this year. Now that Kuo also believes that we will get a new Ultra this year, it seems that Apple will also update this smartwatch every year.
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‘New Apple Watch Ultra will be made with a 3D printer’
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