We teamed up with three former Apple engineers to supercharge our Apple Watch Series 7 teardown, and boy howdy did they deliver. This watch may not be the radical flat-sided redesign that leakers expected, but it’s full of interesting unannounced changes—and even hints of production troubles that likely caused a cascade of delays.
We pried every possible secret out of this watch, from the new larger batteries to the completely reinvented display tech—and then filmed our interview with one of the original Apple Watch architects to break it all down. You won’t want to miss this one.
Apple Watch Series 7 Teardown highlights:
- This new display uses on-cell touch technology, similar to what Apple introduced in the iPhone 13. That’s a bit of a reversal—ordinarily the watch gets new display tech first as it’s a much lower-volume product.
- That new tech, in combination with stretching the display dimensions, likely led to some serious production challenges (which put the release date into question).
- Apple removed the only physical port, which frees up a bit of space internally, but potentially complicates manufacturing and debugging. Is this a test for future portless iPhones?
- The Series 7 scores a 6/10 on our repairability scale. Thankfully, unlike recent iPhones, DIY screen and battery replacements on the watch still work unimpeded.
