Apple Watch Nike Edition is no more, here’s what you need to know

The Apple Watch is one of the best fitness trackers available out there. This tiny device packs plenty of lifesaving features — including car crash detection, ECG, fall detection, and more. That’s not to mention its tight integration with the rest of the company’s devices. Last week, during its Far Out event, the Cupertino firm launched the Apple Watch Series 8 along with the iPhone 14 lineup. Interestingly, the Apple Watch Nike Edition is no longer an available option. Here’s what you need to know about the change in this year’s line of Apple Watches.

What’s an Apple Watch Nike Edition?

Since the Apple Watch Series 2, the company had been including a Nike Edition with every annual release. For those unfamiliar with them, these models offered exclusive watch faces and branded bands. Additionally, the actual Apple Watch would also have the Nike logo on its back. So apart from the cosmetic aspect, these watches didn’t offer any additional functionalities.

Now that the company has stopped manufacturing Nike-branded Apple Watches, it has made a few tweaks in the hardware and software departments. For starters, watchOS 9 unlocks the Nike faces on all watch models. So even if you have an older non-Nike Apple Watch, you can now use these exclusive watch faces. Additionally, when users visit the respective tab on the Apple Online Store, the company redirects them to the Nike bands section. This way, fans of the Nike Edition can buy the branded bands and pair them with their regular watches and Nike watch faces.

This move makes sense — as it spares Apple the separate engraving and packaging processes. It’s not very practical or sensible to have a separate line, where the only difference is an engraved Nike logo on the back. The company has also discontinued the Apple Watch Titanium Edition, since the Ultra model now provides this build material.

watchOS 9 not only unlocks Nike’s exclusive watch faces. It also introduces the Low Power Mode and Compass Backtrack features — which Apple announced during its Far Out event. This software version is currently available as a Release Candidate (RC) build for beta testers. The public will receive the final build on their compatible watches later today.