Apple Granted Patent For Apple Watch With Circular Display

Apple has been granted a patent for a round display that seems to be intended for the Apple Watch. The patent was filed eight months after the original Apple Watch made its debut back in 2015, and it might just be an alternative design that Apple once considered.

The patent mostly deals with the challenges of having a circular display. The patent states that circular displays have “bottleneck regions” where signal lines become crowded, which leaves inefficient use of the display area. The patent is filled with a lot of other technical details and it can be read here.

The Apple Watch has always had a rectangular interface and this new patent could suggest that Apple may be planning a redesign for future models. Patently Apple, which originally discovered the patent, believes that this is not a rejected design and may be a “purposeful engineered solution” to make a round interface that works on an Apple Watch.

That being said, this patent doesn’t guarantee that the tech giant could indeed be making a circular Apple Watch. Apple typically files a lot of patents, and most of them don’t actually turn out to be real products.

9To5Mac speculates that Apple may have already rejected the idea at a later date and the new document may simply be a protective patent to prevent competitors from copying the similar style and design. Another alternative here is that Apple may have filed the patent to use the circular display on its other products. Apple could easily apply the technology to curved-edge displays and bring it on to the iPhone.

Still, a circular Apple Watch seems like an attractive device. If Apple does decide to bring this design to a new Apple Watch model, it could gain a lot of attention and it could secure the tech giant’s spot in the global smartwatch market. It was reported by IDC analysts back in March that the Apple Watch dominates the smartwatch market with a 21 percent market share with Apple shipping 8 million units during the 2017 holiday season.