Highlights
- Apple has decided to not include power adapters with the Watch Series 6, Watch SE.
- But select models of the Watch Series 6 will ship with 5W power adapters.
- The upcoming iPhone 12 are also likely to ship without power adapters.
Apple is doing away with power adapters for good. At its "Time flies" event held on September 15, Apple said it is going bullish about reduced carbon emissions as a part of its contribution to the environment. This brings us to the omission of the useful power adapter from the retail packages of the Apple Watch Series 6 and Watch SE. But the customers of these new smartwatches will get the Apple Watch charging cable because Apple thinks you must have an adapter lying around somewhere inside your house.
It was a rumour a few months back that Apple might be looking to reduce the contents from its product packages. Now that it is a reality, we are seeing the first instance of that decision on the Apple Watch Series 6 and Watch SE models. This makes way for other Apple products to ship sans the power adapter. These products are likely to include the iPhone 12, which are expectedly arriving next month. Apple ships the standard 5W adapters with most of its iPhone models, except the flagship models that come with adapters with 18W power output.
But this change in the box contents of Apple products does not apply to all Watch models. Apple has revealed on its website that certain models of Watch Series 6 will indeed ship with the 5W power adapter. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman spotted this disparity first. The titanium Watch Edition and Hermes edition Apple Watches have their power adapters intact. But the logic here seems a little indigestible.
In Apple's favour, these two editions of Apple Watch are very expensive, which is why they attract far fewer customers than the regular, vanilla Watch models do. Less the volume, less the waste, and fewer carbon emissions.
But these are expensive smartwatches that ask for over $800 in the US. People who can splurge so much on these models must have power adapters with them. Even if they do not, they can afford to buy one. These power adapters that ship with select Apple Watch models have the same 5W power output, so it is not like Apple had a solid reason to include these adapters. If Apple wants to cut down on its carbon footprint, it has got to do that in a far plausible manner than this.
For what it is worth, Apple might have a plan to begin cutting down on accessories that are becoming redundant over time, power adapters being one of them. But it has to look beyond its altruistic approach towards the environment and cater to its consumer's needs. The Apple Watch Series 6 and the upcoming iPhone 12 are all premium products, even if that is by a slim margin when compared with other products in the market. The customers will demand as many things as possible, if not the usual ones, for the price they are paying.
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