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Over the past few weeks, leading up to today’s ‘Wonderlust‘ event from Apple, we’ve heard that Apple is ditching leather and going with a new material for its cases and watch bands – called FineWoven. Which looks odd, since Apple doesn’t usually capitalize a letter in the middle of a word.
Now today, we’re seeing some more images of a FineWoven Apple Watch Band, surfacing on X (formerly Twitter). This new material is expected to replace leather for Apple’s first-party accessories, and it does look pretty good. This leak comes from X user @KosutamiSan, who posted a couple pictures of the Watch band, one with it laid out flat and one with it attached to an Apple Watch Ultra.
The design is quite similar to the leather band, in fact it looks the exact same. But a little more felt-like. It’ll be interesting to see what the bands actually feel like, in person.
Ditching the leather watch bands are definitely going to leave a hole in the market, but there’s plenty of great leather watch bands available from other companies – like Nomad. Which makes a really great leather band for the Apple Watch.
FineWoven coming to phone cases too
In the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen a ton of leaks of cases for the iPhone 15 series that are using the FineWoven name. They look to be a cross between alcantara and a silicon case. Of course, we’ll know for sure in the next few hours, as Apple actually makes it official.
According to many analysts, Apple is likely dropping leather as an environmental decision. Leather has a rather high carbon footprint. So while the environment might be the reason that Apple gives on stage, the likely answer is they are moving to another premium material. It’s no secret that Apple’s leather cases have been pretty terrible over the last few years. So it’s a good move, especially if these can hold up better.