Two new Pride-themed bands released for Apple Watch

Apple has released two new bands for the Apple Watch to coincide with the annual month-long Pride celebration that is set to begin 1st June.

Apple revealed the accessories in a newsroom press release on Monday morning where it talked about Pride going virtual this year amid the ongoing global pandemic.

To celebrate LGBTQ inclusiveness, Apple unveiled two Pride-themed bands for the Apple Watch.

The first uses the colourful rainbow theme and the second is a unique design from Nike, which has joined the celebrations alongside Apple for the first time this year.

Apple Watch customers can purchase either the Apple Watch Sport Band for 2020 Pride product or Nike’s new multi-coloured offering from the Apple Store beginning 18th May.

The bands will also match up with two special WatchOS themes that will be released with the 6.2.5 software update, which is currently in beta.

This year will be more of a low-key affair for Pride as the festivals and parades that have been commonplace over the years will be replaced with mostly virtual events.

Apple says that anyone buying the bands will help to support a range of LGBTQ organisations that Apple and Nike support.

These include the National Centre for Transgender Equality, Gender Spectrum, PFLAG and ILGA World.

The launch of the two new bands also means that last year’s Pride Edition Sport Loop band has been discontinued.

Apple revealed a few details about how the eye-catching bands have been created in its blog post.

It said: “The Pride Edition Sport Band is assembled by hand from individual strips of colored fluoroelastomer. The strips are then machine die-cut and compression molded together.”

Customers will be able to purchase the two bands in either 40mm or 44mm options for £49 directly from the Apple website and select Store locations.