Apple Watch Nike Pride Edition Sport Band Released
This year’s artfully unique Apple Pride Edition Sport Band is joined for the first time by the new Apple Watch Nike Pride Edition Sport Band.
Both are available today from apple.com, the Apple Store app, and Apple stores ($49), and pair with new matching Pride Watch faces that are coming soon as a part of watchOS 6.2.5.
The new Apple Watch Pride Edition Sport Band includes a distinctive vertical-stripe rainbow design.
Through this effort, Apple and Nike support LGBTQ organizations doing advocacy and community-building worldwide, including GLSEN, PFLAG, The Trevor Project, Gender Spectrum, The National Center for Transgender Equality, and ILGA World, which brings together more than 1,500 member organizations in more than 150 countries and regions.
Every year, Apple makes a public and visible commitment to diversity with the Watch band. The first was given to Apple employees in 2016 who were taking part in that year’s Pride march. The 2017 edition was a nylon woven band that was similar to the 2016 staff exclusive. The 2018 edition used the rainbow colors with white lines between and introduced an Apple Watch Pride face that exquisitely matched the lines on the band with those on the Watch face.
The year 2019 saw the Pride band manifested in a Sport Loop instead of a buckled strap for the first time. The software was updated with a Pride face that not only matched the band’s lines again but billowed like a flag when the Watch was tapped. There was also a second Pride face for those who prefer analog Watch faces, where the rainbow colors ran round into each other in a square or circular formation.
Pride month, observed every June, is normally a time of parades and protests, organizing and advocacy, festivals and community. However, this year, Pride gatherings in many places have been cancelled because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.