Yesterday, Apple released the much anticipated update to Apple Watch that enables music streaming over Apple Watches with LTE. We tested the impact of streaming music on Apple Watch’s battery and were surprised to find after 6 hours of music streaming (and two sets of AirPods), the battery charge on on our 42mm Apple Watch LTE went from 100% to 68%.  We had expected 6 hours of music streaming to bring our Apple Watch charge down to 20%.  To put the battery charge decline into perspective, we measured the battery for our Apple Watch with LTE without streaming music over the same 6 hour period, and found it went from 100% to 82%.  Kudos to Apple for a rare positive battery life surprise.

What Apple Watch Means to the Apple Story. We believe Apple Watch will provide fractional (~1%) upside to the Street numbers in FY18. We’re modeling for 59% Apple Watch unit growth in FY18 compared to the Street at ~25%. In total, we’re expecting 26m Apple Watches next year.

Disclaimer: We actively write about the themes in which we invest: virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and robotics. From time to time, we will write about companies that are in our portfolio.  Content on this site including opinions on specific themes in technology, market estimates, and estimates and commentary regarding publicly traded or private companies is not intended for use in making investment decisions. We hold no obligation to update any of our projections. We express no warranties about any estimates or opinions we make.