Sport Bands

I’m taking this rare opportunity to talk to you about the two sport bands available for the Apple Watch.

Let’s start with the plain old Apple sport band. This band has been around since launch, and it’s been available bundled with the Apple Watch at the low end of the price scale. But don’t get fooled into thinking that makes it a bad band. In the months following the Apple Watch launch, many Apple observers agreed that the sport band was actually the most impressive band in the initial lineup. The material feels fantastic, it doesn’t weigh you down too much, and its comfort is through the roof. If you get this band in black or white, you can get away with wearing it in pretty much any situation, making it a really good “default” band for people to gravitate towards.

However, during summer, the Apple sport band isn’t very breathable and it’s possible for the inside of the band to get relatively sweaty throughout the day. Last year, I ended up getting one of Apple’s woven nylon bands as a gift and while I was initially impressed with it, I feel like it hasn’t aged very well, getting very dirty and being very difficult to clean.

This is why I was pretty excited last fall when Apple and Nike teamed up and launched the Apple Watch Nike+, a Nike-branded variant of the new Apple Watch Series 2 with an exclusive watch face and redesigned sport band. The Nike sport band is actually just a variation of the Apple sport band everyone knows and loves, but features three rows of perforations, improving the breathability and reducing the weight of the band in the process. Luckily for us Series 0 watch owners, you could buy the bands separately, but color options were limited to black, white, and black and green.

Well, last week, Nike heard our cries because they announced a new line of Nike sport bands made to match with the colors of their Nike Air VaporMax Flyknit “Day to Night” collection of shoes. This line was made to use the colors of the sky during different times of day to celebrate runners regardless of when they choose to be out running, and the colors are absolutely beautiful. These bands will be available starting June 1 in Nike stores and should propagate to Apple stores shortly thereafter.

I’m going to be getting one of these as soon as they’re in the Apple online store, as I have some in-store credit left to use up, and I hope these will be as amazing as I’m hoping they are. While there will always be better band options for specific occasions, I’m thinking having one of both sport bands and cycling them out every six months might not be a bad idea for the majority of Apple Watch owners.