The Apple Watch SE is up for preorder for some reason

Update, September 10: Upon further examination it looks like the SE is set up for preorder because there are lots of new straps. Whether you select a rubber, textile, or stainless steel band on Apple’s website, you’ll see that every single option is labelled with either NEW or NEW COLORS. Mystery solved?

Today’s “It’s Glowtime!” Apple event saw a series of headline-grabbing announcements, from the iPhone 16 Pro to the AirPods 4. And the Apple Watch wasn’t left out of the fun, with a completely redesigned Series 10 model offering both the thinnest body and the biggest display the line has ever had, along with faster charging and a new health-monitoring feature.

The Series 10 replaces the Series 9 in the lineup, but what about the other models? Most pundits expected new versions of the Apple Watch Ultra and SE too, but these didn’t appear: the 2nd-gen versions of each remain on sale. The Ultra 2 gets a new color finish (a rather beautiful satin black) but the Apple Watch SE, as far as we can tell, didn’t change at all. It wasn’t even mentioned in the presentation.

Which makes it rather strange, when you go to the Apple website, to see that the Apple Watch SE 2 is available to buy… on preorder. It isn’t a new model, there isn’t a new color or chip, and it hasn’t had a price cut, so what gives? The stock is presumably out there already, having launched in fall 2023, so why do we need to wait until the 20th? What’s the difference between buying it now and buying it a week ago?

We’ve emailed Apple PR to ask for clues, but there are a few possibilities. Perhaps the range of accessories has changed in some small way that we haven’t noticed yet: new bands, perhaps those “Fresh band colors” mentioned on the site, that need to be shipped out to customers. (The Ultra 2 got a new band, the Milanese loop in black titanium, and this was announced during the presentation. But a less thrilling SE band might not have merited stage time.)

Alternatively, Apple may have tapered off production of the SE in July and August, on the understanding that customers would have been expecting a new model and therefore wouldn’t want to buy the existing one; which means it now has to ramp that production back up again and get units out to distributors. Maybe the company even planned to update the SE this fall, and changed its mind at a late stage. Or likes the idea of people thinking the SE on the site right now is newer than it really is, although that would be slightly naughty. (And in fairness, it’s reasonably clear that it isn’t new. The Series 10 has a red NEW badge, while Ultra 2 has NEW COLOR. The SE has no badge at all.)

We’ll update this article if we find the answer, or if Apple replies. But for now, it will have to remain a small but intriguing mystery.