Apple Exploring 3D-Printed Aluminum for Future Apple Watch and iPhone

Apple is developing new manufacturing techniques to lower costs and improve production speed, with the company exploring the use of 3D-printed aluminum for future Apple Watch and potentially iPhone enclosures.



The company recently achieved a $599 price point for the MacBook Neo partly by implementing a highly efficient aluminum manufacturing process. According to Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter, that process is designed to save as much metal as possible, driving down material costs and speeding production. That fabrication update may represent the beginning of a broader operational shift inside Cupertino.


Apple's manufacturing design team and operations department are actively working on ways to 3D-print aluminum components. The immediate goal of this initiative is to bring more efficiency to the production of Apple Watch casings. If the technology proves successful at that scale, the company could eventually use the 3D-printing technique to manufacture iPhone enclosures, fundamentally changing how some of its highest-volume devices are built.

The company already has experience with this type of advanced manufacturing. Apple currently utilizes 3D-printed titanium in the Apple Watch Ultra 3, according to Gurman. Expanding the process to aluminum would allow the tech giant to apply those precise production efficiencies to a much wider range of consumer devices while significantly reducing material waste.

By streamlining the physical production of its hardware, Apple could offset rising internal component costs. Transitioning its flagship wearables and smartphones to 3D-printed metal could represent one of the more significant changes to Apple's manufacturing pipeline in recent years.

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