{"id":221227,"date":"2026-03-08T08:44:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/08\/apple-planning-new-3d-printed-aluminum-chassis-for-iphone-and-apple-watch-report\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T08:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:45:09","slug":"apple-planning-new-3d-printed-aluminum-chassis-for-iphone-and-apple-watch-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/08\/apple-planning-new-3d-printed-aluminum-chassis-for-iphone-and-apple-watch-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple planning new 3D-printed aluminum chassis for iPhone and Apple Watch: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apple planning new 3D-printed aluminum chassis for iPhone and Apple Watch: report<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2026\/03\/08\/apple-planning-new-3d-printed-aluminum-chassis-for-iphone-and-apple-watch-report\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-08 08:44:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: 9to5mac.com<\/a><\/p>\n

With the Apple Watch Ultra 3, Apple introduced a new 3D-printing manufacturing process for the titanium shell \u2013 allowing the company to save on raw materials, improve on cost, and use 100% recycled titanium powder. The company also uses 3D printing for the titanium version of the Apple Watch Series 11, as well as the USB-C port on iPhone Air.<\/p>\n

Now, the company is looking to expand that process to aluminum \u2013 allowing most Apple Watch shells to be 3D printed. Further ahead, it may even come to the iPhone, per Mark Gurman\u2019s Power On newsletter.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As we heard last month prior to the announcement, Apple adopted a new lower cost aluminum manufacturing process with MacBook Neo. This allowed the company to still keep a strong, durable aluminum chassis in its cheapest MacBook ever, even though plastic is often associated with cheaper products. Up until 2010, Apple even offered a cheaper white plastic MacBook.<\/p>\n

However, even though this new aluminum manufacturing process is cheaper, it isn\u2019t utilizing 3D printing. It does utilize as little metal as possible, and MacBook Neo uses 50% less aluminum than traditional manufacturing processes. <\/p>\n

3D printed aluminum coming to iPhone, Apple Watch<\/h2>\n

Apple wants to see something similar pan out on future iPhone and Apple Watch models. From Bloomberg\u2019s Mark Gurman:<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s manufacturing design team \u2014 along with its operations department \u2014 is working on ways to 3D-print aluminum, which would bring more efficiency to the production of Apple Watch casings and, potentially one day, iPhone enclosures, I\u2019m told.<\/p>\n

Despite cost-saving being the headlining benefit, 3D printing isn\u2019t exclusively about saving on cost. On Apple Watch Ultra 3, Apple took advantage of the process to enhance water resistance:<\/p>\n

Another key design enhancement 3D-printing unlocked: printing textures in locations that were historically inaccessible in the forging process. For Apple Watch, this meant being…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apple planning new 3D-printed aluminum chassis for iPhone and Apple Watch: report https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2026\/03\/08\/apple-planning-new-3d-printed-aluminum-chassis-for-iphone-and-apple-watch-report\/ Publish Date:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/9to5mac.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/09\/Apple-Watch-SE-3-Series-11-Ultra-3-stack.webp?resize=1200%2C628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iphone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221229,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221227\/revisions\/221229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}