What colour is this “gold” Apple Watch?

Question

I previously bought my wife a Gold iPhone 11 and for her birthday this year, I bought her a Gold Apple Watch Series 6. When it arrive, the order clearly stated 40mm Apple Watch Series 6 Aluminium in Gold with Cypress Green strap. When we opened it, it was more like a ‘pink’ colour - it is definitely not the same colour as her phone:

The picture shows (from the left to the right):

• my Apple Watch Series 6 Nike Edition in Aluminium Silver
• my wife’s old Apple Watch Series 2 in Aluminium Gold with Blue Strap
• the new watch we received

We called Apple Store Support and had a quite strange conversation about whether this was a manufacturing fault or by-design, so were left unsure as to how we should proceed.

Please can someone with some experience in these things tell us what colour this is / is it correct?

Answer 1

They used to call the pink gold "Rose Gold". Checking the current Apple Store site, they now seem to call both 'gold' & 'rose gold'… just 'gold'. I'd call that a naming fail.

I just grabbed screenshots of two "gold" watches - see for yourself. You don't need to let the pink strap put you off, just photoshop one near the other & they are clearly not the same 'gold'.

I'd say you have a fair claim at being mis-sold - though Apple being Apple, I doubt you'd need to do anything more than say you're 'a bit unhappy' it's not what you thought it should be & they'll bend over backwards to try to correct that.

Watches as they appear on the store site. They don't state they're the same material, but they do state they're the same colour.

One watch rather crudely superimposed on the other, one is what they used to call rose gold, the other… isn't.

Looking at all the examples down the range, it does seem like aluminium is 'rose', steel is 'gold'.

Answer 2

I agree it is a bit disturbing but I can confirm that this is the new version of the Apple Watch Gold Aluminum Case since Apple Watch Series 3.

Gold aluminium cases started changing with the Apple Watch Series 3 and we can slightly notice the difference on the website, it doesn't look "that gold" compared to Series 1 and 2. So yes, this is a gold Apple Watch !

Apple Watch Series 6 Gold Aluminium Case

Apple Watch Series 2 Gold Aluminium Case

Also one of my friends owns one and it look exactly like your picture shows. I don’t have a proper photograph yet to share so I hope the marketing images help for now.