It's JUST possible, but Apple MIGHT not make an iWatch in 2013 What's better than smartphone that is not strapped to your wrist? A smartphone that IS strapped to your wrist. In what is a strange rumour even by the standards of supply chain rumours - Chinese manufacturing news site iPhone.TGBUS says that Apple is planning to release a watch in 2013, and the story has been widely circulated …
Hmmm...
I'm not an Apple user, but they interest me because they have control over both their OSs and hardware and so are in a position to unilaterally bring devices to market and better integrate them to each other.
For this reason, I'm sometimes surprised that there hasn't been tighter integration of iPads and Macs- using the iPad as a control surface for a Mac, for example (though iOS devices have had MIDI support from the get-go), or as a place to keep your Photoshop tool palettes. I would have assumed that Apple would have an easier job of doing things like than rivals who use somebody else's OS.
The 'watch like' iPod Nano seemed notable because it didn't integrate with the iPhone. Call alerts would be an obvious application, as would audio playback controls when an iPhone is in a dock on the other side of the room.
Another observation: on one tech site about an e-ink watch, I was surprised by the number of comments about "Who wears a watch these days?", but anecdotally, it appeared that more Europeans wear watches than our US cousins. Not only that, but Sony- who do have a phone-connected watch on the market, are Japanese. Why is that relevant? Because some Japanese cities are notorious for having over-crowded public transport systems, overcrowded to the point where reaching into ones pocket for a phone to check a call can be inconvenient (there are some hard figures on the net that support this reputation crowded subways).
Obviously, a watch is not in a good position for either making phone calls or for plugging earphones into. It is, however, in a good position for operating other devices. Rotating the scroll wheel bezel of my watch to make a note of when my my parking ticket expires is so much quicker, easier and less fiddly than setting a reminder on my phone.
The issue with an Apple watch would be aesthetic- watches come in all shapes, sizes and colours, and making a 'one watch to suit everybody' would be tricky- the exception being the £5 Casio F91W 'terrorist' watch, but it is tiny. At least the common watch materials of stainless steel, glass and sapphire wouldn't break from Apple's current choice of materials.
Another issue is power consumption, and charging. Charging every couple days is not ideal. Wireless charging would partially mitigate this issue, but Apple haven't embraced it yet- though they are certainly giving it thought. One of their patents describes a method of selecting the priority in which desktop peripherals receive power wirelessly, but obviously for the watch to be charged this way the wearer would have to sit at their desk for an hour every other day. That said, if the watch is limited in functionality (e-ink call/text alert, call/call end control), the battery could be eeked out for some time. There is also the possibility that if the watch were simple enough, the phone itself could supply the power required for a display state-change, through resonance.
Can anyone here comment on how much power watches like the Seiko Kinetic can generate? My uninformed guess would be 'not enough'.
Watch controls could be completely mechanical- imagine a bezel mechanism that when rotated produced ultrasonic clicks that could be heard by a phone.
>>Wouldn't it be self winding - it could generate power from a simple pendulum like rythmic movement of the fanboi's wrist
I dunno, it's typically frustrated teenagers who provide the biggest power supply and Apple is not the OS of choice for nerdy friendless teens.
Plus, put Linux on a watch and the watch itseklf would be a source of arousal for said teens. And Reg readers... if the latter isn't a subset of the former.
"They should concentrate on putting a retina screen in the mini ipad"
I dunno, watching your movies the minecraft way has a certain kind of retro appeal - all those mario style blocky pixels and gaudy colors certainly do it for the die hard fanbois. Perfection is, after all, anything with an apple logo on it.
When I was a kiddy of mid - teen years....
I used to go "Oh it's a Harley Davidson!" - which is worse than admitting that you masturbate over the virgin Mary...
But anyway, many years later, I happened into a rather big "Harley Davidson store" and this is when my admiration for the big motor sickles, turned to contempt.
Harley Bandannas.
Harley Leathers.
Harley Boots.
Harley Zippo Lighters.
Harley Shot Glasses.
Harley Fridge Magnets.
Harley Cuff Links.
Harley Runners, with the Harley Davidson logo embedded as tread, on the soles, akin to Harvey Firestone, making the first non smooth tyres for the Automobile.
And I thought, aside from the "Great Australian Gouge" on imported shit boxes, really the Harley is just a piece of mechanised shit that is designed to get one from A to B and hopefully back again.
Nothing more... and all the righteous bro biker bullshit is just marketing an image, like boys and toys and girls and dollies....
It's just a fucking vehicle. It's 2 cylinders sliced off the end of a V8 engine, stuck in a motorcycle frame and it gets sold at 3 x the price of an average car.... like less the other 20 odd cylinders, pistons, 3 gear boxes, 12 doors, 12 seats, 15 wheels, etc., It's like, Corporation USA and it's profitably "selling an image" = "Oh duh."
It was at that point that I lost ALL respect for the Harley Davidson as a corporation, and their products.
Now the people who run Apple are going the same way, apparently.
What next?
Apple Hats.
Apple leather hand bags.
Apple LED keyring torches.
Apple Wine Glasses.
Apple Fridge Magnets.
Apple Cuff Links.
And of course, what jerks life would be complete without a set of Apple running shoes, with the Apple logo embedded in the shoes tread pattern.
Back to the shit box corner store generic parts computer, selling at 1/5th the price of an Apple PC.
Yep.
Their days of innovating are done. They will now leverage their existing IP into crap like this until the brand is as degraded (degrading?) as Harley, Triumph, Ferrari, Porsche, Burberry and all the rest.
But hey. It's a business, the shareholders will be happy and ultimately, so what?
Original technology companies are like buses, there'll be another one along in a while, though it may not come from the direction you expected.
Shame, really, still it was good while it lasted.
Are you sure about that?
This is where screen tech is being divorced from the computing and network comms. components. Now one of the most often encountered small annoyances is having to grab your phone from your pocket whilst on the move (with the risk of dropping it or getting it knocked out your hand when in busy locals), just to check who has sent that message and what it says. It will provide a very practical, "here and now" step towards the kind of instant access, always available information Google glasses will be offering. It will probably be possible to set it to buzz when a new message comes in or when some information relevant to the current locale is displayed. It will be an adjunct to your phone or (interestingly) to an iPad mini.
Google glasses are in concept very exciting, but in practical reality the technology isn't ready yet. They are still too unwieldy to be worn by the average Joe and people aren't likely to be buying them in the next 1 - 2 years. On the other hand, a watch, though far less "tech of the future" is a very practical way to ensure a subset of the similar kinds of information can be easily accessed when on the move and can be made relatively cheaply. Additionally, it may be possible to go for an iPad mini + watch + bluetooth headset combination. This could also be a "secret weapon" against the carriers - a way to telephony enable a 3G iPad mini (a "secret weapon" because iPads are currently being purchased outside of a telecoms plan and if they start being used for telephony they user will opt for sim free plans - from which the carriers earn far less per user and which represent far better value for the user). The carriers won't like it because it will mean the bundling of phone purchase and monthly payment plan, which the carriers are currently using to line their pockets, will be eroded.
Agreed. My partner had (has, actually, though of no use now as doesn't have a Sony phone any more) one of the original Sony MBW-100 and misses the "see who's calling" or "see who's messaged me" or "see battery level" type functions which are great to be able to take a quick look at your watch to see without needing to take the phone out for, which is more useful than you might think when it's built in to something you wear every day anyway.
Assuming they do it right (that is - battery that lasts 10-14 days with normal use - you don't want to have to charge your phone every two days, no 3G, crisp display, configurable) and keep it relatively affordable (people who have an iPhone are arguably willing to spend a bit more obviously) then I think it'll be a hit.
We're rapidly entering a phase where the mobile OS providers try to lock us in even harder (eg: the very nice Nokia MD-50W speaker which while bluetooth works best with Nokia phones, and I'm guessing the google glasses won't work with WinPho8 or iOS) beyond just the apps not being cross-compatible, and this seems like a workable and sensible device for Apple to be releasing, and should have a bigger market appeal than the google glasses too.
@SuccessCase
Thank you for some interesting ideas. Obviously the main issue with Google Glasses is power consumption for the display and the CPU. I wear glasses, and it easy to imagine some far simpler ways of using them to display information to me. Even just three pixels mounted at the top of the lenses would be enough to, for example, act as navigational aid or digital compass, and my Android phone currently uses a single pixel (well, the composite LED) to denote and differentiate between texts, emails, missed calls, charging status and low battery warnings. I am assuming the simpler the device, the lower the power consumption (the current issue with Google Glass, and with 'smart watches'). KISS.
In the mean time, you might want to look at the snowboarding goggles that integrate an HUD, GPS etc... a more obscure brand has been doing them for a couple of years, but now Oakly have picked up the idea (though they were, AFAIK, the first to integrate an MP3 player into some sunglasses... why, I don't know)
I have commented before with the idea of a watch (or even a ring) with a Subscriber Identification Module in it... it could be made so that any device you pick up becomes 'yours' for the period that you are holding it (of course, this would have a impact on the business model of selling everybody a phone, so it is probably unrealistic). This wouldn't require the watch or ring to have its own power supply. The line of thought that got me there was an extension of "simple dumbphone with 3G>WiFi, used with tablet when required" as being a good solution for those who find small screens fiddly.
In the wake of recent tragic news, I have come across some Youtube vids of US gun owners who have had RFID chips implanted in their hands so they can open locked gun boxes quickly, without risk of children playing with them.
I'm still waiting for those glasses that turn opaque at the first sign of a threatening situation, so that I don't see anything that might worry me. Anyway, happy new year everyone, and hope you're not feeling like someone has wrapped a slice of lemon around a gold sledgehammer and bashed your brain with it. ; D
(need icon for Obligatory Douglas (Noel) Adams Reference... if it was DNA it could do double duty in biotech article comments)
for those of us that aren't specky twzts and are fortunate enough to have good eye sight, and also don't live in a country where sun glasses are required year round, it would seem a bit of an imposition to have to wear something that marks you out as a genetic failure just to access a few non essential functions that are also available on the phone in your pocket.
i have a forearm-band for my iPhone (for while on inlines). This requires that the app supports landscape mode, and you'll be surprised how many apple apps don't support it (phone, settings - these are those that bother me most). One of the rules in the winpho programming guidelines was to always support both orientations.
so they would have to enable this first in their own apps. or maybe the watch will be portrait only mode.
I'm pretty sure that the iPhone doesn't have mechanical shutters, they take up a large amount of space. Pretty much all camera phones, and a lot of compacts, uses electronic shutters. The only phone I know of that has mechanical shutters was the old Nokia N93. The Shutter noise is generated by the phone, in some countries, (Japan ?), it's a requirement by law to have such a sound.
Just wait for all the fanboys to conveniently forget about all the previous watchphones (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=watchphone&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ANLiUOruKZGN0wXa64DgBQ&ved=0CD4QsAQ&biw=1024&bih=644), or even about previous watches, and get ready for them to start insisting the Ghost of Steve invented the whole wristwatch concept. I bet Seiko are priming their lawyers for an incoming slew of Apple missives - some of the Seiko watches have round corners!
No no no no no. You have it all wrong.
They will use this for new features, for which they will claim to have invented, forgetting that it is only a new feature cos it is 'on a watch'. Hmmmmm let me think.
Telling the time
Missed call
Call alert.
Reading texts.
remote dialing
adverts of exciting new apple products at that apple store you are just passing.
NFC payments
phone locator
different vibration modes for different alerts (including alarm clock controlled from the iphone)
I am also guessing they will have an icon of a watch showing watch-phone connectivity, which they will then accuse everyone else of copying.
Now where is the square icon with rounded edges?
>Just wait for all the fanboys to conveniently forget about all the previous watchphones
Er, those are watch phones. I think the reason you don't people wearing them very often is because ergonomically they don't (can't) work well- mic and speakers are in the wrong place, not enough space for a reasonable battery). That is why people forget about them, and no wilful amnesia is required on the part of 'fanbois'. Anyway, there are some interesting comments on this thread than the oh-so-tired unoriginal form you've opted for.
Apple aren't going to try and make a 'watch phone', but making a watch that controls a phone in some limited manner is an easier trick to pull off - All it would really take is an iPod Nano with a Bluetooth chip. The consensus on Sony's efforts seems to be that MKI was buggy and MKII too pricey. If Apple can nail the problem of power consumption / recharging, they might be on to a winner.
(It may not be coincidence that Sony hail from a land where public transport can be so crowded as to make pulling a phone from your pocket inconvenient, and where watches are a thriving industry (think (Grand) Seiko, Citizen, Casio, and numerous fashion watches that disguise the time in the form of a puzzle))
"it'll have a 3G SIM and need's to be tethered to a Iphone or Ipad."
Yeah, that pretty much doesn't really sound right. As Sony (and others) have shown with Android watches, tethering is all well and good, but it is crazy for it to need a SIM in it. If anything this thing (if it even exists and isn't just the usual trash from the Apple rumour mill) is just like a Ipod Nano with tethering you can offload commands to the phone. Only another possible for it to actually have a SIM card would be if it didn't need to be tethered, and was basically just a rehashed Nano which did streaming audio...
Or possibly less than the old iPod nano, just enough guts to capture touch events, speech for Siri, button presses and act as a 1.5" AirPlay screen for another device, that way all the processing would be handled by the host device and you wouldn't need to update your watch apps every other day.
As far as orientation goes, here's hoping for it being round, like a proper watch.
Kinda taking a 6th gen. Nano to a new level. Maybe something like the Android smart watches that have come out.
I got a Nano free a year or two ago. Nothing to do with it, I gave it to my wife. It sat in it's box for most of that time. I Recently added a decent aluminum watch band to it to use as a watch, but even that isn't a great use of it. The screen size, 1.5", is just too large for a watch.
One thing I would like to point out, many people have gotten use to the idea of new smart devices being charged everyday. Would this also apply to an Apple Watch? How many people want to "charge their watch" every day or three?
Yes, but Futurama's set in about 3000AD, so I'm claiming priority!
Never saw the eye-phone episode before, but just found a clip of it.
I remember when I got my first self-winding watch about 40 years ago (it was also a cheap bit of crap, made by Timex), and I remember thinking how bulky it was compared to the cheap Ingersol I had before it.
Some people just can't wear heavy watches.
I still prefer slimmer watches, even though I'm now wearing a lump of stainless steel that must weigh close to 100g because I cannot find something durable and lighter that does everything I think I want (although the last time I used the stopwatch was months ago) at a price I'm prepared to pay (when did watches become so expensive!)
I was impressed when I saw my mate's blackberry do that on its dock. A few years later and my Xperia seems to have picked up the idea, but using a combination of [accessory]+[optional time period] to trigger that dim clock behaviour- or some other action. i haven't tried Tasker, though, but i get the idea it does all sorts of things like that.
I honestly cannot find any way to care about such a product whether it be from the fruit company or even Google. It's a terrible form factor, it'd be bulky and charging it every day would be a killer feature but in a way that I mean it would kill the thing. Is there anyone reading this that would ever find such a thing useful?
>Is there anyone reading this that would ever find such a thing useful?
What, being able to check call notifications without having to reach into your pocket, or use media controls when the phone is docked on the other side of the room and acting as a media player?
Essential? No. But useful? Yes, of course. Same as the IR remote controller for your television, in essence: useful, but not essential.
You do raise valid points about it needing to be charged- the form factor of course is too small for a sizeable battery. This, as well as ergonomic and aesthetic concerns, is why this sort of device hasn't caught on in the past. However, either this is a constraint that defines the function of this (hypothetical) device (how much power is required to receive a signal from a phone and then display a notification? LED? E-Ink? How much power is required to send a bluetooth signal to the phone for Call End / Volume Up, Track Skip etc?) or maybe an easier way to charge the phone has been developed... wireless charging? Does this mean the user has to sit within a radius of the charger... perhaps at their desktop, or whilst in their car? Solar? Mechanical?
Maybe, some bright spark has developed a way for the watch to work without a battery... maybe buttons change the passive RF resonance of the watch that the phone can actively detect? Or maybe piezo crystals under the buttons could generate enough power for a signal the phone can pick on? Maybe rotating the bezel generates ultrasonic clicks that can be 'heard' by the phone?
Obviously, the points raised here are generic, and not Apple-specific.
If you look at the i'm watch site you'll see a phone which was developed using Android. Now, I personally avoid Android like the plague (privacy issues - long story) but this product looks like fun.
Having said that, being watch-sized makes it even more than a tablet a "receive only" device: it's great to be able to consult a live calendar on the device, but there is no way it makes for a device where you can ENTER such data. Add to that short battery life (there's simply not that much space) and I don't think it's for me..
>a "receive only" device: it's great to be able to consult a live calendar on the device, but there is no way it makes for a device where you can ENTER such data.
And conversely, a watch would make a better Dictaphone-like device than it would an MP3 player. In this example, Input is easier than Output. Depends on the form of the data being collected/given out. : D
Before even the Android watches (which have been out there for a couple of years) there were 3G watches.
I had a (relatively) cheap Chinese one imported and used it with a Bluetooth PAN to share the Internet with my Windows Mobile 6 smartphone (that's dating it a bit...). Meant I could leave the brick (HTC Kaiser) on my desk at work and still receive phone calls etc.
Nowadays- especially if it had integrated WiFi- you could use your watch as the hub of your Digital life. The extra set of Apps created (for a 1.5" screen) would be hugely profitable without cannibalising sales from other devices, the smartwatch market is still niche enough that Apple would be able to capture the market no problems, and the potential profit from selling licenses for "apple approved" bluetooth- or wifi-connected kit would be phenomenal.
Chuck in IR and NFC and you've got wireless payments AND a remote control for your existing home electronics- all rolled into one. Stick on a miniLightning connector and you've got another round of licenses and addons like a larger screen (e.g. bendy OLED that goes round your arm) or an extended battery on an arm-clip.
Done properly it could bring in a very large stack of cash for Apple. Done properly it could have brought in an even bigger stack of cash for Samsung!
Nowadays- especially if it had integrated WiFi- you could use your watch as the hub of your Digital life
You'd get about 30 seconds of use out of a battery that fits in a wrist watch.. Having said that, I once saw torches you could charge with a movement that was especially for men fairly well embedded in muscle memory - a watch is at exactly the right place for such an energy source. So that would NOT be hands-free then..
Yup, thanks. Otherwise I'll be here all week..
Onanism aside, I would be interested in some rough calculations /references to how much power is generated by a, normal movements of the wrist as used to power automatic mechanical watches, and b, exaggerated wrist movements performed for the sole purpose of generating power, a la that torch you mention (I had one, it was a bit poor).
Another form of human power would be piezo-electric crystals under the buttons, as used in some cigarette lighters. That can certainly generate enough power for a small spark.
But (at the risk of being accused of being anti/pro-Apple), wouldn't this be fairly consistent with Apple's usual approach? They have built a pretty successful enterprise on the idea of making slow, careful, incremental developments to their existing technology. I know nothing of these rumours except what the article says, but producing an iWatch (or whatever) by just "adding a SIM card" wouldn't seem too out of kilter with that.
They have built a pretty successful enterprise on the idea of making slow, careful, incremental developments to their existing technology
Hmm, must be a different Apple. That is exactly Apple's problem right now, only small incremental improvement. That wasn't the case with Jobs, there was always something they'd come up with that was actually a decent improvement and it's exactly the lack of that which made the last releases such as the iPhone 5 a disappointment (that, and the idiots writing an announcement speech which was suitable for Jobs, but not for Tim Cook who doesn't really speak in hyperbole).
I don't buy this rumour.
>I don't buy this rumour.
Good point, the original iPhone forewent 3G in order to make the battery last a reasonable amount of time. I can't see Apple releasing something with really poor battery life.
That said, I am finding it fun to imagine how that problem might, hypothetically, be mitigated. Also, just how much power is required for function X and function Y etc?
Lazy article... have you never seen http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android ?
Its much more likely apple will release a watch that connects via bluetooth to the iPhone / iPod in your pocket, not an iPod strapped to your wrist or an all-in-one wrist phone.
Personally I think the watch is long overdue for a upgrade.
My son bought into that, or something similar.
As a means to get the ring from your phone, get email alerts, locate the phone, and get accurate time through the phone from the telco's timeserver, it's a great idea.
If you're wedded to Apple, I'm sure their version will be elegant, and expensive. And once they popularize the idea, there will be more affordable alternatives.
Sony have a smart watch which is android based. It uses bluetooth to act like a handsfree remote display for a phone. Before that Fossil had a smart watch around palm OS.
Anyway the biggest issue with these things is a) a wrist is a stupid place to put either a phone or an mp3 player since it is impractical in either role, b) they need charging almost as much as a phone does and c) the screen is so fiddly small it doesn't offer much functionality.
I don't see an iWatch being especially different.
> a) a wrist is a stupid place to put either a phone or an mp3 player since it is impractical in either role, b) they need charging almost as much as a phone does and c) the screen is so fiddly small it doesn't offer much functionality.
a, agreed, but is a reasonable place to put media controls
b, probably yes, but it might be possible to design a very efficient SOC that just does some basic functionality, or develop a hassle way of charging, or of getting energy from elsewhere. It is also possible the the functions on the watch are passive (eg, pushing a button changes the RF resonance of the watch)
c, Disagree- my Android phone can communicate quite a bit with just a single notification pixel (blinks green for email, blue for a text, red for low battery, constant light shows charging status etc. )
Lets say for the fun of the discussion that Apple do make such watch... they have a history preferring to omit functions rather than implement them to the detriment of battery life.
This is the MP3 player and iPhone all over again - not an original idea, but probably the first time it'll be done in a way that sells in significant numbers. There are a number of smart watches due to hit the market "real soon now", and they've already built up demand and advance orders, so this is clearly something people want (despite what El reg thinks). Heck, if no-one wanted this sort of thing, why were Nano wriststraps selling out?
Think of the possibilities; custom watch faces alone will sell it, but add in the ability to have companion apps on the watch that work with your phone and it sells itself. Never mind the obvious quick wins - display of incoming messages, caller ID, weather forecast, appointments, travel alerts, vibrate alerts that you can't miss by leaving your phone in the other room, navigation... All these are things we use our phones for regularly, but imagine if you no longer needed to fish out your phone, unlock it, and launch the app. A flick of the wrist (I'm assuming the screen will be off until needed), a swipe of the display and there you go. You'd easily replicate the A and C of modern ABC watches (altitude, barometer, compass), although the B would probably be replaced with a weather app.
You could even use it as a remote for Siri; get William Daniels to replace the voice and you won't be able to make 'em fast enough.
>It's all about the brand it seems.
Well yeah, if you compare a £5 Casio Quartz with a Rolex or Panerai, the Casio is more accurate and has more features. Obviously if you are a deep sea diver an Arctic explorer or work in very high magnetic fields (Rolex Milgauss), the modest Casio (or Lorus, or Seiko) might not cut it, but I'm sure that doesn't account for most of Rolex's sales.
The existing product that seems most comparable to this rumoured device is the Sony watch that acts as a companion to Android phones... MKI was said to be very buggy, and that alone is enough to stop many people from looking at the MKII.
Yep, you're welcome.
I don't even bother with watches that need batteries anymore, let alone one that needs charging every few days and is just a penile extension.
My everyday watch is a Seiko automatic - I've had far more expensive ones, but they weren't as good. Needs adjusting once every two weeks or so, and never needs any other attention.
But I suspect this is a joke. Come to think of it, just like everything Apple does.
Same here, my Antique Accutrons languish and I either wear my 76 Seiko automatic or my 80's era Soviet Raketa. "which gains about a minute a month I might add"
I expect this is a joke though for the exact opposite reason. Apple is about sleek user experience, and data watches are not it. Microsoft tried this, it was a disaster. But Apple is about taste, and the popular taste is NOT watches. People go out of their way to remind me of this every time someone notices I wear a watch at all.
If this actually happens, THEN I'll believe the direction is lost.
Taste... more people commented positively about a chunky stainless steel analogue G-Shock I wore than they do about a slimmer, rather charming 1969 Omega Chronostop with the original mesh bracelet (that my dad bought in a pub in 1970) I wear. Oh well.
Curiously, on website forums in the past, I have read comments like "Who wears a watch these days?" from people who have gone to identify themselves as living in the USA, whereas European commentards were more supportive of wristwatches. Anecdotal, I know... though analysis of crowd photographs might give something more resembling 'hard data'.
OK, first off I have to say I think this rumor is just that. I've said before that if I ran Apple one of the things I'd do is spend a few tens of millions (pocket change for them) on having Foxconn build prototypes of products they have no intention of releasing, and fake versions of iPhones and iPads to stuff up the rumor mill enough that even when information inevitably escapes no one knows which is real and which is disinformation. Let the competition waste energy trying to figure out how to respond to products they won't ever release.
But anyway, back to the main point. If it interacts with your iPhone it doesn't need a SIM itself. The only reason it would need a SIM would be if it needed to access the cell network for voice or data. A watch is too small for a useful display for smartphone apps - you couldn't run a browser, or facebook, or angry birds or very much of anything. It could, however, listen to what you say and respond - i.e., Siri. Since Apple does almost all the processing in the cloud it could run on a watch, and you could use it for placing calls, speaking/hearing text messages, asking for turn by turn directions and so on even when limited to the tiny amount of power that would be possible to provide in a watch.
If it needed a SIM, you would want it to be as tiny as possible - so one small point in favor of this rumor is that Apple decided the micro SIM wasn't small enough and wanted and got one that was even smaller. People have guessed that it was to allow them to make the iPhone 5 thinner, but they could have given up a couple mAh of battery out of the 1430 or whatever they have to get the extra room, so that reason doesn't pass the smell test.
However, there are a lot of reasons why this watch rumor wouldn't be true, such as the fact that people mostly gave up wearing digital watches 20 years ago. Watches are worn today for fashion, not for functionality. The silly little watches with tiny buttons that allowed them to be used as calculators are long gone, except maybe for the geekiest of geeks. The only watches sold today for functionality are fitness watches like the Garmin that help track heartrate, distance run/biked and so on. I doubt Apple would try to enter that market unless they could make it do something everyone wanted, not just serious fitness buffs. In order to sell this product Apple would have to overcome the strong trend away from wearing functional watches (or watches at all) by making people want this one.
It's hard to see why anyone who has a smartphone would have any use for a smartwatch, so it would have to be targeted at people who don't have a phone. The only real markets where this is true in developed countries would be pre-teens and the elderly. Basically something to call home, call for help, and perhaps offer tracking of the wearer for the parents of children or the caretakers of the elderly.
That is just dumb. Who, except hopeless lost on the past people like me "and retro junkies" wear watches anymore?
If they do this Jobs will rise from the dead and give new meaning to "corporate headhunting" now that would be a GREAT movie! I can see it, "And One more thing" WHACK!
Mind you, I said the iPad was a dumb idea that would fail, so what do I know?
SUE the SUITS at Apple for ANY designs ALREADY being done in the ANDROID camp. LOCK'EM out of the business. Apple feels they can practice more "revisionist history" right. Apple aleady has everybody believing Apple invented the mouse, the GUI, as well as the brilliant programing environmnt it takes to create in. Much less the Language(s) it takes to pull it all together!!
As far as SmartPhone WATCHES are concerned.. Android ALREADY HAS HUNDREDS of various types out here. And TENS of thousands of STYLES... WOnder whose LEGAL TOES in CHINA Apple steps on THIS time. I say DO UNTO Apple, as Apple has BLATENTLY done to XEROX, HTC, Samsung, Motorola,LG, et al.
This plays out as we knew it would have to. Apple being out-flanked by the MYRIADS of ENTREPRENEURS the world over who see an opportunity to get in on the HOTTEST bandwagon since the original IBM PC. ANDROID, NO, actually the public wins. AND CES Los VEGAS, punctuates this, Jan. 9, 2013.. Ya gotta LUV Free Enterprise. Just LUV IT!!!!!!
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'Nuff Said
Er, no one said that similar products don't already exist... from Sony's efforts to various crowd-funded devices. The do leave room for improvement, though. Take the Sony, for example... you have to tap it in order to read the time- just like those 1970s LED watches.
Intel used to have a line of digital watch chips in the 70s, that were probably more successful than Itanic.
At one point it was manufacturing the whole product, having acquired Microma in 1972. It then got out of the business in 1978 selling on Microma so it could concentrate on inventing a CPU with a screwed up address space that would hamper us all for the next 35 years ...
Apparently Harrison Ford was wearing one in Blade Runner. But even with a flying car, he is still forced to use public pay phones ...
... we had this joke:
A man is at the airport catching a flight to Germany, when he meets his boss flying back from Japan. Hi Mike, says the boss, how are you? Mike has a few minutes before his flight, so he goes up to the boss for a chat. Putting down a couple of heavy suitcases the boss says, you gotta look at this, and shows Mike the most amazing watch he has ever seen. Got it in Tokyo airport, says the boss. It has a Z80 processor and 16MB of RAM [remember this joke is at least 30 years old], and if you press this ... a tiny aerial pops out and the color display starts showing BBC news.
Now Mike is a real gadget freak and is green with envy. But his boss is really nice, and says - look, Mike, I'm back in Tokyo next week. Why don't you have this, I'll grab another one? Mike is ecstatic; strapping the watch on he goes to his flight, which is now being called - only for his boss to say "wait a minute" - points at two massive suitcases - "don't you want the batteries?"
It is somewhat ironic that this joke predates mobile phones.
Now that the phone industry is tearing itself apart with patent wars , why not jump in and do the same with watches ? Watches that have round corners , round watches , having a strap to hold the watch to our wrists moving our arm and rewinding / recharging the watch , that's all got to have been invented by Apple ? White watches .. Colors for watches .. Check the USPTO and equivalents for loads of patents on things we have come to use and know for centuries now being awarded to Apple .
Signed : Sick and disgusted with the patent systems.
Let's have a beer and forget the year coming .. Ill skip to 2014 .
Sony is so gonna get sued for copying the iWatch, especially since they stole the white/metal/rounded corners design of the iWatch over a year and a half before the iWatch was released. Also, they have the same functions, what with all those phone integration features and whatnot.
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