Report pegs Apple for October smartwatch release

Apple is reportedly targeting an October release for its much-rumored smartwatch. A report from Nikkei cites industry sources who claim that the maker of various iStuffs will have its wrist-mounted fanboi magnet hit the shelves in time for the holiday shopping season. The report claims that Apple is already working with …

[SuccessCase]

"People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things." - Steve Jobs

Seems to me Apple are recognising users really won't be interested in horizontal market general purpose smart watches. For now wearables have to be focused on a real and enduring need. Health and fitness tracking is highly valued by those who do it. I personally am an avid Strava user and can fully relate to the notion of an advanced health and fitness tracker which improves on existing offerings. This will be a smallish subset of the general phone user market, but an enthusiastic and motivated one. A general Galaxy Gear style smart watch; NO.

[Steve Davies 3]

And for the rest of us (Fanbois included)

we will go 'meh'.

Health and Fitness must be a very Silicon Valley/ South LA kinda thing given the hordes of very obese Americans I've seen every day these past three weeks. It seems to me that this is a very niche market.

Mind you IMHO, that pales into insignificance, the High School Graduate I overheard in Aspen yesterday.

"Instead of a car for my graduation present, my pop is going to spend 5 grand on a full back tattoo for me. That is so cool."

I just had to wonder about the future for this part of the world. Get fat but hey, isn't the body art cool?

[Chris G]

Re: And for the rest of us (Fanbois included)

It seems in the UK at least that fitness has become a much bigger thing recently. I notice the tourists coming here to Ibiza are more toned (guys and gals) than in previous years and there seem to be a lot less lardy arsed chip butty fans walking around.

A concern is many health centric fitness fans don't know enough about blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rates etc to determine the real meaning of the data so if their iThings give them readings that are less than those they see as optimum for their bodies they are going to become hypocondriacs and worry over much about the significance.

Although if it leads to the majority becoming more aware and concerned about maintaining good health and fitness that will be a good thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And for the rest of us (Fanbois included)

"Get fat but hey, isn't the body art cool?"

Looking for the positives, at least it creates more options: Get fat before the tramp stamps go on, and you can fit more on. Or, get fat after you've been stamped and you have your own expanding work of "art".

There could be a whole new class of tattoo art for the obese: Themed art, like Jabba the Hut belly tats, hidden tats in the flab creases for the morbidly obese, or tats designed to use natural wobble and flow to create the impression of a moving image. Maybe use military developments in invisbility cloaking paints to offer "airbrush" tats, so that somebody with the physique of Roseanne Barr appears to have the body of Rhianna?

[OrsonX]

Re: tramp stamps

LOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

No way I'll wear any smartwatch 24x7

Don't care how cool it looks or how nicely it integrates with a smartphone, etc.

I would consider getting something that helps with fitness, since I'd only wear it during workouts. I've looked at the available options, but nothing has struck me as all that awesome. Maybe if it did something useful while sleeping I'd wear it then too.

Anyone working on stupid stuff like notifying you of a text on your phone that's in your pocket is wasting time and designing features for geeks to show each other "oh cool, like what I can do" but not providing anything real people want.

[David Halko]

Apple basically had a Smart Watch years ago and disco'ed it

"Seems to me Apple are recognising users really won't be interested in horizontal market general purpose smart watches."

Apple released an iPod Nano 6th generation in September 2010 with a 24 hour of battery life during constant music playback (as long as there was a full charge, no EQ enabled, and stock headphones were in use!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipod_nano

It was sold for 2 years and people would buy an wrist band for it in order to turn it into a watch.

http://www.hdaccessory.com/servlet/the-5056/Apple-iPod-Nano-6th/Detail?gclid=CNmEgI6d7b4CFeIWMgodxnIATw

I knew students who would run around with these things in schools all day long, they eventually bought real iPod Touches and then bought iPhones... and these wrist-mountable units were discontinued 2 years later.

"For now wearables have to be focused on a real and enduring need. Health and fitness tracking is highly valued by those who do it."

One might suspect the iPod Nano 6g was the first widely circulated smart-watch commercial prototype... here we are, 2 years later, and Apple is thinking about another. I have friends with iPhones strapped to their arm during exercise, and they absolutely love how it measures speed, steps, mapping progress, etc.

I don't really know whether this device without a GPS and high-resolution display will be able to replace an iPhone. There will have to be something competitive included in an Apple Smart Watch that the iPhone does not offer and that a competitive mobile phone will not offer... I frankly don't know what an Apple Smart Watch can offer than an iPhone will not, even in fitness.

[David Pollard]

Obligatory xkcd

http://xkcd.com/1372/

[Velv]

Rumours ... Apple ... %product% ... %month%

Meh

I hear Apple's developing a holographic imaging and projection system for Facetime so little images will stand up from the screen while you hold it flat in the palm of your hand. Just don't tip it more than 5 degrees or your friends will fall over the edge.

[Arctic fox]

Sorry folks.....…..…

...at least another four months of iWatch stories.

Why?

[Anonymous IV]

Re: Sorry folks.....…..…

"...at least another four months of iWatch stories. Why?"

Because {conspiracy theory alert!} El Reg is in the pay of [ Redmond | Mountain View | Armonk | Cupertino | NSA | CIA | KGB | GCHQ ] (take your pick, or add the correct name).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sorry folks.....…..…

No, in the pay of the Illuminati and Bilderberg Group, in whose pay all the rest of those are!

[Ted Treen]

Re: Sorry folks.....…..…

If so many are in the pay of the aforementioned, then WTF am I not also..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sorry folks.....…..…

Well, the Roswell aliens pay the Illuminati and Bilderberg Group, and there's only so much to go around...

[Lost in Cyberspace]

Phew

I read 'Fanboi Magnet' as 'Fanny Magnet' and thought El Reg has gone completely bonkers for a split second.

[menotu]

Do you actually believe Teenagers will wear a watch... NOT.... fail before it's released

[MD Rackham]

Teenagers aren't going to wear any health monitoring device; they are immortal.

If the iWatch is indeed going to be focused on health monitoring, then perhaps Apple is aware of markets not made up of teens. You might want to broaden your view.

[John Bailey]

"Do you actually believe Teenagers will" miss out on a chance to display another logo on their person.. a watch... a pair of boxer shorts, shoes, sun glasses, hats..

Fixed it for you.

Big question that nobody has asked..

Will it be waterproof from launch, or does that come as a firmware update.

[Michael Thibault]

That can't be right!

3-5 million a month! That would mean shifting, at most, 60 million of these things in a year. The shareholders are gonna freak! Eyes will bulge out! Heads will roll!

[Tringle]

So from October it will be even easier to spot fashion victims.

I can see the H&F angle - if you buy an iWatch you are obviously brain dead.

[Matt Bryant]

Re: Tringle

"So from October it will be even easier to spot fashion victims....." We should thank Apple for giving us a simpler means to identify those it is simply not worth wasting time with. After all, some of them actually hide their iBones in pockets and bags.

[JDX]

Re: Tringle

But how do we identify jackasses like you two? The Metallica T-shirts?

[Matt Bryant]

Re: JDX Re: Tringle

Hook, line and sinker! Seriously, if your life is so empty that the release of a (probably girlie white) electronic bracelet excites you then you really are the type of person whose company I would avoid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Tringle

Indeed. The Register is a veritable directory of socially retarded, basement dwelling fandroids.

[Anonymous Coward]

So they finally invented the smart-watch.

[Sander van der Wal]

"Sorry folks: at least another four months of iWatch stories"

Only because you lot make them up and publish them

[dogged]

What, only one?

Seriously? an iWatch story and we have one self-obsessed smacktard drivelling on about how they don't wear a watch and so THERE IS NO MARKET BECAUSE I DON'T WANT ONE I AM THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IN THIS UNIVERSE etc

How refreshing. There's usually at least four.

[John Bailey]

Re: What, only one?

Someone must be doing a Tokyo Flash review somewhere.

[JDX]

Believe it when I see it

But it would be interesting to see what Apple can do to make the concept more appealing - is the core tech not useful or is it all about the implementation?

A device which is waterproof and can continuously measure heartrate, as well as recording sleep and activity levels and including a pedometer, AND DOES ALL OF THIS SLICKLY, could be a hit... I don't want to have to tell it "I'm going to sleep now" or "I'm swimming now". Slickness and polish are Apple's strengths and for something you wear on your wrist all day, tiny design nuances can make or break the experience.

But I don't think chaining it to an iPhone within 10 feet is a successful strategy, it MUST have standalone functionality. But then Apple just mentioned that whole "devices knowing what each other are doing" thing last week which could be ideal to let your watch know when to switch to autonomous mode and when to silently sync with your phone - leave your phone in your gym locker and the watch takes over, come back from the pool and by the time you pick up your phone, all the information has synced across. That sounds quite Apple-y to me.