Rumors about a futurist’s wrist-worn smart device from Apple continue to emerge. We gather all the rumors, speculations and prediction of the said iWatch in one place.
For the past several weeks, rumor mill has been spinning thick around Apple’s speculated wrist-worn smart device, commonly being referred to as the iWatch. Tons of speculations, scoops, projections, and predictions have been received and read from multiple sources around the globe. We make an effort to consolidate all that we know about the highly awaited, Apple iWatch. It should be noted that none of things mentioned below have been confirmed by Apple officials and therefore, should be taken with a pinch of salt.
To begin with, we hear that Apple has recruited more than 200 people to work on this project, which includes health engineers, sleep-analysis experts and scientists. It is also reported that the said device would help users organise and analyse their personal health and wellness regime, plans and information.
We also hear that most of these newly recruited people have previously worked at passive glucose sensor companies and ingestible sensor companies – which suggests that the device will be equipped with advanced sensors that will possess health sensing capabilities and behave like some of the fitness tracking devices available in the market today.
Next there are several reports suggesting that the iWatch is not a primary device but a peripheral one. Meaning, that the device will require connectivity to a smartphone and/or to an iOS App to function. Plus, one of the reports suggests that the iWatch will feature Apple’s newly patented technology wherein a Wi-Fi-less device is able to share another device’s network using Bluetooth. The said technology if incorporated in the smart watch, will allow it to connect to an iPhone to get enough internet juice to get news, updates and push notifications – right on your wrist!
Because of the speculated health and fitness oriented wrist-worn device, many believe that it is only natural that the device in question will be complemented by a dedicated App for iOS. This App is rumored to be called the Healthbook, which will record and evolve into a repository for health and fitness information and where allowed – will provide feedback and analysis of that data to the user.
Furthermore, a highlight of the Healthbook feature is reported to be the ‘hydration monitoring’ aspect. What makes this feature special is, unlike most Apps where people manually log the number of glasses of water they drink each day, the iWatch will somehow be able to track the data via one of those advanced sensors we talked about before. Healthbook will focus on a number of health and fitness related issues including, sleep, stress, diet, exercise, medication adherence and also tracking women’s health during pregnancy.
It is understood that with the iWatch device and the Healthbook App, Apple’s focus is more on providing a positive experience to their customers and less on feeding people with technology and sensors. Apple is hoping to make health tracking a mass market behaviour and not just something data-obsessed types are interested in.
The rumored Healthbook app might be considered a next generation Google Health or Microsoft HealthVault. There are plenty of differences already apparent based on the rumors between these initiatives, but if Healthbook does launch, that framing will be a tempting one.
Having said all of the above, there is not a single being inside or outside of Apple who can confirm or even deny – on record – the development of the said iWatch. However, in a recent interview, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook hinted that ‘Apple is working on new product categories ahead of 2014 launch’ and also back in December 2013 Cook had sent out an email discussing ‘big plans’ for 2014 that the company believes its customers will love.
As the strategy, Apple always tries to make our life easier. So whatever Apple makes, people will blindly buy it!
