A high-profile report from Bloomberg this morning talks of the long rumored Apple iWatch and its apparently imminent release. Despite rumors of an Apple television, gross margins on watches are averaged at about 60 percent which is about four times more than with TVs. Apple always goes where the money is. Throw in the dozens of patents Apple has filed involving wrist-related inventions and things really start to get legitimate.
According to Bloomberg, Apple has a team of about 100 people working on the iWatch. It would run an optimized version of iOS and do much of what the iPhone and iPad already does but in a much smaller form factor such as receive calls and get map data. The Verge also chimed in about the watch claiming its sources say the battery life goal is 4-5 days per charge, but current prototypes are running out of juice after only two or so days.
I personally speculate Siri will play a big part in the watch too. I don’t have insider sources like what the reports are citing, but just using my own noggin I could definitely see how Siri would be a useful UI component especially when having such a small wrist-sized screen will probably be hard to manually navigate.
You’ve probably noticed that most people in 2013 have stopped wearing watches unless they’re for formal purposes. However, Apple has always had a knack for releasing new products people didn’t even know they needed: the iPod in 2001 and especially the iPad in 2010. If the folks in Cupertino can stir up a good mix of innovation, talent, and magic, the iWatch could easily be a success.