Business Insider reports that Apple is rumoured to be working on a Bluetooth-enabled iOS watch with a 1.5-inch screen, capable of performing smartphone-like tasks.
People may scoff at the idea of Apple building a watch. After all, who needs watches when you have a Smartphone? Further, Apple is a hughely profitable company and a £100 watch which will sell in limited quantity is barely going to move the needle.
While all of those are fair points, they're missing a much bigger picture.
There is a line of thinking that the Smartphone era will perish almost as quickly as it began.
This is, after all, the natural way of technology. It's defined by creative destruction. Just as the Smartphone killed the flip phone, and the iPad is killing the traditional PC, something is going to come along and kill the Smartphone.
For Apple, an iWatch could be a way to test the wearable computer market, which could eventually replace the iPhone and Smartphones in general.
Samsung
Mobile World Live reports that Samsung has also confirmed that such a device is very much on its radar.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile business, said the South Korean manufacturer had been working on the watch product for a long time.
“We’re preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them,” he said.
Google Glass
Google already taking major strides into the wearable computing space with its Google Glass project. Microsoft is working on something similar, but with a bigger focus on augmented reality.
The first companies to get the new wearable devices into the market, could lock customers into their platform. In turn, this would increase sales of their respective phones, tablets and TVs.
