“Apple has begun assembling a team of hardware and software engineering, medical sensor, manufacturing, and fitness experts, indicating the company is moving forward with a project to build a fitness-oriented, sensor-laden wearable computer, according to our sources,” Mark Gurman reports for 9to5Mac.
“Based on comments from Apple CEO Tim Cook and numerous reports, the wrist is the part of the body in which top Apple executives are currently targeting,” Gurman reports. “Cook, also a Nike Director, is known to wear the fitness-focused FuelBand… Apple’s Senior Vice President of Technologies Bob Mansfield, who is said to be key to the development of Apple wearables, has been seen walking around Apple’s campus with a FuelBand.”
Gurman reports, “Beneath the senior executive-level, Apple has assembled a team of both lesser-known and high-profile workers to bring Apple’s ‘iWatch’ to reality. The team works in secrecy in buildings separate from Apple’s main 1 Infinite Loop headquarters.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
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eh.
Apple should just buy:
http://www.misfitwearables.com/shine
It appears they have done all of the heavy lifting on a small unobtrusive device that measures all of your fitness needs.
That looks cool. But it’s an activity monitor. I’m seeing the iWatch being like a suite of biometric sensors, pulse, blood pressure, maybe blood oxygen levels. Every one of those makers of high cost devices you find in hospital rooms must be crapping their pants at the thought of a low cost, ubiquitous device that’s so connected it can report directly to your doctors iPad. I see devices, dead devices.
It is going to be BIG. Apple does nothing halfway or half assed. 😎
Walk into a hospital, they will just slap one of these onto your wrist.
If you weren’t already wearing one that was streaming data while you were on the way in.
It’s all good, as long as the user can remove it himself and it doesn’t wake them up at Zero dark thirty to go running with Tim.
Is Mansfield’s FuelBand working?
Such functionality would definitely increase my incentive the buy the device. I’ve been thinking about a FitBit or Nike Fuel, but neither has all the functionality I would like. However, having that combined with functionalities already predicted for “smart” watches would be interesting.
Cook is on the Nike Board? Let’s hope this doesn’t become the Tim Cook anthem:
looking forward to see what they come up with. If Apple holds true to it’s tradition, it certainly will have aspects that noone else thought of, and that everyone else wish they did.
This next apple product will be awesome, imagine if this device could detect a cardiaque failure, connect to your Iphone to call the 911 and provide your personal info and location for you… Apple will come up with a revolutionary product…. Again.
There will be watches for geeks, and there will be:
It’s MUCH more than that… If Apple is assembling a “team of hardware and software engineering, medical sensor, manufacturing, and fitness experts,” at this point. Those sensor and fitness aspects are the final pieces of the “puzzle” for a product that is already defined in terms of hardware, and need some final refining in terms of features.
Ah! iWatch as a fitness tool, and/or life-monitoring tool… Well, that’s a different story…