“Swatch plans to equip its Swatch Touch line of plastic watches with electronic functions to measure personal fitness, in a bid to tap into the market for wearable gadgets, the company’s chief executive told a newspaper.,” Katharina Bart and Silke Koltrowitz report for Reuters. “He made his remarks several days after the firm denied working with Apple on a smartwatch project.”
“‘Beginning in 2015, we will integrate fitness functions into Swatch Touch,’ Swatch Chief Executive Nick Hayek told Sunday’s Neue Zuercher Zeitung am Sonntag, a Swiss weekly,” Bart and Koltrowitz report. “‘It will remain a watch, but will have all today’s usual functions to monitor physical fitness.'”
Bart and Koltrowitz report, “Like most Swiss luxury watchmakers Swatch has hesitated to jump on the bandwagon for wearables device with interactive functions.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Either he’s working with Apple or he sounds like this:
Beginning in 1909, we will integrate self-propulsion into Carriage Plush. It will remain horse-drawn, but will have all today’s usual functions to drive without horses. – Nicholas Keyah, American Horse-Drawn Carriage Company Ltd., 1907
Related articles:
Swatch Group denies working with Apple on smartwatch – July 24, 2014
Apple, Swatch reportedly working together on multiple ‘iWatch’ models – July 24, 2014
Apple’s iWatch could clock Swiss watchmaker Swatch – July 8, 2014
Apple hires TAG Heuer sales director – July 6, 2014
Don’t tell Apple’s iWatch what it can’t do – June 30, 2014
Swatch CEO: ‘We’re going to wait’ on smartwatches – June 17, 2014
Swatch objects to authorities over Apple’s filing for ‘iWatch’ trademarks – May 4, 2014
Apple’s iWatch could take out Swatch, others, even luxury watch makers – May 29, 2013
Swatch CEO on Apple iWatch potential: ‘Personally, I don’t believe it’s the next revolution’ – March 6, 2013
A smart watch alone isn’t much use without a suitable ecosystem. I can’t see Swatch offering an entire ecosystem all by themselves, so they will need to create a partnership with a company able to provide one.
It sounds as though a partnership with Apple isn’t happening, so the likely alternatives might include Microsoft, Google or Samsung.
If I were Swatch, I’m not sure which of those choices would represent the lesser evil.
So smug the swatch that it’s ignorant of the tech software issues… Swatch out.
But will it have all of tomorrow’s functions to monitor fitness? Today’s functions include pulse, steps and… yeah that’s about it. Have fun competing with Apple with 10 year old technology.
Swatch is not ‘like most Swiss luxury watchmakers’. For starters, it is not luxury to wear a plastic watch.
You are correct, there is a considerable weight difference between a Swatch and a Rolex. Gold tends to be a bit heavier then plastic.
I really don’t mind the burden. 😉
You folks are hilarious. You expect anyone and everyone to say “how high” when Apple says “jump”, including companies that have been in business longer than Apple like Swatch. Folks, Apple makes FIVE PRODUCTS. FIVE. Personal computers, music players, set-top boxes, smart phones and tablets. Even better, FOUR of those FIVE products are iterations or outgrowths the other. If Apple introduces a smart watch, it will be 5 of the 6.
Companies who have a larger lineups of products, have been in a product line far longer than Apple, and whose history goes back much further than Apple’s current run with the i-Pod (10 years, as its sales did not pick up until 2014 when it released iTunes for Windows) are not on some “deal with Apple to survive” mandate. Sure, Apple is on top now. Will they be 10 years from now? Who knows!
Sure, Apple ran Nokia and Blackberry out of business. As if the watch business like anything like the mobile phone business, which was (prior to the iPhone) a niche industry dominated by small to mid-range companies. Also the industry wasn’t even entrenched … mobile phones weren’t even widely used AT ALL a mere 10 yearrs before the i-Phone (AT&T was still hiring major celebrities in their ad campaigns for pay phones!) and virtually no one had smartphones for personal use at all (they were dominated by business users). So disrupting the watch business is a lot different than disrupting a mobile phone and especially smartphone business that was still in its infancy.
Look at it this way: what percentage does Apple have of the PC industry? 15%? Dell, Toshiba, Samsung, HP etc. are all still in business, right? (Even if many of them are now making PCs that run ChromeOS and Android … non-Apple PCs do no necessarily mean Windows.) Sorry, but the iWatch will not do to Swatch, Rolex, Timex, Casio etc. what the iPhone did to much smaller, younger companies that never had to deal with any real competition, market fluctuations or innovation like Blackberry and Nokia (both of whom could have saved themselves by adopting Android I should point out … for all the vitriol that Apple fans aim at Android, the smaller and medium-sized players in that space that went with Android are still selling phones and remain in business).
Folks, the tech game has a lot of fluctuations. Where Apple is today, Microsoft once was. Before them IBM. Before them the Japanese electronics companies like Sony, Toshiba and Mitsubishi. Before them, American companies like RCA, GE and Texas Instruments. And for a little while, it was even dot.com companies like AOL (remember when they bought Time-Warner?) and Yahoo.
It would behoove you folks to quit thinking that just because you are dominating right now with what is largely iterations if the i-Pod Touch (yes, I know, different products, different design, different OS but still … and yes the iWatch will be yet another i-Pod Touch iteration) that you the now and future master’s of the universe. It will last only until the gadget comes along and becomes the “life changing item that everyone has to have” status symbol. Yes, Apple has invented the last 3 in a row with the i-Pod, i-Phone and i-Pad (truthfully the i-Pad is the least significant of those devices) but the reality is that if they had #4 in the pipeline A) they wouldn’t be on the verge of introducing a smart watch that will only be a minor improvement over existing smart watches and other wearables in form and function, B) they would not be doing pretty much the same things with health, home and car tech that the Android players are doing and C) they would not be teaming up with IBM for their enterprise push.
Tl;dr
So many words, so little understanding.
atl (addled?) –
Swatch makes ONE product. And they are planning to move it into a market which Apple pwns. Nike knows it is time to get out. Everyone laughs at Samsung’s offering. Apple will dominate wearables within minutes of the iTime/iWatch/whatever becoming available.
Wow, you must live on the dark Sid of the Eiger; you have no clue and you’ve done no research.
side, not Sid. Freakin’ spell check.
The difference between Apple and every other company you have listed is the culture of quality and profitability.
You sound like many CEOs who wrote off iPhone as a failure or the iPad as a larger iPhone/Touch. You are ignoring how Apple’s design has changed the industry.
We are not Apple fans blindly. We simply believe Apple will enter the health market in a steady, profitable, and unexpected way. It is possible that Apple may loose its way in the far far future but not while there are people like you writing drivel which if I was working at Apple would push me to work even harder and then rub your nose in it.
Good luck with your Blackberry, switch, and Dell laptop running Chrome OS.
Thank you for a great information.