“With Apple’s September 9 event approaching – an event where according to Re/code we could see Apple unveil its new smartwatch – we have already seen many leaked pictures and components of the new iPhone 6, so why haven’t we seen leaked pictures of the iWatch yet?” Niels Bosch wonders for AmongTech.
“All though we will most likely see Apple reveal the device in September, it won’t release until mid-2015 meaning that Apple has probably not even started manufacturing its device or it is in really early stages of doing so,” Bosch. “Leaked images [from] factories usually leak when the device is at the end of production or in its final stages, something the iWatch hasn’t even reached yet. This however doesn’t mean that Apple doesn’t have prototypes or early models of it to show off during its September 9 keynote.”
Read more in the full article here.
Now mid 2015? Come on
The first iPhone was “introduced” about six months before it was “released.” The first iPad was also introduced months before release. Apple can do that with a “first product” because it does not kill sales of the existing models. However, I don’t think it will be as late as “mid 2015.” Probably more like November (this year), around Thanksgiving…
If the start of production leads to leaks, starting production before the product’s introduction would ruin the “surprise” and rob precious media attention (and give it to some “Apple rumors” website). This may be unavoidable for the newest iPhone, but for a new product in a new category, it can be avoided. So, it makes sense for Apple to introduce “iWatch” now, then start full production for a later release date. After that, any leaks would be mostly irrelevant.
who cares?
couple people
Images haven’t been leaked because leaks of the images haven’t occurred?
Maybe there won’t be an iWatch.
Howie, there might be an IWear device!
Just because it is a small device doesn’t mean it needs to be on the wrist. In some occupations with moving machinery you can’t wear rings and watches.
We have pockets, ankles, upper arms, necks & waist/belts, so there are a lot of places to hold a small “remote” device.
In Apple’s case my prediction is the “iWear” will relay/store information related to all sorts of exercise, fitness and health issues. These are coming to the forefront with the need to lower medical problems with early monitoring and testing.
Or maybe the tree’s so near that you can’t see the forest?
I’m grateful we’ve been spared. The annual summer long iPhone leak-a-thon just clogs my inbox with material I don’t care about. Even during the years when I plan to upgrade I’m never desperate for nearly as much information as is tossed around for months. This overflow of information just feeds the trolls and Apple haters.
I am hoping against a watch. I can just imagine as iWatch my AAPL shares go down. No one needs a watch if they have a phone. Stupid idea.
Yeah, and if they live in London they don’t need either, they can just take a look at Big Ben.
Hell, if they have feet they don’t need a car. Why use a toilet when you can just crap on the ground?
Sorry Joe, but you own the patent on “stupid”.
Thank you and very well stated. Cup of Crap owns no AAPL and is probably very happy, however stupid, having a low level job at Gaggle. Maybe he passes out anchors in the cafeteria.
That was supposed to be “nachos.”
Here’s me thinking that was a pun on some of Google’s failed products!
I liked anchors.
Perhaps the iwatch is being assembled by Rolex deep under the Eiger.
In defense of Joe, I haven’t worn a watch since my old monochrome LG flip phone started displaying the time.
It’s not a bloody watch how many more times does this have to be said. Can’t believe RG lack of imagination at times.
I was just hoping with Joe that it wasn’t a watch. If it is wearable tech it’ll probably have a watch function included but it’s unlikely that’ll be its primary goal.
I’m not in the habit of wearing jewelry (nearly lost a finger in a wedding ring accident) and just stopped wearing watches over 10 years ago. My health is good enough that I wouldn’t consider a health monitor anything exciting, so unless Apple comes out with something entirely new and unexpected, to me this will be as exciting as a new flavor of Snapple coming out. As a stockholder I’m hoping for the next big trend, but as a consumer I doubt I’ll be interested.
At this point I’m more interested in Yosemite and iOS 8 and deeply hope they’re not as buggy as Mavericks and iOS 7. I’d also love to see a 128 GB iPhone and the 13″ iPad sounds pretty cool, but i’m content to wait a couple weeks to hear about the mystery iDevice.
BTW, what’s RG?
Is it stupid to have high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol? It.s not all about you!
In the 90’s I had a flip phone that had a clock on the back but after a while I got annoyed at having to take my phone out of my pocket just to look at the time and set a timer or alarm. So I want back to using a watch and have done ever since.
CupertinoJoe your statement that “No one needs a watch if they have a phone. Stupid idea” is in itself a stupid statement. Just because you don’t want a watch doesn’t mean everybody doesn’t want or need a watch.
If Apple does release a watch then I will buy one as it will probably also send notifications to my wrist saving me having to take my phone out of my pocket every time I get a notification (and I get a heck of a lot of notifications during a normal day) so for me a watch would be a big plus.
A clock on an iPhone renders a stupid wristwatch obsolete.
While I reserve judgement until it is announced, for the time being, 400 clams for an Apple wristwatch seems duplicative of other products.
But we shall see.
A watch on an wrist renders a stupid clock on a phone obsolete.
For many of us old enough to predate cellphones by a long while, the opposite has proven to be true, particularly since cellphones get the time from the atomic clock and are far more accurate than watches.
I doubt that most of us need atomic clock accuracy to arrange meet ups at Starbucks. Most watches are quartz movements and are pretty accurate. I have a watch that is 100% mechanical 17 jewel movement, from Russia. Even has KGB crest on it. It keeps excellent time, as long as I remember to keep it wound!
Many watches were accurate enough, but some of us were a bit eccentric and liked to have them spot on. I’ve been a shortwave listener for about half a century and would regularly tune into WWV or CHU Canada which broadcast time signals 24/7/365 and set the household clocks to them.
These days many clocks have built-in receivers that synchronize the time to the low frequency WWVB signal (never that successful in watches), any cable connected devices either get their time signal from the cable or satellite providers who ultimately get the time from time.nist.gov. Cellphones get their times from the providers who get their times from their country’s version of time.nist.gov and all time servers are set to the same standards or else GPS wouldn’t work.
When cellphones started syncing with the synchronized atomic clocks around the world, watches became as quaint as buggy whips.
BTW, I do love watches for their style and engineering and can see an iWatch type device becoming hugely popular, I just have no desire to wear one.
MDN said something similar. Said something like going back in time when wearing a watch. But you forget you go back FURTHER in time looking at the clock on an iPhone. The only thing missing on your iPhone is a chain to yourself. Back in the early days men used to pull out pocket watches from their pockets and they had chains on them and some didn’t. Let’s substitute pocket watch to iPhone. You just went back in time. Everything evolves…just saying.
It kind of seems goofy to pay $400 to put a device on my wrist to tell me if I need to pull my phone from my pocket if I can get that information for free by pulling my phone from my pocket.
Free? Really? Your iPhone was free? You paid money for your iPhone…don’t kid yourself. (Your parents or friends giving you one doesn’t count)
Call me crazy, but I prefer to reserve judgement on the desirability/usefulness of an iWatch until I actually see one. And I do not think that a wristwatch is obsolete just because there is a clock on my iPhone. Dicking around with a phone to see the time is stupid, IMHO.
Quite right. I have a Seiko auto watch that is only fifteen seconds out since the clocks changed in March, and a forty year old Yema mechanical chrono that keeps almost as good time, both of which I can easily read with the merest glance at my wrist, takes about two seconds.
Compared to taking my phone out of my pocket, turning it over, then turning it round waking it up, then reading the time. All of which takes twenty times longer than looking at a wristwatch.
Which were invented during the First World War, for exactly the same reason; the hassle involved taking a fob-watch out of a pocket in the trenches.
Quite why anyone thinks using a pocket computer as a watch is better than using a dedicated device that doesn’t need a battery to function quite escapes me.
There are two basic reasons for a wrist device. Because it is on your wrist it can get your attention discreetly in a meeting and you don’t miss it in a noisy environment. You can also glance at messages without disturbing those around you.
Second, because it is attached to your body it can make measurements about you for health or fitness.
And third it, will make payments much more convenient. The device will probably be able to measure a person’s unique biometrics, so a tap to confirm payment or sweep next to a machine is all that is required – no fumbling for a phone or wallet will be necessary.
I already wear them as parts of an ensemble. Fashion accessories always have sold reliably, whether attached to the body or affixed to the garments. Apple knew this; and they know it even better now that they include the sparks behind such houses of allure as Yves Saint Laurent and Burberry.
Apple won’t release any such product unless it solves a problem we didn’t know we had, and until its design instills a strange new craving in us.
That’s the thing that some people point out, and others ignore. It won’t be a watch. It will be something new; something we haven’t seen. Before the iPhone, we imagined Apple making their version of a phone. It was so much more. Now we imagine them making a watch. Do you think they’re making an Apple Rolex? They aren’t.
IMO most of the iPhone 6 leaks have been Apple-controlled in order to avoid people getting their hopes too high like what happened with the iPhone 5. There are no leaks of the iWatch because Apple doesnt want leaks.
I’m not surprised. I’m only surprised by the breathless punditry and predictions arrived at by anatomic extraction. Think about it: Apple has hired medical device and fashion experts only in the past 6-18 months. The sapphire glass facility is only now coming online for mass production. As noted, we’ve seen no leaks from China, a place where keeping secrets is a fantasy. As this suggests, we’re not near manufacturing yet.
IF and only if there is some kind of announcement and demo on September 9, and I’m not completely convinced, it will be of a handmade prototype. I’m sure that Jonathan Ive has an impressive prototyping workshop and team to tap. But the only way of keeping all this a secret is if none of it leaves the guarded rooms on the Apple campus.
I hope Apple does not rush it. It takes time to get it right, and Apple especially won’t get a second chance for a good first impression. Samsung can fail spectacularly and still get a pass. Apple does not have that luxury.
I wish I could be as spectacularly wrong as the analysts and pundits, and still wake up the following day to have a job.
Well said Brian!
Regarding Apple: I don’t think they want to be in the ‘second chance’ category. Their perfectionist, inventive attitude is part of the core of this stupendous company. NO other company thinks like Apple. If only they all did.
Garsh, golly, shucks and gee whiz, thank you, Mr. Currie.
I’m not worthy!
😛 Make me laugh! Have a good weekend.
Just a comment on what Apple did in Jan 2007 for relevance.
Steve Jobs announced and showed the iPhone in a pre-release state and said it would be released in 6 months. That gave time for developers to build HTML apps initially and no doubt time for the wrinkles to be ironed out.
Today, Apple’s Tim Cook knows he needs hundreds of developers to get on board before the official release of “iWear.”
I’m expecting this Sept 9th event is designed to start the ball rolling in both development of apps and PR so that “opening day” the crowds again create a worldwide media event.
Smart strategy as I see it. Keeping with Steve Jobs’ game plan.
Excellent insight. I’m betting you’re right.
If memory serves, Jobs decided to announce the iPhone early because it was being submitted to the FCC for compliance testing and the secret would be out because of that. Why not make a big announcement since the cat’s out of the bag anyway?
I bet there are many people in Cupertino testing Apple’s iBand camouflaged as Nike’s . The finishing will be put at the end of the construction process so there is no much to leak. That is my opinion anyway.
““All though we will most likely see Apple reveal the device in September…”
“All though”???????????
…so why haven’t we seen leaked pictures of…
A sign of the times: EXPECTING crime, disappointed when it doesn’t happen. Sheesh. 🙄
I don’t remember any leaked shots of the original iPhone before it was announced. Same thing.
Wouldn’t it be funny if Apple was working on something completely different and spread a few iWatch rumors just to get the competition stumbling on entirely the wrong path?
Funny, and probable.
I’ve been saying that from the start. The idea of Apple deliberately plant the “iWatch” rumours and sit back and watch Samsung etc rush out garbage like the Samsung stupid-watch.
Best of all is the Motorola, it’s most trumpeted innovation is that it’s round. 😅
Whatever Apple is doing I doubt it will be anything like what has been speculated.
I think the analysts have it all wrong. It’s not a watch. It’s the next generation of ultra portable iPhone. Just like the notebook computer revolutionized desktop computing, the “iPhone body” will be the first smart phone that goes with you everywhere. If Steve Jobs were alive, he’d unveil the device and say “introducing the iPhone body. You’ll never have to carry your phone again.” It can still DO everything that the rumored iWatch would do, but I think it needs to be part of the iPhone family. This wearable phone would be the “small” choice. The current iPhone would be the “medium” choice. And the rumored larger screen iPhones would be the “large” choice.
The iWatch was not invented by Apple. It was invented by dumb journalist making up things to write.
We haven’t seen the iWatch yet . . . because Apple is manufacturing it with a custom built 3D Printer using Liquid Metal (robots don’t spread rumors) 🙂
$10 says the iwatch contains a remote control for all of your ihome devices, including your appletv. You just tell your watch to turn off the lights or change the channel or whatever. Your home remote is always with you.
Maybe, just maybe it’s made in the USA? Hence no leaks… Has a better ring to it than ‘made in China’. Especially for a luxury item.
This iWatch is not going to be some factory run off, I think however it is made, it will be seriously cutting edge design and build. Perhaps something that can only be done in the US? Apple brought the Mac Pro home, so why not their latest product?
Or Switzerland? The Swiss know how to keep secrets.
And watches, they know how to make watches.
Funny stuff, McShank. My laugh for the evening.
I think Apple is making a Stovepipe Asshat, that uses Siri to announce time while giving a little style to all the analysts and tech press who only speak with their heads up their asses!
My take is: No iwatch. Let’s see Sept 9th.
I don’t think Apple will miss a perfect size and perfect priced Christmas gift opportunity of mass proportions.
There probably is no such thing as an iWatch. It’s the product of someone’s fantasy, and it is amusing to see companies like Samsung trying to beat Apple to the punch on a product that does not exist.
Many of the features that would be good for an iWatch would make it a medical device. It would have to go through an extensive testing that is public. If Apple were that far along, we’d know about it. Apple would either announce the iWatch in advance of the testing, as they did with the iPhone, or they would not put those features in, which makes the iWatch less desirable, or they aren’t making an iWatch at all.
Are they having a good laugh in Cupertino at the expense of the people who are all excited about a product that does not and will not exist?