A new report out of China says that Apple’s long-awaited iWatch could debut as early as summer this year, sometime after WWDC, and ship 65M units to start. But how far can it be trusted?
A report from the Economic Daily News out of China claims that Taiwan’s Quanta Computer will exclusively be building the iWatch, with an initial order run of sixty-five million. It will boast custom A-series chips designed by Apple specifically for the iWatch — probably with even lower power requirements than the chips seen in the iPhone and iPad — which will be manufactured by Samsung.
It may seem surprising that Apple would be relying yet again on its archrival for chip manufacturing, but sadly, Samsung is still one of the only names in town when it comes to ARM chip foundry. TSMC, which Apple has worked with before, is an alternative, but weirdly, Samsung and Apple’s core values of quality actually line up better in silicon than they do on the consumer-side of things, which is why Apple keeps on allowing its hated foe a peek behind the curtain.
The report goes on, claiming that the iWatch will have a display made of sapphire glass, the super-hard Gorilla Glass alternative Apple first unveiled on the TouchID-impregnated home button of the iPhone 5s.
Other than that, Economic Daily News largely repeats what we already know. Far from being a smartphone that is worn on the wrist, the iWatch will focus largely upon biometrics, with advanced sensors capable of detecting a user’s heart rate, blood pressure, and more.
The Economic Daily News can’t be trusted as a wholly reliable source, of course, but we know (and Apple knows, if in-house emails submitted as evidence in the most recent Apple vs. Samsung trials are anything to go by) that Apple needs the iWatch, and soon.
Source: Economic Daily News
