Apple’s quarterly profit probably fell for the first time in over a decade, thanks to new products with lower profit margins and a slowing demand for the iPhone, Bloomberg reports. Fourteen analysts have reduced their estimates for Apple in recent weeks, and on Friday, the Cupertino company’s share price fell below $400 for the first time since December 2011.
A new survey conducted by ChangeWave Research has found that 19% of U.S. consumers say they’re likely to purchase Apple’s much-anticipated “iWatch” if and when it becomes available. The demand has been attributed to “Apple’s track record of delivering ultra-convenient, easy to use products with perceived ‘cool factor’.”
Microsoft is designing a new smartwatch that could allow it to compete with upcoming devices from the likes of Apple, Google, and Samsung, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company has already asked suppliers in Asia to ship components for the device, which will reportedly boast a “touch-enabled” display.
When Apple hired former Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch — yes, the same guy who watched and lamely whined while Apple basically killed Flash by declaring it a wholly unnecessary and archaic web technology that had no place in the mobile age of computing — there was a lot of head scratching. What would Kevin Lynch be doing at Apple?
Well, here’s one theory: he’s heading a team made up largely of former iPod employees, and he’s working on the iWatch.
Foxconn sales declined 19% during the first quarter of 2013, and “disappointing” demand for Apple’s iPhone is getting the blame, Reuters reports. Between January and March, the company’s sales totaled NT$808.97 billion ($26.96 billion), down from NT$988.24 billion ($32.99 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2012, and NT$1 trillion ($33.38 billion) a year ago.
LG will compete with Apple, Google, and Samsung with a smartwatch of its own that is expected to run Google’s Android operating system. The company is also said to be working on another wearable computing device that will reportedly rival Google Glass.
The Google Glass project has been in the news a fair bit in recent months, but it seems Google may have another wearable gadget in development that’s been flying under the radar. The Financial Times reports that just like Apple and Samsung, the search giant is working on its own smartwatch that will act as an extension to the smartphone.
During his tenure as CEO of Apple, John Sculley saw the company suffer through a serious lack of innovation that nearly sunk the company, before Jobs came back and rescued it.
In an interview earlier this month, Sculley said he thinks Apple is experiencing a “lull in innovation.” To clarify his stance, Sculley just gave another interview and said that even though Apple’s experiencing a lull, it’s not really its own fault.
Speaking with Huffington Post, the former Apple CEO had the following to say about Apple’s perceived innovation problem:
Whenever rumors about a new product from Apple begin to pop up, so do the concept drawings, 3D renders, and mockups. The latest rumored Apple device to get the mockup treatment has been the iWatch, Apple’s supposed foray into wearable computing.
Already, I’ve seen no less than half a dozen concepts illustrating what people think the iWatch might look like. Some play heavily off of the design of iOS, others take design influences from the iPhone and iPad, and others yet attempt to emulate the 6th generation iPod nano, the closest thing that Apple has made to a watch so far. While all of these designs take influence from what Apple has already created, none of them take into consideration the external influences that shape the way Apple designs their own products.
What can Apple bring to the table, er, wrist, that Timex and any one of hundreds of cheap watches don’t already provide consumers?
That’s the question Harvard Business Review’s H. James Wilson asks today, and he comes up with a fascinating answer.
The iWatch, he says, won’t actually be a watch at all.
We’ve seen a freaking ton of iWatch concepts over the past few months. Most of them suck. However, Martin Hajek’s new concept is beautiful, even though it’s not very functional.
Working for MacUser magazine, Martin created his iWatch concept by focusing on a traditional approach to watch making. The clock-face has a large display that looks like a mini iPad mini, but it’s got the natural touches of a regular watch – like the leather strap and clasp.
The UI doesn’t look like something you could actually use (who’s got fingers tiny enough to tap those Xs in Tweetbot?), but the hardware is great. If Apple does come out with an iWatch later this year, we hope it looks something like this:
Wall Street has spent most of the last six months hyperventilating about the future of Apple, chomping at their fingernails and openly wondering if Apple is taking too long to innovate in the post-Jobs era.
Over at the Apple Gazette, Robin Parrish has put together a simple graphic, showing Apple’s historic product pillars. Essentially, if you add it all up, the average time between major product pillars for Apple is three years and ten months.
Not everyone is convinced that Apple’s iWatch would be a success, and you can add Swatch’s CEO, Nick Hayek, to the pile of detractors.
Hayek says that he doesn’t think the iWatch will be a revolutionary device, because your wrist can’t handle a display big enough to interact with. But despite Hayek’s aversion to the iWatch, Apple’s reached out to him over the years for help on materials and watch batteries.
Included in Bloomberg’s big story this morning on Apple’s iWatch was a small paragraph that said Jony Ive and his team ordered a bunch of watches made by Nike in the mid-2000s.
Maybe Ive and his design team just liked the Nike watches, but according to Scott Wilson, who was Nike’s Creative Director at the time, Ive might have ordered the watches so his team could study them for inspiration on the iWatch.
Following Bloomberg’s report that the iWatch is a project Apple wants to deliver this year, the Verge has an interesting report saying that the iWatch project is being lead by Jony Ive himself, and that it will run a full version of iOS.
Bloomberg recently revealed that Apple has a team of 100 people working on its new iWatch, and according to its latest report, the Cupertino company is hoping to launch the device this year. The smart wristwatch, which could make calls, provide maps, and offer a pedometer, is expected to become more profitable than Apple’s much-anticipated television set.
It was recently reported that Apple is working on a wristwatch computer with a curved glass display. The glass was speculated to be Corning’s Willow Glass, a brand new technology that lets a thin pane of glass fold up like a newspaper. “The thinness, strength and flexibility of the glass has the potential to enable displays to be “wrapped” around a device or structure,” according to Corning.
If Apple were to release an iWatch in the next year or so, it would assumedly need Willow Glass to be ready for mass production. Unfortunately, it will be several more years before Corning’s flexible displays are ready for consumers.
Rumors say that Apple is making an iWatch with a curved glass display, and the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office just granted a patent for such a device. The patent in question was filed by Apple back in August 2011, and it describes a “touch-sensitive” bracelet that wraps around the human wrist and locks into place.
Apple calls it a “wearable video device” with a flexible display that “conforms to an appendage of the end-user.” The watch would be used to communicate with another device, like an iPhone.
This gorgeous iWatch concept designed by Nikolai Lamm by commission of MyVouchersCode is my idea of what an Apple watch should actually look like, and how it would function: as an accessory to the iPhone.
Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple alongside Steve Jobs back in 1976, believes the Cupertino company still has the ability to determine the future of consumer electronics, despite increasing competition from its rivals. He admits, however, that the company may be losing its edge, and that it increasingly needs to rely on its premium brand.
When we first saw Google’s Glass project, we were fairly skeptical that A) it would work as advertised, B) not make you look like some maxiod cyberborg super dweeb. We still have reservations about both of those problems, but using Project Glass looks freaking awesome.
Google just released a video this morning that shows what the UI is going to look like for people who are willing to shell out $1500 for some fancy Google branded eyeglasses. I could describe all the magical features for you, but here, just watch the video below:
Over the last couple months, we’ve seen Apple fanboys’ obsession move away from an Apple TV set, and focus on the iWatch. As rumors have ramped up that Apple might make their own wearable computer very soon, people have wondered what an iWatch might look like.
We’ve seen a lot of concept renderings of iWatches over the past two years, and while many of them have been a bit crazy, some are pretty neat and feasible. We don’t really know much about the iWatch other than it will have a curved glass display and be worn on the wrist, but if you combine a few aspects from each of these concepts, you might get a ballpark idea of what the iWatch will look like.
The iTV, iRadio, and now iWatch. Apple rumors never sleep, and the latest batch of reports reveal that the folks in Cupertino are working on the future of wearable technology, externally dubbed “iWatch.” Little is known about the device, other than it is being designed for the wrist with a curved glass display.
Since iWatch rumors started re-gaining momentum in recent weeks, many have been speculating about how such a device would work.
Tim Cook just had the best week ever, ya’ll! On our newest CultCast, we’ll tell you what President Obama did during the State of The Union address that had Mr. Cook blushin’ like a school girl.
Then, the iWatch rumors are back, but this time, they may have some credence. We’ll tell you what we know. Plus, Cult of Mac Editor-in-Chief Leander Kahney tells us about his new Jony Ive book and we answer your Facebook queries in an all-new CultCastQNA.
Eager to listen but not sure how? Easy! Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.
Show notes coming up next.
Rumors have started to pick up regarding Apple’s foray into wearable technology. Over the weekend, both The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is working on an ‘iWatch’ product.
Now a third report on the mysterious device has surfaced, and it speaks to the level of focus Apple is giving the top secret project.
