As college students we survive our daily lives through the use of technology, preferably the kind that make our lives easier.
Our laptops now connect to our phones so we can see text messages even as our phones charge a room away. Our phones are miniature computers that have the power to answer any question we might have. And now, from the looks of the rumor mills, Apple is planning on taking it to the next step with the iWatch.
The iWatch will be a smartwatch just like Pebble and the Samsung Galaxy Gear. These watches are called “smartwatches” because they don’t just tell time, just like smartphones no longer just makes calls.
While no official announcement has been made by Apple, all signs are pointing to a fall release alongside the next generation of iPhones (the iPhone 6). Apple’s announcement of iOS 8 coming this fall coincides with a release of a new phone and the fitness focus point that Apple has with iOS 8 points to an iWatch with sensors to track heartbeat, steps taken and more.
There are many rumored specifications that are to come along with the iWatch, but note, all of these are just speculation. Official word will most likely come later this summer with an Apple press conference announcing both the iPhone 6 and iWatch.
The watch is rumored to have a 1.3 to 2.5 inch display with a flexible material made to fit to your wrist so it won’t sit up and get caught on clothing or other items. This is in the spirit of sport watches that Nike has made that mold to your wrist.
As mentioned above, more likely than not the iWatch will include sensors for heartbeat tracking and other fitness-type monitoring. The iWatch is very likely to have a tremendous emphasis on fitness and health monitoring so it will coincide with iOS 8 and the Healthbook app that Apple announced recently at their press conference (which I touched on a few weeks ago).
The biggest rumor, and most unlikely, is the ability to wirelessly charge the iWatch and the iPhone 6. The rumor has been around for awhile now with the iPhone 6 and it would only make sense for it to be on the iWatch as well. Basically, wireless charging is where you have one of the wall bricks plugged into the wall and then a small, wireless plug into the phone and it would charge that way.
This is highly unlikely still because personally I feel like we are still years away from technology successfully being able to charge wirelessly. Wireless internet is still hit or miss sometimes, especially when microwaves are running. Could you imagine charging your phone and then - poof - your roommate is cooking a Hungry Man and there goes your charge. If Apple can pull it off it would be a bigger achievement than creating an iOS-based watch.
Siri has always been a big part of Apple ever since she was introduced with the iPhone 4S so we can imagine that she will be a big part of the iWatch, too. With Siri, though, internet is required. If the watch is based solely on using Siri, the watch would be pointless when you don’t have an internet connection. With that, I really think Siri implementation should be optional and not required.
The final rumor is a speaker built into the iWatch so we could talk into it like it’s a com-device found in all the SciFi movies. This would allow us to listen to music, talk on the phone and use Siri all while our phone is elsewhere.
Like I stated early on, all of this is just part of the rumor mill right now. Give it another month and come August we should be sitting on fresh news out of Apple regarding all of their products. We could all very likely soon be seeing the iWatch out and about on people’s wrists.
"iWatch" by Brett Jordan, used under CC BY 2.0
