After years of rumor and speculation, Apple will finally unveil the iWatch this Tuesday. Reportedly, the iWatch will come in two separate sizes, focusing on health/fitness and mobile computing tasks, and that it will allow people to make purchases with included NFC support.
Apple design chief Jony Ive is bragging that the iWatch could endanger traditional watchmakers. The New York Times reports: “According to a designer who works at Apple, Jonathan Ive, Apple’s design chief, in bragging about how cool he thought the iWatch was shaping up to be, gleefully said Switzerland is in trouble — though he chose a much bolder term for “trouble” to express how he thought the watchmaking nation might be in a tough predicament when Apple’s watch comes out.”
Ming-Chi Kuo, the analyst with the best track record at predicting what Apple has up its sleeve, says that he also expects to see a new iPhone, iPad Air and not one, but two smartwatches make an appearance when Apple’s special launch event gets underway at the Flint Center in San Francisco on September 9.
In his latest report to investors, a copy of which was obtained by 9to5mac, the KGI Securities analyst provides the first solid description of the seemingly mythical “iWatch” ― a device about which reports have been doing the rounds for nearly two years.
Kuo says that the watch will come in two different sizes, a 1.4-inch and a 1.5-inch display, and will contain a number of health and well-being sensors that will track a number of vital signs.
In terms of hardware, he claims that the iWatch will pack 8GB of memory and 512MB of RAM.
Hardware specifications, without some idea of what the device is expected to do, don’t give away much as to what to expect, but it is worth noting that those specifications make the device twice as powerful, on paper, as any current Android Wear smartwatch and on a par with the iPhone 4S.
As other sources have stated, Kuo agrees that, although the watch will be revealed on Tuesday, it won’t be going on sale until 2015 and according to his own insiders, the device will be offered with a gold finish as a color option.
Apple usually waits until October to reveal new iPads but if Kuo’s sources are correct, a lightly refreshed iPad Air complete with fingerprint sensor will also be announced on Tuesday as will two iPhone handsets, a 4.7-inch and a 5.5-inch model, both of which will be offered with the option of 128GB of on-board storage, a first for Apple and a very good physical alternative to turning to the cloud for storing photos and videos.
