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Apple Reportedly Testing Inductive, Solar and Motion Charging For Its Smartwatch
An anonymous reader writes in with the latest from the rumor mill about a possible Apple smartwatch. "We've heard that when Apple reveals its first smartwatch product, there's going to be a heavy focus on health and fitness, but There might also be a way to charge the wearable without plugging it in, according to a report from the New York Times. Inductive charging came in a wave of smartphones last year, including Google's Nexus 4 and Nokia's Lumia 920 range, although we don't often see it in anything smaller than a phone (or camera) form-factor. Apple, however, is looking into cramming the same technology into its iWatch, or whatever it eventually calls its debut wearable."
These are basically all the possible ways to recharge a wristwatch that currently exist, except for physical mechanical contacts. This shouldn't be surprising because if there's one thing history has taught us, it's that Apple tries out practically every permutation of hardware in the R&D process. There were rumours that the "Apple tablet" would come in three screen sizes; it was later revealed that Apple had been testing three sizes on its campus to decide which one it preferred. There were rumours that they'd launch a version with no mechanical buttons; it was disclosed that Apple had tested that permutation too.
Whenever you read an Apple product rumour, before you even question the legitimacy of the source, ask yourself: is there any reason to suppose this is any more than a speculative prototype on their part?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
...they miss the point and try and make it sing, dance & make morning toast for you and that the motion and solar charging is a frantic attempt to make the battery life acceptable. Inductive charging would be good but anyone in the smart watch arena needs to take a leaf out o Pebbles book and keep it simple.
"Motion charging".... hehehehe.... yeah I bet they test that a lot at Apple.
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Apple didn't make a success of the iPhone by being first to market with a smartphone, they did it by getting it right. I'm no Apple fanboy, and I own no Apple products, but current smartwatches are a joke, and if anyone is going to take the concept beyond niche/gimmick level, it wouldn't entirely surprise me if it was Apple.
Oh no... it's the future.
Yeah, they didn't make a success of the Apple TV, so its not like everything they touch magically becomes popular. They had their failures in the past.
They are still testing something like this? Samsung's Galaxy Gear came out already. The capability to quickly bring attractive and reliable products to market is a key factor in modern electronics industry.
Why are they testing this iPod thing? I mean Creative Labs and others have come out with MP3 players already. The ability to quickly bring attractive and reliable products to market is a key factor in modern electronics industry (so there isn't a hope in hell this iPod thing will ever be a commercial success).
The thing is that first to market is not everything. You also have to design the stuff you bring to market well and Apple has a history of appealing to customers by successfully reinventing/redesigning stuff that others have implemented badly and Apple evidently believes they can do it again.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Nobody wears watches nowadays.
Instead they wear a small clock attached to a strap wrapped around their wrist.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Pebble users would generally disagree with you. What they do, they do very well.
Except they are mechanical winding. The Sekio Kinetic which turns that into electrical charging seems to keep my watch working just fine, and I sit at a computer all day as my job.
Of course the issue is that mechanical electrical generation aka Sekio Kinetic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... and solar electrical generation aka the Citizen EcoDrive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... provide tiny amounts of power to keep a watch going, and could not provide anywhere near sufficient power for a smart watch.
Yeah, they didn't make a success of the Apple TV, so its not like everything they touch magically becomes popular. They had their failures in the past.
Apple TV outsells for example Xbox 360 for the last two years, Wii U, and probably a lot of other devices that you think are very successful.
And of course, 30% of all harvested energy belongs to Apple.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Its more like marketing. BTW the only MP3 player I ever bought was from Creative Labs and at least their bundled headphones weren't a complete POS. I plugged it in and i looked just like any other USB pen and I can drag and drop MP3 files into it easily. Much better than having to use iTunes.
And yet for some reason millions upon millions of people disagreed and bought the iPod, and don't tell me it was just marketing. There is always more to a blockbuster hit it than just marketing.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
There's nothing "elite" about the mechanism. I got a self-winding watch made by Seiko for my 18th birthday in 1973. I don't know what it cost, but we were a decidedly middle-class family. Still works great BTW.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
I get the feeling you dont understand how inductive power works.
A watch can be easily connected to the blood vessels in the wrist and use the O2 / glucose mix as an energy source like the rest of your body. Recharge by eating. This would be real bleeding-edge technology.
Note that the use of blood as a power source (for implants) is seriously being researched. Look up "biofuel cell".
the Slashdot crowd still hasn't gotten over the shock of people preferring simplicity and portability over features.
Actually most have their music on their phones. I use https://play.google.com/store/... Vanilla Music on Android. In fact people everywhere are ditching their iPods for Android.
The iPhone arrived late? What else was available in 2007 with a touch screen, browser, etc? I mean I don't like them any better than the next guy, but I'm interested to know what prior art you speak of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... browsers have been available on phones since at least 1994 ironically the first example given fro a mobile browser is the Apple Newton!? It suggests the first mobile phones was in 1996 with " Unwired Planet (later to become Openwave) put their "UP.Browser" on AT&T handsets" So beating Apple by 11 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... capacitive touch screen work began in 1965!? Hell the nintendo DS even have touchscreen back in 2004. In fact a whole host of companies where working on todays capacitive phone around that time...including samsung. In fact famously the iPhone looks eerily similar to a Sony Prototype. Although here is the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... LG Prada which was on the market 6 months before the iPhone.
The original iPhone was a hell of a device, but was built on established technology.
Of course, millions upon millions of people bought Windows. Sometimes the mob is not smart.
Actually, most of the millions upon millions of people who use Windows did not explicitly buy Windows. Sometimes the mob isn't even given a choice.
Its also worth noting that sometimes you can only push the mob so far. Its interesting that many hardware vendors that had previously gone along with Microsoft and changed their entire home PC lineup to be Windows 8 exclusively are now offering Windows 7 preloaded PCs again. There's only one reason to do that, and that's because those vendors believe forcing people to choose between Windows 8 or nothing is causing many people to choose nothing. I'm taking no small pleasure in lumping Windows 8 supporters with New Coke supporters and predicting the same ultimate destiny for both.