Tag: apple wearable technology

As the Apple Watch prepares to be shipped, other wearables brands such as Nike and Jawbone are being taken down.

Apple Stores are now starting to prepare for the addition of the brand’s own smartwatches and, as they do, they are taking wearables from the competition – such as Jawbone and Nike – down from their shelves.

According to reports, health oriented wristbands are among the wearables no longer available at the Apple Store.

The Apple Stores in certain major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Palo Alto are reported to have taken down smartwatches and fitness bands from other brands as they prep for the addition of the Apple Watch. The Spring Forward Event, last week, revealed that advance orders of the device will be available as of April 10, and the wearables will actually be available for immediate purchase starting on April 24.

These smartwatches will be available at a range of prices, starting as “low” as $349, for the entry-level device.

The Apple Watch was first unveiled at an event back in September 2014. The Sport version of this wearable technology starts at $349, but there is an Edition version that is plated in any of three types of gold and that will be available with a massive $10,000 price tag.

While it may make sense that other devices that present direct competition to this wearable technology have been taken down in favor of exclusively showcasing the Apple Watch, many are baffled by the decision to remove the Nike+ FuelBand and the Jawbone device. These are fitness trackers and don’t provide nearly the range of different features that will be offered by the smartwatch.

Moreover, Nike announced, last year, that it was going to be stepping out of its FuelBand focus and that it would be placing a greater level of attention on its software development. It should also be pointed out that Ben Shaffer, the design director from Nike+ FuelBand, was hired by Apple in 2013, as was the developer of that device, Jay Blahnik.

Whatever the reason, it does appear that the market for smartwatches is about to become much more fierce than it has been, until now.

The technology involved appears to be wearables that will connect to and interact with the iPhone.

Apple Inc. has now been awarded a patent for a type of augmented reality glasses that would function based on a wireless connection with the iPhone and would possibly offer the wearer a three dimensional AR functionality not entirely unlike that of the halted Google Glass product.

The original filing for this AR technology device patent occurred back in September 2008.

The patent involves a mountable device that could be created in the form of wearable technology such as goggles or hats or that could be attached to hats or helmets. The patent doesn’t specifically discuss virtual or augmented reality, but it does show a device that has the potential of offering a split screen capability in order to display several different image frames in order to provide three dimension-like image depth through stereoscopic imaging.

The patent also shows possible augmented reality glasses that could adjust media display beyond the glasses lenses.

This would display the images at a distance of about 4 meters (about 13 feet), instead of 20 millimeters (about ¾ inch). That is the concept behind AR technology and it has, therefore, been assumed in many reports that this tech will be the focus of those wearables.

That said, Apple could choose to create integration of further advanced VR or AR functions into a device if it chose to do so, and could opt not to progress with the development. That said, as is always the case with Apple, it declined the opportunity to comment on any of its products that are still in development and that have not yet been officially unveiled.

This technology comes at a time in which Google has recently announced that its own two year old Explorer Program for its Google Glass augmented reality glasses has been shut down. Moreover, that company has hired a former exec from Apple, Tony Fadell, at the head of the company’s redevelopment efforts. It has stated that it will continue to sell the device to enterprise customers, but it is very clear that the company has taken a step backward from the route that it had been taking with that wearable technology.