July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Apple CEO Tim Cook spent 81 minutes talking about Apple, Android, TV, taxes, and just about everything else at last night’s AllThingsD conference. But he also spent a considerable amount of time on Google Glass.

And, without naming it, Apple’s rumored new iWatch product.

First, though, Cook damned bitter Apple rival Google with faint praise, saying Google Glass — which could be seen as a “giant chisel” to pry Apple users out of Apple’s ecosystem — had little chance to be a major consumer hit product:

“I think there are some positive points in the product,” Cook said about Google Glass. “I think it’s probably more likely to appeal to certain vertical markets … I think the likelihood that it has a broad-range appeal … that’s tough to see.”

And that’s simply due to where you wear Google Glass, according to Cook: on your head.

“I wear glasses because I have to — I can’t see without them  – but I don’t know a lot of people that wear them that don’t have to,” Cook said. “People who do wear them generally want them to be light, unobtrusive, probably want them to reflect their fashion, their style … from a mainstream point of view this [pointing at his head] is difficult.”

But the wearable computing space is intensely interesting to Apple, Cook said, calling it “ripe for exploration.” In fact, Apple sees it as the next evolution in the post-PC world — as game-changing as the smartphone or the tablet:

“I see it as another very key branch of the tree.”

That’s as candid an admission as you’re going to get that Apple is working on wearables, and likely on a wrist-based digital lifestyle accessory. While Cook did not go so far as to confirm that Apple was definitely releasing a wearable product per se, as a personal computing and digital life company, Apple clearly cannot afford to pass up a “very key” new product area — especially one that studies have shown generate massive consumer interest.

That said, Cook is sanguine about the challenges, noting that wristwatches are not common anymore for young people and twenty-somethings.

Which makes it ripe, perhaps for Apple’s design genius, Cook hinted:

“As I said before, for something to work here [pointing at his wrist], you first have to convince people it’s so incredible that they want to wear it.”

That’s Apple’s challenge, and likely where the company’s response to Google Glass will arrive. And, very likely, where Samsung’s response to iWatch will show up as well.

Sadly, we’ll likely have to wait until fall to see it.

Image credits: Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat; iWatch mockup by VeneStudio, Jolie O’Dell/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Rumors of Apple developing a smartwatch, cheekily dubbed the “iWatch” by gadget geeks, aren’t dying off anytime soon.

Now even the New York Times is reporting that Apple is developing “wristwatch-like devices” — though the interesting spin this time is that the devices are reportedly made of curved glass.

According to two sources familiar with Apple’s plans, the iWatch will run iOS and lean heavily on its curved glass design to differentiate itself from competitors. It sounds like Apple is working on yet another massive leap in how we view commonplace devices, similar to how the iPhone seemed generations beyond other cellphones when it was first released.

Corning’s new Willow Glass, a flexible new type of glass that’s both incredibly thin and bendable, could be the mysterious curved glass in question, according to the New York Time’s Nick Bilton. That wouldn’t be a huge stretch for Apple — Corning’s Gorilla Glass was brought back from obscurity thanks to Steve Jobs’ desire to have a strong glass for the iPhone. Gorilla Glass has since gone on to be an industry standard for smartphone and tablet screens.

The last iWatch rumor suggested that Apple was working on a Bluetooth-capable smartwatch with an Intel chip, but that report never really caught my interest since it seemed like a minor step for Apple. Introducing the first wearable device with curved glass to the public seems more like Apple’s style — just like how the iPhone made touchscreen smartphones seem commonplace, and the iPad made it clear that even large displays could benefit from touchscreen tech.

Given just how much hype the Pebble smartwatch project has seen, it’s clear that there’s a desire for some sort of high tech device on our wrists. An iWatch will likely do more than show you messages and texts — it will likely incorporate some sort of activity tracking technology, similar to Nike’s Fuelband and Jawbone’s Up.

While the tech world seems gung-ho for a big screen iPhone and the increasingly crazy idea of an Apple-made television, a small screen iWatch could ultimately be far revolutionary.

Update: The Wall Street Journal is also reporting on a potential iWatch today, adding that Apple has been in discussions with Foxconn about it.

Photo: An iPod nano watch, by Ruben Schade/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

It’s been a long road for the Pebble team, despite some initial success. After raising more than $10 million on Kickstarter for its smartwatch, and then facing several months worth of delays, the Pebble finally debuted at a CES press conference this morning (the company’s very first).

Pebble’s lead engineer Eric Migicovsky (below) announced today that the watch is in mass production, and it will begin shipping to Kickstarter backers on January 23 in the order they backed the project.  The watch connects to your smartphone to show incoming data like caller info, e-mail messages calendar entries, and it can also run a variety of apps.

At peak production, Pebble will be able to make 15,000 watches a week. Pebble has to meet the demand of more than 85,000 Kickstarter orders (from almost 69,000 backers), as well as tens of thousands who’ve placed pre-orders for the $150 watch.

“To some people a smartwatch is one of those Dick Tracy devices … to us, it’s a device connected to your smartphone,” Migicovsky said.

Pebble’s final design sports a black and white E-Paper display, which is an LCD variant screen. The screen refreshes faster than typical E-Ink e-reader displays and is 144 by 168 pixels. Pebble claims the watch should last up to seven days on a single charge. It’s made of a polycarbonate base and lens, with an additional antiscratch lens on the screen.

In my brief time with the Pebble, I was surprised by how light and comfortable it felt. I typically don’t like wearing watches because I find most watchbands annoying, but the Pebble’s polyurethane band felt soft and comfortable. The band is also interchangeable, if you prefer something more fashionable.

The Pebble will support Android smartphones running Android 2.3.3 and above, and Apple devices running iOS 5. Migicovsky noted that it works even better with iOS 6, thanks to a new Bluetooth profile that Apple introduced.

When I asked Migicovsky to elaborate on the Pebble’s delay from its initial September release, he said that it was mostly due to taking a completely different strategy towards production. Initially, the company planned to build 1,000 to 2,000 watches in the Bay Area, but after the Kickstarter campaign exploded in popularity, it shifted towards an overseas mass production model.

“The delay mainly stems from us shifting our focus from a sort of hacked together, simple and more rudimentary device, to what we feel and are proud of as a full-blown consumer electronics product,” he said. “That definitely took longer than we had planned for in the beginning, but we feel like the extra three-and-a-half months will definitely be worth it in the long run, based on all the future-proofing that we’ve been able to do for Pebble.”

Even though Pebble is built with geeks in mind, the company has also made it a useful sport and fitness companion. It weighs 38.2 grams, or around 1.3 ounces, so it should be light enough to wear all day. Pebble is also water resistant up to 5 atmospheres, which means you can wear it in the rain or while swimming. Since it’s waterproof, Pebble developed a magnetic charging system for the watch, which relies on a custom USB cable.

Pebble uses Bluetooth 2 at the moment to connect with smartphones, but it contains a chip that can support Bluetooth 4.0 down the line. That leaves the door open for it to connect to future smartphones and take advantage of Bluetooth 4.0′s low battery usage. Pebble also features an ambient light sensor, which will be unlocked in a future update, as well as a magnetometer and an accelerometer.

Instead of using an existing operating system like Android, Pebble runs on a custom operating system, built from the ground up. The watch relies on a free RTOS (real-time operating system) core for its notifications, and Pebble has also built a custom selection of drivers and features.

Now that the initial work on the operating system is done, Pebble is going to begin working on ways for developers to interact with the watch. Migicovsky showed off how he could program the web service IFTTT (If this then that) to send an alert to his Pebble watch when it was snowing outside. The company is also working on an SDK for developers to create their own apps and watch faces for the watch. Migicovsky invited iOS developers to contact Pebble to figure out how to connect their apps to the smartwatch.

When asked about future retail plans, Migicovsky said that the company hasn’t yet signed any deals. For now, it’s focusing on getting watches shipped to its Kickstarter backers, and selling more through its online store.