Closer look at the newest Apple Watch

Consumers have been offered an assortment of Android smartwatches in recent years. But perhaps none of them generated as much anticipation as the Apple Watch did. It was unveiled just a few weeks ago, but the excitement among Apple fans has not faded.

Manila Bulletin Tech Editor Art Samaniego showed to Future Perfect a rare find in the Philippines, two all-new Apple Watches with different sizes.

ANC Future Perfect

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Apple likely to boost watch production quickly

Apple Inc. is likely to quickly ramp production of the Apple Watch after strong pre-orders outstripped limited supply in the first weekend following its launch, some Wall Street analysts said.

Apple is widely expected to disclose weekend pre-order numbers at around 8:30 a.m. ET on Monday.

According to shopping data firm Slice Intelligence, Apple booked nearly 1 million pre-orders for the Apple Watch in the United States on Friday.

The Apple Watch, which allows users to check email, listen to music and make phone calls when paired with an iPhone, goes on sale officially on April 24.

"Based on our observations and media reports, launch day supply was largely sold out within the first 10 to 30 minutes depending on model," Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in a client note.

Munster, who expects Apple to sell 2.3 million watches in the April-June quarter, expects Apple to ramp production between mid-May and June.

BofA Merrill Lynch expects Apple to ship 4 million smartwatches in the quarter.

The Apple Watch is chief executive Tim Cook's first new major product launch and the company's first foray into the personal luxury-goods market.

The company will sell the gadgets in Apple stores and online as well as in trendy fashion boutiques in Paris, London and Tokyo as part of a strategy to position the wearable computer as a must-have accessory.

Despite mixed reviews, which praised the watch's styling but criticized its less-than-spectacular battery life and slow-loading apps, people flocked to Apple's stores to get a close-up look.

"We think the Apple Watch will be highly disruptive to the traditional fashion watch market," Pacific Crest analysts said.

The analysts said their checks showed that Apple appeared to be ordering components for the watch that would allow it to build well over 20 million watches this year.

"While this represents just over 5 percent of the company's iPhone user base, it would be nearly half of the total (more than) $200 watch market," they said.

The brokerage expects Apple to likely have about 5 million Apple Watches available for delivery by April 24.

Analysts widely expect the Apple Watch to outsell similar watches offered by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sony Corp. and LG Electronics, which have attracted lukewarm interest from consumers.

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Apple Watch to spark wearable tech growth: IDC

WASHINGTON - Wearable technology devices are seeing a growth surge that is likely to continue over the next few years, helped by the soon-to-be-released Apple Watch, a market tracker said Monday.

IDC said it expected some 45.7 million wearable tech gadgets to be shipped globally this year, up 133 percent from 2014.

By 2019, the research firm sees volumes of 126.1 million units, or an average growth pace of 45 percent.

Propelling the market higher will be devices like the Apple Watch, along with other smartwatches like Motorola's Moto 360, and Samsung's Gear watches.

Wrist-worn wearables, including bands, bracelets, and watches, will account for more than 80 percent of the market over the coming years, IDC said. But it also sees strong growth in smart clothing -- shirts, socks, hats, and other products with computing power -- along with connected eyewear and earwear.

"Smart wearables are about to take a major step forward with the launch of the Apple Watch this year," said IDC analyst Ramon Llamas.

"The Apple Watch raises the profile of wearables in general and there are many vendors and devices that are eager to share the spotlight. Basic wearables, meanwhile, will not disappear. In fact, we anticipate continued growth here as many segments of the market seek out simple, single-use wearable devices."

IDC analyst Ryan Reith said that fitness bands, the early leader in wearables, have come down in price and are now being bundled with smartphones at little cost.

"The explosion of wearable devices was clearly led by fitness bands, which until recently commanded prices that provided comfortable margins, but those days are changing," he said

"The market is quickly shifting toward higher-priced devices that offer greater functionality."

IDC said it sees "smart wearables" with the ability to run outside applications grow 510 percent this year to 25.7 million units, while "basic" wearables will grow some 30 percent to 20 million units.

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China's Huawei unveils smart watch to rival Samsung

BARCELONA - Rising Chinese smartphone maker Huawei launched Sunday a connected watch to rival Samsung's Gear 2, both unveiled on the eve of the world's biggest mobile fair in Barcelona, Spain.

Huawei, already a major force in building mobile networks and the world number three smartphone maker in 2013, showed off its TalkBand, to be sold for 99 euros ($136).

Connected by Bluetooth to a smartphone, the watch lets you receive calls and messages without removing your mobile from your pocket, as well as measuring the steps you take with a podometer and even following your sleep pattern.

"When you look around us, everything is getting connected", Huawei consumer business unit vice president Colin Giles said.

"We will launch it first in China, then in the rest of the world," he told AFP ahead of the February 24-27 World Mobile Conference.

To take a call, the user lifts the face off the watch and puts it to his or her ear, like a hands-free kit, he said.

It works only with Huawei smartphones for the moment but is to be made compatible with other brands later.

Just a few hours earlier, Samsung launched the Gear 2, after a first version won over few critics, adding new features and ditching Google's Android in favour of its own operating system.

The South Korean electronics giant revealed the new watch in a statement before unveiling on Monday its new flagship smartphone, almost certainly the Galaxy S5.

Besides an array of features including sports tracking software and a heart rate monitor, the Gear 2 marks an important and widely anticipated step towards independence from Android.

The watch, available in two models -- the Gear 2 and the Gear 2 Neo, which has no camera -- will be powered by the Tizen operating system developed by Samsung with various partners to break free of the Android dominance.

The first Gear, launched last September, was criticised by many for being unfashionable and unwieldy.

- Mature markets slowing -

Samsung, like other device makers, is banking on smart devices to boost revenue as sales of smartphones slow in the mature markets, which are also the most profitable.

Though smartphone sales surged 42 percent to 968 million units last year, according to Gartner, the growth came from developing markets such as Latin America, India and China while mature markets such as western Europe and the United States hit the brakes.

"We will see all of the handset companies responding to slowing growth in the smartphone market and the difficulty of making money," said Ian Fogg, senior principal analyst of electronics and media at research house IHS.

"They are going to launch a number of smart accessory devices including wearable devices that will give them opportunities in new markets to generate revenues and growth."

Research house Canalys predicts world sales of 17 million smart bracelets and watches this year, rising to nearly 45 million in 2017.

Besides the new watch, Huawei launched a new wifi hotspot device, a smartphone designed for ultra-fast 4G networks and a mini tablet that can also be used as a smartphone.

China's smartphone makers are on a global expansion drive that could eventually challenge market leaders Samsung and Apple, analysts say.

Chinese manufacturer Lenovo struck a dramatic blow in its campaign in January, agreeing the $2.9 billion purchase of the loss-making Motorola Mobility from Google to grab a strong platform in the Americas and a foothold in Europe.

Smaller Chinese manufacturers are showing off bigger ambitions, too, with upstart Xiaomi, for example, hiring a Google executive, Hugo Barra, in August 2013. It launched a new, low-priced smartphone brand, Redmi, this month.

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Adidas unveils smartwatch for runners

MANILA - German sportswear manufacturer adidas unveiled its company's first entry into the world of smartwatches with a device that boasts to have everything a runner needs.


The miCoach Smart Run, priced at P19,995, enables runners to track their runs using GPS mapping, monitor their heart rate directly from their wrist, get real-time coaching advice and even play their favorite tunes.

"By combining the latest innovations, such as the Mio Wrist Based Continuous Heart Rate Technology, design and ease of use navigation, we consciously defied the rules that define other running watches," said Simon Drabble, director of miCoach at adidas.

The Android-powered smartwatch also features the miCoach system which can be synced with adidas' web platform through WLAN to make personalizing workout sessions more easier.

"As part of the miCoach training system, it truly unlocks the runner’s full potential by making smart training easy and accessible. Whether you’re starting a new running program, training for a 10k or competing in another marathon, miCoach SMART RUN will make your training more efficient so you get the results you want,” added Drabble.

The Smart Run weighs 80 grams and has a 1.45 inch full color transflective touch display. It is said to have a battery life of 4 hours with coaching and music and up to 14 days on its watch display mode.

"The completeness and simplicity of Smart Run is astounding." Terrence Mahon, Lead Endurance Coach, UK Athletics Federation said."The visual and audible guidance for interval training is a leap forward from any other watch available."

The miCoach Smart Run is available for purchase exclusively at the adidas eShop (shop.adidas.com.ph) on December 1.

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Who has vision to crack the "smartwatch"?

SINGAPORE - The smartwatch could be as revolutionary as the smartphone - an intelligent device on our wrist that connects our bodies to data and us to the world - but only a handful of companies have the heft and vision to be able to pull it off.

It's not through lack of trying. Watchmakers and others have been adding calculators, calendars and wireless data connections to wrist-straps for at least 30 years.

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is having another go on Wednesday, when it launches the Galaxy Gear in Berlin, but a source familiar with the matter said that the smartwatch device would be no game changer - more of a fashion accessory than an effort to redefine the genre.

Sony Corp is also launching a modest update of its Android-compatible SmartWatch, while heavyweights Apple Inc and Google Inc have shown tentative signs of interest in developing such technology.

The market potential, cheerleaders say, is vast. Leveraging advances in voice technology, biometrics, communications, cloud storage and power consumption, smartwatches and other wearable devices could be a $50 billion market by 2017, according to Credit Suisse.

"Look at the way we experience mobile communication today - this is not the end point," said Andrew Sheehy, chief analyst at British-based consultancy Generator Research, pointing to the awkwardness with which most of us clasp the handset to our ear, remove it from our pockets to read messages, or tap in appointments and emails.

"If you look at the phone today, it's important to ask: is this as good as it gets?"

Wearable devices such as smartwatches or digital eyewear, the argument goes, could take over many of the more cumbersome functions of a smartphone while also adding functions we can so far only dream of.

By tapping into sensors around the body, on objects and in other devices, they could offer what Plantronics, a headset maker, calls "contextual intelligence", harvesting data to create "a highly personalized experience in real-time", according to Joe Burton, the company's CTO.

ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGY

Driving this optimism are advances in technology, and a more sophisticated audience already familiar with smartphones, apps, and wireless communication protocols such as Bluetooth.

The prices and size of sensors have fallen rapidly - making them a feature of many smartphones. Samsung's Galaxy S4 has nine, according to a report on wearable technology by Credit Suisse.

An addition to Bluetooth, for example, uses much less energy and can push and pull data to a watch via the mobile phone, says Paul Williamson of CSR plc, a maker of such so-called Bluetooth Smart chips.

With the technology now integrated into devices running the latest versions of Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems, "smartwatches can render data from any of the applications that are running on your smartphone", Williamson said.

Smartwatches like the Magellan Echo, for example, can stream data wirelessly from a range of third party fitness apps on a smartphone, without requiring frequent recharges.

Tim Ensor, head of connected devices at British-based Cambridge Consultants, which advises companies and develops new technologies, called the adoption of Bluetooth Smart "a real game-changer".

But so far wearables have remained a niche for early adopters, such as fans of Pebble Technology's crowd-funded smartwatch, which has sold 100,000 units since its launch earlier this year, or health and fitness enthusiasts embracing Nike's Fuelband or Under Armour's FitBit.

And therein lies the rub, says Generator Research's Sheehy. Most of these players have either thought too small, or lack the heft to be able to break into the mainstream.

That not only means having capital and resources, but being able to build on existing expertise in hardware, software, cloud and processing data.

"This is tough technology," he says. "The number of companies who can do this are very few and far between."

HURDLES REMAIN

First there are remaining technological hurdles, such as powering the devices. Batteries will need to be 5-10 times smaller than those in smartphones, says Cosmin Laslau, mobile energy analyst at Lux Research, requiring innovation in cell materials such as silicon anodes and packaging - such as Apple's work on flexible batteries.

Then there is a need for better displays. Both Apple and Samsung have been working on curved glass - Samsung is investing more than $6 billion on displays this year alone, and is planning to launch a curved mobile device later this year, according to a source familiar with the matter.

There's also the fact that wearing a device is not quite the same as carrying one.

For one thing it has to be stylish, says Gartner research director Angela McIntyre.

Jonathan Peachey, CEO of Filip Technologies, spent three years working on a watch to make it acceptable for the kids who would wear it and their parents who would use it to track and communicate with their offspring via a smartphone.

"Consumers need to develop a more personal relationship with a wearable computing device than they would otherwise with a handheld device," Peachey said.

Key to this is the interface, says Thad Starner, Professor of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, whose pioneering work with wearable computers led to him be a technical lead for Google Glass.

Developing a mobile interface for wristwatches and heads-up displays requires lots of experimentation, he says. The best way, he adds, is to build "living laboratories" where more and more people use them in everyday life.

"The most important thing, right now, is to reduce the time between the user's intention to perform a task and the user's action to complete that task."

His other projects point to the possibilities: a contraption that lets him answer students' text messages by voice while wandering across campus and a gesture interface that understands sign language.

DO I NEED IT?

But even if those hurdles are overcome, just how useful is a wearable device going to be? "Finding a role or a use for wearable electronics is the central question facing the industry today," says Mykola Golovko, an analyst at Euromonitor.

Right now the most appealing prospects are as a "slave" to the smartphone or tablet, where the wearable devices collects data from the user's body or environment and relays it to the smartphone. The smartphone acts as a gateway to the Internet to process this information and merge it with other data before feeding it back to the device.

"In this world the role of the smartwatch is not to replace the phone but to keep the data feed going and make it even more accessible," says Rob Milner, technical leader of smart systems at Cambridge Consultants.

But this is not going to be everyone's cup of tea.

"The multi-sensor combo packages and low-power wireless chips are available," says Shane Walker, an analyst at IHS, "now the data created from this pairing needs to be made compelling and useful."

CRACKING THE NUT

Which means that whoever cracks the nut of a mass market wearable device is less likely to be a pure hardware maker than a broader-based company.

"You can call me a smartwatch sceptic," says Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester. "I don't see that any vendor, with the possible exception of Apple, can make smartwatches a mainstream success."

Speculation aside, Apple has kept its cards close to its chest. CEO Tim Cook has called the wrist "interesting" and Apple has registered the trademark iWatch in Japan. Several Apple patents point to wrist-worn devices.

And Google has staked a claim in wearables with its Google Glass, spectacles that include a small visual display. It bought start-up WIMM Labs, which had launched a smartwatch in 2011, and has demonstrated the power of contextual information with Google Now, which mines users' emails, location and other data to provide a personalised stream of data.

Other possible players, says Generation Research's Sheehy, include Microsoft Corp, Yahoo Inc.

"If Samsung or Google succeeded at this and Apple failed at this level, it would really be a handing over of the baton," he said.

If the Galaxy Gear is the first salvo, Apple has little to fear. After two earlier wrist-phone flops in 1999 and 2009, Samsung is taking a cautious approach with its latest version of the smartwatch, according to the source familiar with Samsung's thinking.

"Samsung is trying to say that it is not following but jumping into it ahead of its key rival, ie Apple," he said. "They are simply dipping their toes into the market as they don’t want to take big risks with a costly bet on the new unproven category yet."

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