If you were planning on buying an iWatch as a Christmas gift, you may want to revise your list.
Apple's smartwatch, which is expected to be unveiled at the company's press event on September 9, may take its sweet time before residing on your wrist.
According to a report from Re/Code, the new device may not be available to consumers until after the holiday season. Sources with knowledge of Apple's plans said that the smartwatch is "not shipping anytime soon." There's no estimate for when the iWatch would officially be released. However, the report estimates that the device may come out by early 2015.
If the report turns out to be true, Apple's product strategy for its new wearable device would mimic its time frame for the first iPhone launched in 2007.
"Remember, Apple didn't ship the first iPhone until six months after its January unveiling. Which is not to say that the gap between announcement and ship date will be that long, just that it would be unwise to expect preorders for the device to begin on the Friday following its unveiling," the report read.
Reports of the iWatch first surface last July, when Apple obtained a smartwatch patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office. In a filing, the company was revealed to have secured a patent for a "wrist-worn electronics device and methods thereof."
According to the patent, the smartwatch will have features such as a touchscreen, Bluetooth transceivers, an accelerometer and a GPS receiver. The device was shown to have a removable module in one of the illustrations in the patent. Several reports have claimed that the module may turn out to be an iPod nano. It's not clear if the device in the patent would turn out to be the iWatch. However, the rumored launch date for the patented device aligns with the expected release of the iWatch.
A later report revealed more specifications for the device. The iWatch is expected to be integrated with Apple's health and fitness platform HealthKit. It may also make use of HomeKit, the company's new framework for controlling connected devices.
