A new report claims that Apple is planning a special event in October to unveil its highly anticipated iWatch. The device was expected to launch alongside the iPhone 6 in September.
The biggest trend in mobile computing right now is all about wearables. Google kicked things off with its Glass initiative, believing people would want to stay connected to their smartphones and view information via an odd-looking device strapped to their head. Samsung launched its first smart watch last year when it introduced its Galaxy Gear smart watch. Sales of the device were extremely poor, with many insiders claiming Samsung rushed the device to market to beat Apple's iWatch.
Samsung wasn't going to let the Galaxy Gear define its place in the wearables market and launched the Gear 2 in February, which is powered by its Tizen OS instead of Android. Google and its partners like LG and Motorola also wanted in on the wrist action and have their own Android Wear-based smart watches launching this summer.
Now that the big players have all shown their cards, Apple is taking its usual stance of not giving any details on its future plans until its ready.
A new report from Re/code claims that Apple is planning on debuting the iWatch at an event sometime in October.
"People familiar with Apple's plans tell Code/red the company hopes to schedule a special event that month to show off the device, which is designed to make good use of the HealthKit health and fitness information-gathering app it recently showed off at WWDC. Could things change between now and fall? That's certainly possible. But right now October is the target date."
While Apple is keeping its iWatch plans to itself for the time being, the company certainly spent a lot of time focusing on the new health and fitness features built into iOS 8 at WWDC 2014. At the heart of iOS 8 is Apple's new HealthKit platform that makes it easy for developers to create applications and hardware that communicates with iOS 8 devices and presents all of the information in a centralized application. The centralized location is iOS 8's new Health app, which aggregates health and fitness information from a wide range of sources and presents it to users in a dashboard-like view.
Previous reports have suggested that Apple was planning to launch the iWatch alongside its iPhone 6 in the fall, but since it's clear that Apple sees health and fitness as a huge part of its future, it's only fitting that iWatch gets its own launch party.
