“If you believe in having a screen on your wrist, then this is the way to do it, but the question is whether this is something people want.” – Andreessen Horowitz partner Benedict Evans told Bloomberg.
According to market research firm IDC, it states that end of 2014 up until 2018, the shipments for wearables will expand six times to nearly 111.9 million.
In another case study, undertaken by Forrester Research, it is predicting that by 2016, Smartphone and sensor-based headphones will provide the functionality of smart-watch and fitness bands.
Given the scale and impact of the promotion of watch, this comes as no surprise. While, Morgan Stanley’s analysts states that Apple may be found shipping 60 million watches , just in its first 12 months of sale.
The watch is expected to generate revenue of $9 billion for Apple. It further notes that the opportunity of growth for watch is quite significant.
9to5 Mac reports, that though watch was expected to release as late as January of 2015, it was launched just this Tuesday. Primary reason being to give third-party app developers enough time to create apps for the wearable.
Key third-party app developers have already been provided the pre-release version of its Software Development Kit (SDK), to get started.
App Market for Developers
With user’s soaring expectations in Apple’s watch, it may be interesting to find it open-up a new market place for its app developers.
For instance, Google pulled developer’s attention to its Wear App Store by offering an entirely new version of its Android. This let users to build a phone app and then easily add it to their smartwatch app, in just a few clicks. The whole process was contained in just one SDK, which gave developers all the more reasons to develop for Google’s Wear App Store.
The new SDK will be more tied-up to iOS 8’s Extensions, HomeKit, and HealthKit APIs. In addition, the watch SDKs will make better use of the new Continuity, Widgets and Handoff features. This is to allow iPhone users to easily and quickly transfer content from their iPhone to the watch and vice versa.
Social network giants like Facebook, Twitter have started working on specialised apps for Apple’s wearable. With a hefty price of $400, the watch can be found entering a competitive market with cheaper Android-based counterparts (smartwatches).
Smarter Siri
According to a report by The Information, Apple is planning a lot of improvements for Siri in its wearable device. It is working to increasingly improvise on Siri’s utility by making it available for third-party developers, improvise its search functionalities and build a smarter virtual assistant.
Apple, along with third-party developers is working hard to let Siri decide what will appear on device’s restricted screen space. For instance, a running app will pop up automatically when Siri finds its user jogging.
The feature of an intuitive Siri is definitely meant for the watch. Tweet this.
In Conclusion
Watch: an eye-opener
Apple’s inventions have earned billions of dollars for its developers. The new watch is a step forward in Apple’s initiatives to take its developer’s capabilities, to the next level. Besides, giving third-party app developers, a secure, challenging and cohesive platform to work on.
Apple’s wearable device, will work in tandem with the iPhone as long it is an iPhone 5 or some latest version. The smartwatch components such as battery, processor and display screens have a wide scope of improvement, in the long run.
This makes it all the more lucrative for app developers, to try out their creativity, expertise and luck with Apple watch.
