Apple’s initial foray into the world of wearable technology has been speculated, analyzed and discussed consistently over the last 18 months, but only made official when Tim Cook introduced us to the Apple Watch on September 9th. After showing off the beautiful aesthetics of the various models, brushing over the important technical specifications, and showing the obligatory Apple marketing video pertaining to the watch, Cook would only say that the wrist wear would be launched sometime during "early 2015". So, no shiny new Apple Watch in time for the festive season, but if reports emerging from China are to be believed then we could be looking at a worldwide February 2015 launch for the wearable.
Citing an article in Taiwanese media, Chinese website Feng is speculating that Apple has an internal date of February next year penciled into the diary for an Apple Watch launch in qualifying countries. We’ve already seen the initial cogs turning on the marketing machine that will attempt to convince the populous that the watch is much more than just a piece of soulless consumer technology. The appearance of the Apple Watch at the Parisian Colette Boutique earlier in the week also suggests that the Cupertino company will also try to push the wearable as an item of digital fashion to the style conscious.
The same Far East report is also suggesting that initial supplies of the Apple Watch could be severely limited due to manufacturing issues with the the processes involved in creating the sapphire glass display. With that said, those limited supplies should only really relate to the high-end Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition models as the Sport variant doesn’t contain any sapphire glass within it. It seems that every launch of an Apple product these days comes attached with the "low manufacturing yields" speculation attached to it. The same was said about the iPhone 6 Plus and we all know that Apple managed to get that hardware out on time.
The thought of welcoming the Apple Watch into our lives in February is definitely an exciting prospect. However, before that can even be considered a reality Apple really need to finalize the hardware and software specification of the device, as well as seed builds of WatchKit to third-party developers to ensure that the device has some functional apps when it arrives.
A Valentines Day release could be on the cards, but we wouldn’t be surprised if this slipped back into the second quarter of 2015.
(Source: Feng [Google Translate])
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