Apple’s senior management are known to regard the wearables market as an important and lucrative one, and the company has already launched two successful wearable product lines: the Apple Watch, which effortlessly dominates the smartwatch market, and the company’s massively popular AirPods wireless earbuds. (There’s also the acclaimed Vision Pro VR headset, but that device is far too expensive to enter the mainstream.) Now Apple is plotting its next major push into the wearables space.
One option, according to a new report, is a type of health and fitness tracker. If that sounds similar to the Apple Watch (which found success at the very moment when Apple came to understand its value as a health and fitness accessory) there’s a key difference. This product would not have a screen, which simplifies its functionality, improves battery life, and brings down the price.
Writing for Bloomberg (subscription required), Mark Gurman claims Apple is currently developing prototypes of the device, but hasn’t yet decided whether or not to release it. “The project remains in a preliminary phase known internally as a technology investigation,” he explains.
Gurman explicitly draws a comparison to screenless products made by Whoop, which has already inspired several copycats. That company makes wearable devices to monitor health, stress, sleep and so on, along with an app which translates the data into analysis and coaching advice. The devices look like wristwatch straps, only without a screen.
The lack of a screen and overall simpler design mean that the Whoop 5.0, for example, is credited with 14-day battery life, as compared to the estimated 24 hours of the Apple Watch Series 12. It’s also cheaper than Apple Watch Series 12, which starts at $399, but you don’t actually pay for the hardware; instead you select a 12-month membership ($199, $239, or $359), which includes a band. But you’ll need to keep paying a subscription as long as you want to use it. Some other similar devices are cheaper still: the Fitbit Air is just $100 with no membership required.
With the Apple Watch line-up starting at $249 for the most basic (and now one year out of date) SE 3, there’s a clear gap in the company’s wearables portfolio for something leaner and more focused on health monitoring. We argued back in May that a screen-less ‘Apple Watch Neo’ was exactly what the company needs, so it’s heartening to hear that this may now happen.
But not soon, unfortunately. Gurman warns that, even if the technology investigation is successful and leads to a product release, this is unlikely to happen before 2028.
