Apple’s plans to make a screenless wearable are starting to get a lot more serious. Bloomberg reports the company is developing a prototype for a screenless fitness tracker that could compete with the likes of the Whoop 5.0 or the Fitbit Air. The timing here is important because while the redesigned sensors on the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 have allowed the company to offer features that are similar to ones on its screenless competitors, the addition of AI-powered Audio Intelligence is also changing the company’s wearables in a way that could make a simpler device even more attractive.
The new prototype features a fabric band with a sensor module for tracking health data and, notably, no screen for apps, notifications, or music controls. To be clear, the current design is likely far from final. Bloomberg describes this internal development phase at Apple as a “technology investigation” that likely means the company wouldn’t release the wearable before 2028, if it decides to release it at all.
See Fitbit Air at Amazon
See WHOOP 5.0 at Amazon
Still, even under the new leadership of CEO John Ternus, powerful executives are backing the idea, particularly Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services and Health Eddy Cue and none other than Tim Cook, now serving as executive chairman. New features like the Readiness score and the new Health Age in Apple’s revamped Health app were reportedly backed by Cue, who pushed Apple’s teams to adopt features from its rivals.
Screenless wearables occupy an interesting space in the gadget ecosystem, offering similar kinds of health tracking features to smartwatches housed in hardware that’s often more affordable and less distracting. Smartwatches are increasingly more than just health devices: new AI features to the Series 12 and Ultra 4 suggest the company is interested in defining new use cases for its watches with features like Live Rewind and Siri Recap, which transcribe 15 seconds of recent conversation or summarize your chats throughout the day, respectively.
Apple has come up with a well-thought-out system for making sure the things an Apple Watch captures stay private, but these Audio Intelligence features could still prove to make people uncomfortable when they launch later this year in the same way Meta’s smart glasses do. If Apple does release a Whoop competitor, shipping it without those features could be a meaningful differentiator for customers in the same way a lower price is.
See Fitbit Air at Amazon
See WHOOP 5.0 at Amazon
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