Here’s a bit of an odd rumor surrounding a Bluetooth smart watch from Apple, something that we’ve speculated in the past could make sense for a future, Bluetooth 4.0-enabled iPod nano. According to a report from iphone.tgbus.com (via major Chinese news portal 163.com) that cited supply chain sources, Apple is currently collaborating with Intel on the design of an Apple-branded Bluetooth smart watch.
As for what we can expect from Apple’s rumored smart watch, the report listed specs including a 1.5-inch OLED screen from RiTdisplay (about the current width of iPod nano). The machine translation also noted “a rhenium ocean of OGS encore indium tin oxide transparent conductive (ITO) glass.”
In August 2011, we made the case for Apple releasing a future, Bluetooth 4.0-enabled wearable iPod nano.
While comparing the product to Sony’s recently launched Bluetooth smart watch, today’s report seemed to indicate the product is slated for the first half of 2013 to make up for a lack of product announcements in the first two quarters of the year. While Intel has a good relationship with Apple, powering its current Mac lineup with Intel CPUs, we’re skeptical Apple would go with Intel for a low-powered, mobile product such as a smart watch.
