Late Swatch co-founder Nicolas Hayek
While Swatch certainly won’t be partnering with Apple on the iPhone maker’s upcoming Watch despite an ill-fated rumor that surfaced last year, the watchmaker does plan to go toe-to-toe with Apple promising its own version of a smartwatch due out soon. Bloomberg reports that Swatch plans to bring its answer to the Apple Watch to market in the next 90 days.
The device will communicate via the Internet “without having to be charged,” Chief Executive Officer Nick Hayek said in an interview. The Swatch smartwatch will also let consumers make mobile payments and work with Windows and Android software, he said.
It’s unclear if Swatch intends for its own smartwatch to be compatible with iPhones like the Apple Watch or if the company is only targeting competing platforms, but Swatch CEO Nick Hayek’s claim that its Internet-connected watch won’t need to be charged will be interesting if the company does indeed deliver with functionality that competes with an Apple Watch.
While functions including new ways to communicate and health and fitness tracking features are promised for the upcoming Apple Watch, long battery life is not yet at the top of the Apple Watch’s key achievements as we understand it.
Apple has yet to reveal the battery life it claims the Apple Watch will achieve, but the company has been quick to set expectations that you will be charging the Apple Watch at least every day.
As for Swatch’s mentioned mobile payments service presumably intended to compete with Apple Pay, Swatch’s CEO said the company “is in talks with more retailers on its payment system after agreements with Switzerland’s two largest retailers, Migros and Coop.”
Apple has admitted it still has “a lot of work to do” getting Apple Pay off the ground and used by everyone, but the iPhone maker has a sizable lead against the Switzerland-based watch maker in the mobile payments space.
For reference, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared late last month that Apple Pay accounts for $2 out of every $3 spent using contactless payments with the three major credit card companies, and that’s before the Apple Watch even launches. Currently, Apple Pay is only available for use in stores with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, but Apple Pay will become available to iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, and iPhone 5s users wearing the Apple Watch after its debut in April as the Watch supports Apple’s mobile payment system as well.
This all may ring a bell for you though, as Swatch’s CEO is on record as discounting the Apple Watch and smartwatches in general months before its unveiling, a scenario which then and now seem analogous to the situation Palm CEO Ed Colligan saw himself in ahead of the iPhone’s introduction.
Colligan famously said about Apple and the iPhone that “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” Hayek in 2013 seemed to channel his inner Colligan saying “Replacing an iPhone with an interactive terminal on your wrist is difficult. You can’t have an immense display.”
But rest assured, Swatch lovers, a cross-platform smartwatch and new mobile payment system should be out in the next two to three months in some form, Hayek says. We won’t have much longer to wait to find out if Jony Ive was right when he (reportedly) said “Switzerland is in trouble.”
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Swatch you are too late to the party! nice try!
The party is barely in planning stages, not even the decorations have been put up yet. Some early invitations have been sent out, but that’s about it.
The party has been in play for years. maybe not on Apples side but certainly others have been doing it up. Swatch’s invitation was lost in the mail.
BTW i think you are referring to the ball which starts in a couple months.
Swatch released a smart watch in 2004 called the Paparazzi. They teamed up with Microsoft and used MSN direct. It was a huge flop and that’s why they were hesitant to rejoin the game.
Swatch was one of the first at the party. They arrived in 2004 with the Swatch Paparazzi, a smartwatch that used msn direct. They teamed up with Microsoft to create it. It was a catastrophic flop. That is why they were hesitant to rejoin the party.
Does Swatch make anything that doesn’t look like it belongs at the bottom of a cereal box?
Swatch (plastic watches, just one business unit) and Swatch Group are not the same, the latter also includes high-end brands such as Omega or Harry Winston. That would be a very expensive cereal box at 4-5 digits in USD.
Yes, practically every movement in every watch the world
” without having to be charged,” – comment is a bluff directed at Apple Watch that is rumored to have only one day battery life. Please tell me how any meaningfully made smart watch can require no charging? Even if it implements true wireless charging, which I think will make wearables meaningful for mainstream, the watch sill needs to be CHARGED!
Perhaps you are unaware of “self winding” watches which have no battery.
Using a mechanism for self-winding vs. self-charging has to be vastly different; otherwise Apple would have implemented that solution to short battery life. It just can’t be that easy. Do you really think the entire engineering team at Apple didn’t think of that option?
Seems like a “miracle move” or another words, a delusion on the part of the CEO. I don’t see how they can get a new self-winding internet connected watch out that fast, let alone one with a secure payment system.
It seems likely to either take a lot longer than they say, or to be a false hope.
Toe to toe with Apple, not happening.
Vaporware…
Actually, I should have written vaporwear… but I wasn’t witty enough.
Sweet! Now I can wear one with my Member’s Only jacket and parachute pants!!
Used to Apple’s way of announcing products, it seems weird seeing another company just speak about unrevealed products and their features without showing any sign of existence. This way you never know if they will deliver on their promises.
Reblogged this on pundit from another planet.