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The crown crisis has given new impetus to the burgeoning smartwatch market. Now, industry leader Apple has joined the health trend with its new Apple Watch 6.
By Angela Göpfert, boerse.ARD.de
When Tim Cook introduced the first Apple Watch in 2014, it was ridiculed by many as a gimmick for nerds. “I miss the killer app,” said Nick Hayek, a director of the world’s largest watch company at the time, the Swiss Swatch Group. Six years later, the Apple Watch generates more sales than the entire Swiss watch industry. Every second smartwatch sold is an Apple Watch. That is what you call a success story.
According to Counterpoint market researchers, smartwatch sales grew 20 percent more in the first six months of the current year. Apple not only remains the measure of all things; Californians have further expanded their market share – from 43.2 percent in the first half of 2019 to 51.4 percent. Garmin proved to be the biggest competitor in Europe and North America. Given the growing demand for the Forerunner and Fenix series, Garmin accounted for 9.4 percent of global sales.
The competition never sleeps
Huawei is directly behind in third place, while the Chinese manufacturer’s smartwatches are in particular demand in Asia. Samsung, on the other hand, lagged significantly behind, from second to fourth place, but the Galaxy Watch 3 introduced in early August could give South Koreans some boost again.
Now the leader Apple has presented a new model for its part: the Apple Watch 6. Probably the most important technical novelty: an integrated pulse oximeter. This is a sensor that can measure the oxygen level in the blood.
Who needs it …
Owners of Garmin sports watches or Samsung smart watches will just shake their head wearily or perhaps put a careless smile on their face. Your devices have been offering this new Apple feature for a long time.
If you really need them is another question that one hardly dares to ask in view of the growing interest of many people in their many body functions and vital data. According to the motto: if you can measure it, I want to know it too.
More information about the Apple course
In fact, the use of such a pulse oximeter for ordinary Otto watch users is small, especially for those who are not extreme mountaineers. However, as a warning of altitude sickness in high mountains, measuring oxygen saturation makes perfect sense. And if you suspect you have sleep apnea, you can let the battery-hungry Pulseoxy run at night.
Well good night!
The new Apple Watch also comes with the new watchOS 7 operating system, which will also be available for older watches this week. For the first time, this can measure the duration of sleep.
This is old too for Garmin & Co. owners Garmin and other manufacturers also offer a distinction between deep sleep, REM sleep, and wakefulness phases. Apple managed without him. Experts are already convinced that the devices only display supposedly exact values that should not be over-interpreted.
In view of the new features, the new Apple Watch seems a bit lacking at first glance. It’s more like catching up with the competition than the big new hit. The boundaries between smart watch and sports watch are increasingly blurred.
This is new: innovative fitness service
But Apple would not be Apple if it had not also introduced one or another new function in its watch that the competition has so far been looking for in vain. The subscription service “Fitness +”, which displays the instructions of personal trainers on an Apple device such as iPhone, iPad or Apple TV and accesses the fitness data of the watch, is always innovative. The “home gym” takes on a new technical shine.
Here too, Apple is likely to have been inspired by the competition: Peloton, the American supplier of fitness bikes and corresponding fields, recently experienced a gigantic boom.
Fitness boom in the corona crisis
If the new Apple Watch shows anything, it’s this: The health boom hasn’t been broken. The crown crisis fueled that even more. A high pulse or low oxygen saturation can be an indication of a corona infection. Also, at a time when many people feel uncomfortable about going to the gym, many people suddenly go for a run or bike ride. And these activities naturally need to be monitored these days.
Michael Maier, German chief of the American manufacturer Fitbit, which is in the middle of the acquisition of two billion dollars by Google, is convinced: “People are more aware than ever of their health and fitness.”
Perhaps in this context, the Apple Watch’s new “Fitness +” subscription service turns out to be the “killer app” that all other manufacturers fear in the words of Nick Hayek. With the Apple Watch 6, it should have gotten a bit tougher for the competition to topple Apple from the throne of smartwatches.
Those: boerse.ard.de
