After enjoying online ordering-only status since its launch, the Apple Watch finally arrived in stores this week. Apple just released its first wearable device a couple of months ago, but the rumors are already flying about the next version of the device.
9to5Mac quotes the ubiquitous sources familiar with the matter, who claim that Apple is already spinning up ideas for the Apple Watch 2 (sure to be called something other than the Apple Watch 2).
The most interesting new feature said to be planned for the next Apple Watch is a FaceTime camera. The current model allows users to answer FaceTime audio calls and redirect video calls to another device – but having a camera “integrated into the top bezel” would allow users to make face-to-face video calls from their wrists.
Surely, this sort of functionality is what people had in mind when they first heard about Apple Watch.
Also, according to 9to5 Mac‘s sources, Apple wants to release the Watch from the chains of the iPhone. Kind of.
In order to make the next-generation Apple Watch more capable without a connected iPhone, Apple intends to integrate a new and more dynamic wireless chipset into the wearable. Although the Apple Watch 2 will likely continue to require an iPhone for heavy data transfers, including software upgrades and the synchronization of media files, basic communication tasks could be handled without iPhone assistance.
We’re talking texting, emailing, and using some apps. This would go a long way to assuage critics who lamented that they still need their phones to have a functional Apple Watch.
Apple hasn’t released any official sales figures for the Watch, but the latest independent estimate pegs sales at 2.79 million.