Smartwatches still haven’t taken the market by storm and their future really isn’t guaranteed. While the Apple Watch is arguably the best-selling smartwatch on the market, Apple hasn’t provided official sales numbers and competitors like Motorola have shelved their watch projects. While many Android Wear watches have come in both square and round designs, Apple chose to stick with a square design. New patents uncovered by Patently Apple show that Apple has at least thought about different Apple Watch designs and perhaps a round Apple Watch is in the future. We’re not sure why Apple didn’t go with a circular Apple Watch design in the first place, but many things Apple does baffle us all.
Other patents uncovered show that Apple’s plan for the Apple Watch has been to assist in health and medical fields. This is evident in the patent for “auto-limb detection” in which the watch knows what arm or leg it has been placed on.
In this first Apple Watch patent, Apple notes that wearable devices can be worn on a limb of a user, such as on the wrist, arm, ankle, or leg. Knowing whether the electronic device is worn on the left or right limb can be helpful or necessary information for some portable electronic devices or applications. For example, it can be necessary to know whether the electronic device is worn on a left or right limb when the electronic device includes one or more biometric applications, such as an electrocardiography application or a medical measurement or diagnostic application.
Patently Apple has found a handful of new Apple Watch patents which you can read more about at the link below. The main one we thought was intriguing was the round Apple Watch. The future of smartwatches is still up in the air, but it would be nice (for those of us who do purchase smartwatches) to see Apple offer a more traditional circular version alongside the square version of the Apple Watch.
What do you think? Would you buy a round Apple Watch? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
[button link=”http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2016/12/a-plethora-of-apple-watch-patents-surface-today-covering-auto-limb-detection-a-new-circular-interface-more.html” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Patently Apple[/button]Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
