Lee Young Hee, executive vice-president for Samsung’s mobile business, disclosed that the South Korean electronics giant are in the process of making a smartwatch to rival Pebble and the possible future Apple iWatch.
The vice-president stated in an interview with Bloomberg; “We’ve been preparing the watch product for so long. We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them.”
This announcement comes just a week after the Samsung Galaxy S4 was announced, the company’s flagship device. Even though the Broadway show was too long and to many cringeworthy, the Galaxy S4 does look like a challenger for the top spot.
Lee decided not to unveil the release date, price or features the smartwatch will have. We suspect Samsung will look at the Pebble for guidance, considering over 50,000 people backed that project on Kickstarter.
Altius was the recently rumoured Samsung smartwatch, leaked onto a Korean board, but without any real proof that the smartwatch was real. This was just around the time rumours came out that Apple had an 100 man team working on the iWatch project, with Jony Ive leading.
Right now, the smartwatch is just an expensive accessory to use when you cannot be bothered to check your smartphone, but soon it may become more than that. The iWatch is said to have its own iOS interface, and we bet Samsung will add some wacky features.
Typically, Samsung have waited for the competition to sprout up before jumping in and trying to grab some. Keeping on a level playing field with Apple and others trying to get into the smartwatch market may be a challenge.
We expect both the Samsung smartwatch and the iWatch to be available sometime in the coming year, to bring competition against Google Glass.
