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What product category do you expect Apple to jump into?

The only viable one I can think of is wearable tech, and definitely not a damn watch. I think Apple won't cater to as niche a market as wearable medical, and let 3rd party use their hardware to attack that market space.




Everyone is going to say iWatch. But that's nothing.

The two biggest for me will be an App Store for the AppleTV. This could put the end to Nintendo's console hopes forever and open up a lot of new revenue streams. And the biggest by far is payments. iBeacons is starting to take off and with AppleID/TouchID they have the frictionless security mechanism.


frictionless? My touch ID is crap - try doing physical work (building, digging, that sort of stuff) and it will never go. Or a hint of dampness. My thumb print must be subtly different day to day or something, because I only do building stuff at weekends, yet no matter how often I re set the touch ID, even having all 5 prints set to my thumb, I end up entering password most times.


Why would a well-done wearable medical device be niche? In America alone there are 1 billion doctors visits per year (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/docvisit.htm)

Surely there is untapped potential in giving people greater day to day insights into their health, and obviously a lot of people care about their health.


What exactly would this device do? What useful data can be gathered from my pulse and miles walked that would be relevant to my my doctors visit?


This.

Until it can analyze sweat for illnesses and nutrition info that won't get Apple in trouble legally (FDA...) and will spare you from going in for a check-up, then I don't think it's feasible at all for them to venture in that area.



I think it's correct to say that Apple won't launch a wearable tech "medical" device until they know how to break it out of being a niche product.

MP3 players, smartphones, and tablets were all small "niche" markets before Apple entered them.




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