Smart rings might be all the rage right now with the Oura Ring 4 and the Samsung Galaxy Ring leading the way, but Apple currently has no plans to join the zeitgeist. In the premium version of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says Apple isn’t planning to make a smart ring of its own because it would pull attention away from the Apple Watch. This comes amid all the rumors that have persisted about the so-called Apple Ring.
According to TechRadar, Gurman says that an Apple Ring would “detract from the Apple Watch” and could “cannibalize” sales, especially when the Watch is basically dominating the market and still has room to grow.
That’s good news for Samsung and Oura, but bad news for Apple fans. While it’s true that a smart ring might infringe on the same territory the Apple Watch covers, a ring also offers advantages in battery power and size. That said, the Apple Watch is currently in a place where it’s hard for any but the most high-end wearables to compete with it. Until the sensors on a ring can outpace those of a watch, Apple’s delay does make sense.
Both rings also cost roughly the same amount as an Apple Watch Series 10, so there isn’t even a price advantage to buying one, but there’s still room in the market for both an Apple Ring and the Apple Watch. Just take a look at Samsung. By opening up the software development kit (SDK), the company allows developers to work on applications that can sync data from the Galaxy Watch and the Galaxy Ring.
There’s room for Apple to do the same, and it might be necessary to stay at the top of the fitness-tracking game. Hopefully, Apple will return to the idea of the Apple Ring at some point in the future; its design would no doubt be interesting.
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