Despite their sleek design, handy placement, and the kind of reliability that only comes from batteries, watches haven’t been cool in most circles since about 2000, when personal cell phones began to flood into our homes and invade our pockets.

So the fact that everyone’s talking about a theoretical product called the iWatch, which hasn’t even been announced yet, might mean that the world misses its loyal wrist companions of old.

As of now, it’s just a rumor, but reports say that Apple’s been hiring medical experts to create a watch-like product that will monitor everything from sleep patterns to blood glucose and calorie consumption. At the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple announced that they’d be releasing a wearable health device in October 2014.

Plus, according to Jean-Claude Biver, who oversees several Swiss luxury watch brands, the sales director of one of those companies, TAG Heuer, just took off to work for Apple. So what’s a luxury watch specialist doing at Apple if not consulting about an upcoming watch-type product?

Furthermore, CNET reports that Apple’s been trademarking the iWatch name in several countries. While this could be a way to prevent other people from poaching their brand, it sounds to me like they’re more likely to use it themselves.

Apple recently patented a weight lifting sensor, which would pretty much revolutionize working out and cut down on time spent scrawling records in a notebook between sets. Here’s hoping that comes with the theoretical watch, too.

It only makes sense that a watch coming out in 2014 would double as a timekeeper and a health monitor, considering that there’s a huge market for items with both features — but less demand for either on its own. Plenty of watches exist today, but are mostly worn just for the sake of fashion, tradition, or personal appeal.

So to make a watch way more accessible to the market, outfitting it with body-tracking features is a brilliant idea. It’s unlikely that people will get super pumped about a plain old watch, but a watch that maps sleep patterns and tracks blood glucose? Right on!

Sources disagree about whether the watch’s screen will be curved or angular, but they agree that it’ll be touch-sensitive (how could it not be?).

An anonymous Reuters source claims a prototype’s already being manufactured in Taiwan by Quanta Computer Inc.

The same source alleges that the iWatch will be able to charge wirelessly, which to me might be the coolest feature of all — how would that even work?

from http://www.ryot.org/iwatch-apple-rumors-release-october/745145