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Thanks to the popularity of its AirPod smartwatches and wireless headphones, Apple is the best seller of portable computing devices in recent years. But with competitors like Fitbit, Samsung and Garmin adding new features to their competing devices, Apple can not afford to stay still.
The update of the fifth generation of the Apple Watch is not expected before autumn, but this week, Apple holds its annual World Wide Developer Conference, known as WWDC, where it will launch the sixth generation of software used by the watch. And, as it has done for a few years, Apple will offer users new attractive features, including health and well-being, according to analysts.
"Health and fitness must be at the center of the smart watch agenda," says Ramon Llamas, director of mobile research at IDC. "This is the only feature that people can use and use regularly."
Last year, Apple added an ECG measurement function and a fall detection. According to the leaks, an Apple app will be added this year to help users organize and remember when to take their medications, as well as another that will help women track their menstrual cycle. Third-party developers have proposed similar applications, but Apple will incorporate features for all users. Apple could also rely on the heart rate studies it has been involved in adding additional heart health detection features, says Llamas.
Some new, more important health features under development, such as measuring blood pressure or blood sugar in diabetic patients, are not yet ready for 2019, but could arrive in a few more years, according to analysts.
Another recent priority at Apple (aapl) has been to help customers become less dependent on their smartphones. Adding new, thoughtful applications to the watch as a replacement for the use of the iPhone could contribute to the "detoxification of the screen" effort, says Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies. "I've been using it since it came out, but it could do so much more if apps were designed with that in mind," she says.
Apple does not disclose sales of its mobile devices, but the company has captured 27% of the portable clothing market last year, according to IDC estimates. The category now goes beyond smartwatches and fitness trackers to include headsets and headphones connected to PDAs. China's maker of Xiaomi gadgets is ranked second with 14%, and Fitbit, who once dominated in the category, slipped to third place with 8%. Huawei and Samsung rank in the top 5, while some of the biggest manufacturers of 2017, such as Garmin (grmn) and Fossil (fosl), which are not very bulky in the helmet space, have been removed from the rankings.
Nevertheless, the competition has tried to align or surpass the capabilities of the Apple Watch, while maintaining pressure on Apple.
The Garmin vivoactive 3 Music smart watch, which can connect to wireless networks by itself (without a connected smartphone), went on sale at the end of March, which corresponds to the cellular functionality added by Apple two years ago. Garmin also launched a high-end line of luxury smart watches starting at $ 1,500, under the MARQ brand, designed to steal some of Apple's more hungry watch carriers.
Fitbit strives to beat some of Apple's health and fitness features while offering much lower prices. The company's Versa Lite watch costs only $ 160 versus $ 400 for the cheapest watch on the Apple Series 4 watches. Fitbit (fit) also introduced a rule and birth tracking app a year ago and says that 10 million users have already tried it. It also offers long-time detailed sleep tracking, a feature only available on the Apple Watch via such transparent third-party apps.
Apple remains largely ahead of the competition in terms of the total number of available watch applications. According to some rumors, the sixth version of Apple's surveillance software would take a step forward to encourage developers to keep the Apple platform in mind, with a separate app store directly on the watch. Currently, Apple watch users, as well as competing device users, typically select and manage monitoring applications on their phones. The new Apple Watch application shop at the wrist could encourage developers to be more creative and make the watch less dependent on a user's phone, but the ease of use can be a problem said Llamas of IDC.
"I like this solution to move the watch away from the iPhone and make it a more autonomous device," he says. "However, the functionality of discovering apps on a watch can be difficult."
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