14 DAY TRIAL // Apple’s interest in developing an advanced watch dates back to the early 2000s, according to Scott Wilson, Nike’s former creative director. Cupertino’s design legend, Sir Jonathan Ive, once had Nike send over boxes of watches to his lab.
“Well, he didn't buy them,” Wilson tells Business Insider in an email interview. “We just gave them to them as designer bro deals.
“He and others in the design group just requested them and we sent them a ton of Nike Presto Digital Bracelets and the aluminum Oregon Series Alti-Compass watches.”
Wilson admitted he was flattered that Apple’s design guru was requesting Nike hardware for review, adding that “these Nike designs were circa 2002-2004.”
Despite being a personal request on behalf of Apple, the company’s interest to create something similar was fairly obvious, Wilson suggests.
“Thought they were only personal requests but their materials guy followed up with many questions on the materials and processes,” he relays.
“This meshes up with their research in watch manufacturing during that timeframe which has been documented in previous stories.”
“They definitely drew upon watch industry techniques and manufacturing in their products since the first iPhone. Interesting that it may come full circle to an actual iWatch at some point,” Wilson concludes.
Apple’s iWatch may indeed come to fruition in 2013. Sources that have been reliable on Apple rumors in the past have reported in recent weeks that the company is working with a team of 100 to get the show on the road.
The iWatch rumor has been so strong it actually completely deflected attention from the iTV, another unconfirmed Apple product that the company is supposedly prototyping internally.
The iWatch is said to be a wearable computer (rather than a time keeping piece), which will serve as a companion to existing iOS devices.
The web is already chock-full of concept imagery depicting what the hardware could look like.