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'Apple Ring' Allegedly in Development to Rival Samsung Galaxy Ring

Surprised none of the traditional watch companies have pursued this type of product. Just to keep Apple, Fitbit, etc. away from their customer base.
 
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I have a very flawed but expensive Fitbit Sense watch and have been wavering about the price vs use of an Apple Watch for a long time. A ring would be perfect for me and I could then switch to my other preference, a stainless steel Casio watch! Such a nice, cheap solution. :cool: But wait, Apple wouldn’t want that.
 
_apple_apple_ said:
I follow the patents and the ring has a lot of utility:
• patents indicate haptics, allowing XR to provide feedback
• more precise hand tracking in XR
• several patents indicate you can use multiple rings on both hands for various experiences. This somewhat implies a reasonable price (my guess is $99)
• it doesn't have a screen, the outer shell just rotates, there's a few patents on various ways to make that happen while being waterproof, and you can 'click' the ring (again a couple different mechanisms are being proposed). The patents all also talk about a 'jewel' component which appears to be removable. This may be how people can customize the appearance. There's a small air bladder on the side of the ring to stop the inner ring from spinning, and probably to get better health readings via compression.
• like the article says, NFC, notification haptic, sleep stuff, etc
• the main use case in the patents is for controlling other devices. Essentially, Apple is leveraging the accessibility tabbing logic to allow you to scroll to any interactive UX component. Kinda like the scroll wheel of old.
• Some patents mention that the scrolling resistance of the ring can be dynamically modified, as a form of feedback. This could have gaming applications, where the game can convey resistance to scrolling.

Extra:
• The patents for the Apple AR Glasses case indicates that the lid of the case could charge 2 small devices at the same time. Currently, the AirPods is the only small device with wireless charging. This strongly implies the glasses and the ring might launch together or close in time due to the ring's AR applications.

The only thing I wonder is what will the outside material be? None of the patents mention this. Glass/plastic/aluminum/silicone all seem too fragile for something that will contact many surfaces, but Apple's probably going to insist on making it white.
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Thank you for that... very informative 👍
 
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wtf is Tim Cook doing. They have left HomeKit to languish when everyone would want a smart home if they could get economies of scale to reduce the price on some of the items and yet they are focusing on goggles and a ring
 
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newdeal said:
wtf is Tim Cook doing. They have left HomeKit to languish when everyone would want a smart home if they could get economies of scale to reduce the price on some of the items and yet they are focusing on goggles and a ring
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HomeKit feels so half finished. The hub HomeKit app itself especially. IT should be 'Apple Beautiful', it should have an amazing visualisation of your home and all your connected appliances.
 
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I currently wear a Ringconn, which works reasonably well for sleep and exercise tracking. I tried wearing a Samsung watch for bedtime tracking, but they were unreliable, failing to accurately track deep sleep. The Ringconn works and it integrates with the Apple Health app.

I’d love to get an Apple ring if it works better than my Ringconn, especially if it comes with ecosystem benefits, which the Ringconn does not.
 
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I see a market for a small unobtrusive device with a few days battery that just monitors stats. Integration with health and a minor haptic feedback for notifications could make it a nice device for those who don’t wear watches.

Sleep tracking would be a great selling point because, well wearing a sweaty heavy watch in bed is uncomfortable at best.
 
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I have an Oura ring, but the subscription plan and app experience meant I eventually stopped wearing it. It’s more comfortable to sleep with than the Apple Watch, lasts longer on a single charge as it literally just collects and uploads biometric data, and is more discrete than having a screen strapped to your arm, I think a better executed take has legs.
 
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tomtad said:
Is this going to go the same as Vision Pro where Apple release a slightly better ring than Samsungs in 5 years for 8x the price?
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It is questionable that Vision Pro is better than Quest 3. It has some advantages but also a ton of areas where it is worse (weight, field of view, lack of controllers, lack of decent games, support for third parties lenses... ).
 
dz5b609 said:
Not gonna happen, no reason for Apple with the Apple watch existing.
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Nonsensical argument. It is like saying the normal apple watch has no reason to exist since the Apple Watch Ultra exists. Different products or variations of the same products target different demographics. It doesn't matter if there is a partial overlap.
 
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