The smart ring became the talk of the town early this year when more and more companies started espousing the concept to come up with their own iterations. When Samsung entered the ring (pun not intended) with its Galaxy Ring, glances were naturally directed towards Apple, as the Cupertino giant had already registered several patents regarding such a device. But it looks like there’s been a halt to those plans.
A new report states that Apple has scrapped its plan to launch a smart ring of its own, fearing that its sales might cannibalise those of the Apple Watch, which remains the sole focus of its health and fitness tracking efforts. Bloomberg’s Mike Gurman has said that Apple isn’t “actively developing” a smart ring, as it will turn out to be a low-cost alternative to the Apple Watch, eating up sales of the smartwatches. After all, the Apple Watch is well adored by fitness enthusiasts and sportspersons around the world and is estimated to contribute from $14 billion to $18 billion in revenue annually to Apple.
As I said, there have been sightings of patent filings from Apple that have suggested the existence of a smart ring project. Moreover, the company is even known to have sent out customer surveys to test the waters for demand for such a device. And then there were even talks that Apple’s smart ring would work in conjunction with the Apple Vision Pro for better movement tracking. All this has perhaps come down to nothing, even as the news of Apple having abandoned the project has seeped out into the open.
This smart ring would have posed a big threat to the prospects of Samsung’s Galaxy Ring, which was unveiled earlier this year. Unsurprisingly, it works best with Galaxy smartphones and offers features like heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, and more, using Samsung’s BioActive Sensor. It integrates with the Samsung Health app for advanced fitness insights. At a time when rivals like the Oura Ring and the Ultrahuman Ring Air offer similar scores and metrics, the Galaxy Ring sticks out due to its richer feature set, which includes tools and utilities not found in competitors.
While it looks like Apple has given up on the idea of its own smart ring, it has its focus set sharp on its other product ranges. The company is reportedly planning an event to unveil new Macs, which include M4-based Mac Minis that are tinier than before, fresh MacBook Pro models, and even a new iPad Mini.