Apple stockpiles health and fitness experts for Team iWatch

Apple stockpiles health and fitness experts for Team iWatch
This guy moonlights for Apple

With medical tech specialists and fitness experts apparently now on the Apple iWatch team, it looks as though Apple's watch will go well beyond just phone notifications and half-usable apps.

Apple recently acquired AuthenTec, a company that develops security solutions like the fingerprint scanners that are rumoured to be coming to the iPhone 5S, and a source tells 9to5Mac that half of the team are now working on sensors for the iWatch.

However, we probably won't see the fruits of that particular labour on a watch for a good few years.

Mr Sandman

The other crack team on board the good ship iWatch are reportedly a rag tag team of workers whose pedigrees come from companies that make sleep analysis devices.

Beyond mere talent, people in this iWatch supergroup are reported to hold "patents in light sensor design, distance measurement sensor design, and, notably, several patents for integrating mobile devices with fitness equipment."

And it's not just engineers and designers that Apple's tapped up for help with its watch plans - apparently there are also "several scientists" from medi-tech firms whose devices include sensors that map veins in the body, blood monitoring sensors and other biometric specialities.

So will the iWatch be more like a Nike Fuelband on speed than a souped up iPod nano for your wrist? Sure looks that way.

With all this ambitious tech talent behind it, we can definitely imagine that late 2014 Apple watch release date being more realistic than a 2013 one.

From 9to5Mac

News Editor (UK)

Former UK News Editor for TechRadar, it was a perpetual challenge among the TechRadar staff to send Kate (Twitter, Google+) a link to something interesting on the internet that she hasn't already seen. As TechRadar's News Editor (UK), she was constantly on the hunt for top news and intriguing stories to feed your gadget lust. Kate now enjoys life as a renowned music critic – her words can be found in the i Paper, Guardian, GQ, Metro, Evening Standard and Time Out, and she's also the author of 'Amy Winehouse', a biography of the soul star.