Apple to introduce new product categories in fall 2013 or early 2014

Apple seems to have a new trick up its sleeve. After the company’s second quarter report, Apple CEO Tim Cook has told investors that the company will be introducing new product categories soon. Cook teased “the potential of exciting new product categories,” according to The Verge. This likely means the introduction of new products soon.

“We’ve got a lot more surprises in the works,” Cook said. “Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software, and services that we can’t wait to introduce in the fall and into 2014. We continue to be very confident in our future product plans.”

Cook wasn’t very specific in terms of what the new product categories will be, or even when they will be unveiled. He even pointed out how the new categories may not even be introduced this year.

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Cook is promising new product categories soon

If earlier reports are anything to go by, one of the product categories is most likely the Apple iWatch. Back in March, it was revealead that the iWatch will be running a customised version of iOS to better sync with existing devices as well as provide a seamless user experience.

The report says the features of the device include “letting users make calls, see the identity of incoming callers and check map coordinates.” The device will also have a pedometer and sensors for monitoring heart rate and sundry health data, the report said. The news agency’s source says the Cupertino company is working hard to introduce the device later this year.

Other reports state that Apple has decided to rework iOS to run on the watch instead of developing the proprietary iPod nano’s touch OS, which ran on the watch-sized media player. However, the transition is not going as smoothly as expected, as battery life issues are reportedly hampering the project. According to The Verge’s sources, Apple’s aim is to make the iWatch last at least four to five days between charges, but at the moment, the prototypes are falling short of that figure. Apple is also reworking how the iWatch will hook up with the iPhone. There isn’t a clear interface or setting to make it work properly with third-party apps, something that doesn’t work perfectly on the recently-launched Pebble smartwatch either.

Reworking operating systems for new devices is not new territory for Apple. In fact, when developing the iPhone, the company decided to create iOS as an extension of OS X rather than going with the iPod OS, which was the earlier plan. One theory is that Apple would limit how much information is sent to the watch to avoid making the device a complicated gadget.