Apple Inc. (AAPL): Time Not Right for iWatch Until Late 2014?

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has basically admitted a bit of a delay in its usual production schedule for devices this year, telling investors and analysts on its quarterly earnings call last month that we should not expect any new devices from Cupertino until at least the fall of this year, which has been translated to mean that devices are running on either a different schedule on purpose or they are on at least a one-quarter or two-quarter delay due to production and supply line issues. Well, of course there is also the small matter of a complete re-do of the iOS called iOS 7, but who cares about that, really?

Anyway, while rumors have floated around for months that an iWatch would be coming by the end of the year, one analyst is pouring some ice-cold water on that when he wrote in a research note this week that any such device, if in fact Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is working on it, may not see the light of day until the second half of 2014, which would be almost a year later than original rumors had us believe.

Of course, that leads to a question – can a rumor be late in becoming proven or disproven?  Are we right to say that a rumor is going to be a year late? Yeah, we didn’t think so either, but let’s just run with it for now.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said this week in a note to investors that this new device would have some significant biometrics attached to it, but we shouldn’t get all hyped up about this being a timepiece. “Investors shouldn’t be misled by the word ‘Watch’. We think iWatch will not be positioned as a time-telling device, nor as a device that displays information from other Apple products,” Kuo wrote in his note. “We are positive on the iWatch because its wearable design is helpful for offering more secure user identification and biometrics functionality.”

If this new timetable is to be believed, then it’s possible that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) could fall behind even in the wearable computer market, as there are a couple other companies who are rumored to already be actively working on smartwatch designs – Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and LG. Let us know your thoughts about the iWatch and what features you would like to see on such a wearable device in the comments section below.

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