For months, Apple has been rumored to have a special team secretly working on a wearable wrist watch that will help with track fitness and do a bevy of other cool iOS inspired functions. The company has even gone as far as to patent the name "iWatch" in countries like Mexico, Turkey, Columbia and Japan. Now the latest in the iWatch rumor mill is the hiring of Jay Blahnik, a well-known fitness expert who has worked with big-name companies to produce wearable technology, most notable Nike and its popular fuel-band.
Blahnik confirmed his new role at Apple when he Tweeted back to a person asking him directly if rumors of his new job at Apple were true. "Yes, it is true! A wonderful and exciting opportunity. We should catch up!" he wrote back.
According to profiles of Blahnik, he travels some 40 weeks of the year speaking at different conferences and consultant companies. He will turn his attention away from these projects, as well as previous ones at Nike, Gatorade and General Electric in order to focus fully on his new position at Apple.
9to5Mac cites anonymous sources that claim he has joined Apple specifically to work on the iWatch team. While the company has yet to confirm that it is working on a wearable device at all, given the patents surrounding the project and Blahnik's long history in wearable fitness technology, it only makes sense that he would join the iWatch team.
Blahnik has reportedly worked with Apple in the past on unspecified initiatives, according to online profiles. However, it appears his new work will with the tech giant will be so important that it will require 100 percent of his professional career attention, forcing him to leave the fitness industry for a while.
Tell us what you think, are you interested in a smartwatch that can help primarily for fitness or would you prefer Apple scale the project to work more with every day productivity like the iPhone? Comment and share below.
