The next big thing in computing and IT hardware is wearable technology and wearable devices. Last year, we saw introduction of Google Glass and Google stressing on the potential it has to take computing and our everyday lives to a whole new level. Samsung released its own smart watch some time back and Google came out with its own Android OS for smart watches called the Android Wear.
Apple is also rumoured to start production of the Apple iWatch soon. Statistically, the market for wearable devices is expected to grow exponentially over the next few years and it is expected according to research by BI Intelligence to reach $12 Billion by 2017.
Opportunities for Developers
This huge, exponential increase in the wearable device market will witness an allied increase in the demand for applications specific to these wearable devices. App pioneers have an opportunity to capitalize on this market by taking early action and rolling out apps based on wearable devices. In fact, it is essential that developers create apps for these devices as without these apps, the devices will not become as popular or functional. It is also estimated that smart watch sales will soar to 373 million by 2020 from the current 15 million today, according to a report by Next Market Insights.
Wearable Device Applications
Google Glass apps will help us in a myraid range of activities including cooking, driving and other daily activities. However, mHealth apps would be the biggest gainers when it comes to wearable devices. Fitness apps like Race you will help us to compete against ourselves on a number of activities. Another report by ABI predicts that the health market will be worth more than $$00 million and have more than 1 billion annual health-related app downloads by 2016.
Another research firm IHS has predicted that sales of wearable gadgets will increase to around 180 million devices in 2018. Keeping in mind these trends, Salesforce.com has launched Salesforce Wear. It is an app development platform which will have open source code, demos and reference apps. This platform will aid developers to develop apps for Google Glass, Samsung Gear etc.
Challenges for Developers Today
The major challenge facing developers is that the different devices available on the market right now use different development platforms. For example, the Samsung Gear uses the android SDK, the peeble uses a variation of C and Javascript, the Google Glass platform has its own SDK which is built on top of android but you have to know additional things and the rumoured iWatch in all likelihood will use a variation of the iOS when it is finally released on the market. However, iOS Director Sean McMains says that the developers should not be discouraged as a lot of the concepts transfer from one platform to the other and also to keep in mind that many wearable devices have small screens and therefore, a developer should try to make the information as concise and atomic as possible.
