While Apple Hires iWatch Team, Microsoft Puts Surface Crew to Work on Its Own Smartwatch

Apple's iWatch may be on its way to Apple Stores by next year, if the company's recently rumored hiring spree pans out. Meanwhile, Apple's oldest rival, Microsoft, is reportedly putting its Surface team to work on its own smartwatch.

According to recent reports, Apple has begun "aggressively" hiring engineers to work on the iWatch project, the long-rumored wearable computing device that Apple has yet to officially confirm. One report from the Financial Times asserts that Apple's hiring spree is part progress, part desperation: apparently, designing the iWatch has involved "hard engineering problems that [Apple has] not been able to solve," according to an unnamed FT source.

In June, at Apple's yearly Worldwide Developers Conference, the company unveiled new software like OS X Mavericks, iOS 7, and hardware like the Mac Pro and new Macbook Air. However, those products were just updated versions of now standard gadgets and software, and since the death of Steve Jobs in 2011, Apple has yet to introduce a completely new technology product - putting pressure on Apple CEO Tim Cook and the Cupertino company to prove that Apple has not run out of ideas.

Now the company seems to be reaching beyond its core staff and hiring outside of Apple's walls for the iWatch team about two weeks after Apple hired the CEO of luxury clothing and apparel brand Yves Saint Laurent, Paul Deneve, to work "on special projects as a vice president reporting directly to Tim Cook." That hire, along with Apple's applications for trademarking the iWatch name in several countries, spurred rumors that Apple was investing heavily in the iWatch.

While this recent hiring spree could be good news for people who can't wait to see what Apple brings to the emerging world wearable computing - not to mention play with the new Apple product and maybe buy it - according to analysts, the timing of these latest moves indicates that the iWatch would be ready for launch, at the earliest, in late 2014. And there's the possibility that Tim Cook could still scrap the whole project, if it's not moving in the right direction swiftly enough.

Still, it looks like Apple is serious about the iWatch, and putting serious money behind it. According an anonymous FT source, one senior member of the iWatch team was about to leave, but was coaxed into staying after "being awarded a substantial pay increase."

While Apple is making more and more moves towards a smartwatch, on Monday, Microsoft insiders told The Verge that Apple's original rival is putting the team behind the Surface tablets to work on its own smartwatch. According to sources at AmongTech, Microsoft is now prototyping the devices, which reportedly may run a modified version of Windows 8, and have a 1.5-inch display, 6GB of storage, LTE support, and a transparent Oxynitride Aluminum body that is three times harder than glass.

Both the Microsoft and Apple smartwatch leaks are based on anonymous sources, so, as always, we'll have to keep watching the rumor mill and see what details stand the test of time and which ones fall by the wayside. Keep checking back with us here at LatinosPost Tech for more smartwatch details, along with other wearable computing and technology news.