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Apple hires Nike FuelBand designer Ben Shaffer; Cupertino's wearable can't be far behind
A month after after poaching fitness expert and Nike FuelBand consultant Jay Blahnik, Apple has added another former Nike employee to its ranks. Cupertino has reportedly hired Ben Shaffer, who served the sneaker brand as Studio Director of the Innovation Kitchen. In this role, Shaffer helped develop the FuelBand and the Flyknit shoe, and it serves to reason that his position at Apple will involve wearables as well. It's also not a stretch to assume that the company's upcoming wearable will incorporate some of Nike's fitness-tracking tech -- here's hoping we won't be waiting too long to see the fruits of this partnership.
Apple reportedly built wearable visor prototypes, 'didn't have time' to bring them to market
Considering that Apple's patented nearly every tech concept under the sun, the revelation that it dabbled with a wearable display of some sort is hardly earth-shattering. According to Tony Fadell, Nest CEO and former Senior VP at Apple, Cupertino built a bunch of wearable tech prototypes but "didn't have time" to further develop them. Fadell describes Apple's approach as "visors, so it's like you're sitting in a theater," which sounds decidedly more like a VR headset or head-mounted display than something like Google Glass. Still, Apple dismissing one of Google's the year's most hyped concepts in favor of focusing on its streamlined device lineup? That's quite a burn to Mountain View.
