Bloomberg: Apple has 100 product designers working on wristwatch-like device

iPhone Wrist (Yrving Torrealba 002)

Over the weekend, we heard reports from two major news outlets—both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal— that Apple is working on a smartwatch. It’s said to feature a curved glass display and run a version of iOS.

Like clockwork, Bloomberg has chimed in with its own ‘iWatch‘ report this afternoon. The site says that two sources inside the company have confirmed that Apple indeed has an enormous team working on a wristwatch-like device…

Bloomberg reports:

“Apple Inc. has a team of about 100 product designers working on a wristwatch-like device that may perform some of the computing tasks now handled by the iPhone and iPad, two people familiar with the company’s plans said.

The team, which has grown in the past year, includes managers, members of the marketing group and software and hardware engineers who previously worked on the iPhone and iPad, said the people, who asked not to be named because the plans are private. The team’s size suggests Apple is beyond the experimentation phase in its development, said the people.”

The report goes on to say that Apple’s senior director of engineering James Foster, and Achim Pantfoerder, another manager, are part of the group working on the wristwatch—which is a bit strange, as sources usually don’t name names.

It also adds that Apple has worked on wearable devices for tracking fitness in the past, but they [obviously] never made it to market.

At any rate, even the largest skeptics have to admit that there is something to the recent onslaught of iWatch rumors. The fact that these three publications would all get similar intel from three different sources is not an accident.

[Image credit: Yrving Torrealba.]