Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the original Apple Watch launching in the United States and eight other countries around the world.
The original Apple Watch launched in stores and began arriving to customers on April 24, 2015, after being announced in September 2014.
"Apple Watch begins a new chapter in the way we relate to technology and we think our customers are going to love it," said Apple CEO Tim Cook, in a press release announcing availability of the device. "We can't wait for people to start wearing Apple Watch to easily access information that matters, to interact with the world, and to live a better day by being more aware of their daily activity than ever before," he added.
"Apple Watch merges hardware and software like never before," said Apple's former design chief, Jony Ive, in the same press release.
Impressively, the Apple Watch has helped to save countless lives over the past decade, thanks to health and safety features like heart rate measuring, the ECG app, fall detection, sleep apnea notifications, Emergency SOS, crash detection, and more. These features have alerted many people to conditions like atrial fibrillation, sleep apnea, and even cancer, allowing them to seek medical attention earlier than they would have otherwise.
In several interviews over the years, Cook has said that Apple's greatest contribution to the world will be in the health space, and the Apple Watch is a testament to that. Over the next decade, we can expect even more health features on the Apple Watch, such as blood pressure measuring and potentially even non-invasive blood glucose monitoring.
It is not marketing hype to say that the Apple Watch has made a profound impact on humankind, and it is exciting to think about what the next decade holds.
