Long before the Apple Watch hits stores, Apple subjected the gadget to thousands of hours of testing — with its own employees as the guinea pigs.
The ever-secretive company gave ABC News a peek inside a top secret lab where it has been collecting data as its employees run, cycle and do yoga. Wearing high-tech masks to study their breathing, the employees logged 18,000 hours of exercise, which Apple used to fine-tune the health features in the watch. Most of the employees had no idea what they were working on, Jeff Williams, Apple s senior vice president of operations, told ABC.
The lab toured by ABC was a simple building in Cupertino, but Apple has strayed far from its hometown in its quest to perfect the watch before it heads to market. The watch was also tested in Alaska and Dubai to gauge its performance in extreme environments, Williams told ABC.
The watch, Apple s first brand-new product since the iPad, will go up for sale next month. Starting at $349, it comes in two sizes and three collections. Though some analysts question how well the gadget will sell, Apple has touted health and fitness monitoring as a key component.
Above: Using its own employees as subjects, Apple has subjected the Apple Watch to thousands of hours of testing (Karl Mondon/Mercury News).
