Apple “Confident” About New Product Categories for Next Year

Apple held its fourth quarter earnings call today where it detailed its financial standing and other sales figures for the company’s iOS products and Mac computers. Of course, towards the end, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked what we can expect come next year, and he says that other product categories is an interest for the company.

Cook says that “in terms of new products, if you look at Apple’s skills in hardware, software, and services, these skills are very unique and no one else has them. We believe we can use our skills at building other great categories that are in areas where we do not participate today. We’re pretty confident about that.”

Apple has been rumored for a while to be introducing several new products that aren’t currently anything like what it has now. A smartwatch from Apple is said to be on its way, as well as a television set. Of course, Cook has teased in the past that we’d see new product categories from the company, but he says that next year will most likely be the time that we’ll see these new products.

We wouldn’t be surprised to see an Apple smartwatch, especially considering that Samsung released its Galaxy Gear smartwatch just recently. Apple hired a former Nike developer who worked on the FuelBand line of fitness wearables, and this just adds more kindling to the speculation fire, as it’s possible that Apple will focus on fitness with its rumored iWatch.

Of course, we have to take rumors with grains of salt, but Cook’s comments about a new product category are certainly something to mull over. Apple has largely just focused on phones, tablets and computers for the past few years, and it’s no doubt that people are wanting to see something brand new from the company that we’ve never seen before.

We’ll just have to wait and see what Apple has up its sleeve for next year, as Cook has said that you should expect some exciting new product “across 2014,” meaning that we’ll most likely see multiple announcements and events from the company, including at its annual WWDC conference and its usual fall event like we saw last week and last month with the iPhone and iPad announcements.