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Merrick, NY—With rumors swirling for a long time—and Apple’s reported attempts to recruit talent from top luxury watch brands—Nikkei now reports that Apple really, truly is going to release an iWatch this fall. It will have a curved screen, say sources, and it's expected to resemble a bangle (left) more than a traditional watch.

The catch is, Apple didn't exactly say it's releasing a watch this fall. Apple execs did announce at its Worldwide Developers Conference last week that the tech leader will introduce its latest operating system, iOS 8, this fall, and that the new operating system will support wearable health-monitoring devices (as in, an iWatch?). So it certainly sounds like one is just about ready.

Nikkei reports the launch will be in October, and the new “watch-like wearable gear” will be equipped with a centralized function to manage users’ biometric data via smartphones. Nikkei also reports Apple—in response to criticism that it has lost its creative edge with the death of founder Steve Jobs—has promised a new device by the end of 2014, and that it has been most heavily focused on the health care potential of a wearable device.

Roberta Naas, editor of ATimelyPerspective.com, reports that Google’s new smartwatch—built by Korean electronics behemoth LG—is set to debut this summer ahead of the rumored iWatch, running on a version of its Android software and designed to tell viewers about vital daily issues such as weather and traffic. The Google device will retail around $350, says Naas, while rumors say the iWatch will carry a much heftier tag—more than $1,000. Not a huge surprise—Apple never claimed (or wanted) to be the low-price leader.

Naas, like most experts in the luxury watch industry, doesn’t see smart watches as a threat to traditional luxury brands, and indeed she thinks anything that gets the smartphone-happy Millennial generation to wear a watch, period, is a good thing.

Read Naas’s review of other smart watch developments here.

Top image: Cnet.com