“Gartner, Inc. forecasts that worldwide shipments of wearable devices will reach 225 million in 2019, an increase of 25.8 percent from 2018. End-user spending on wearable devices is forecast to reach $42 billion in 2019. Of that, $16.2 billion will be on smartwatches.” Most of that will likely be earned by Apple as its Apple Watch emerges as a very strong health and fitness monitor.
But what comes next? Gartner prognosticates. “However, Gartner predicts that by 2022, ear-worn devices (“hearables”) shipments will take over as the top wearables segment with 158 million units shipped compared with 115 million smartwatch shipments in 2022.” This kind of makes sense as, more and more, we’ll be chatting with smarter, more intuitive AIs. The link has a table of sales predictions for the out years.
Check It Out: What Comes After Wearables? Hearables
This is bad news for people who use Adobe Creative Cloud. Adobe insists that all internet and mobile be silent. Don’t believe me? Try to design an app in XD that uses audio cues. Can’t be done.