Apple's CEO Tim Cook explained how their wearable is taking cues from the iPod digital media player that the company introduced in 2001:

"If you think about the MP3 industry, we weren't the first company to make an MP3 player, there were lots of companies in this. They weren't used very much. They were fundamentally hard to use -- the user interface was bad and you almost needed a Ph.D. to use them. They're not memorable.

"I see the smart watch category very much like that. There are several things that are called smart watches, but I'm not sure you could name any. There hasn't been one that changed the way people live their lives. At Apple, that's our objective. We want to change the way you live your life."