*By Bridgette Webb*
Step aside, iPhones ー the Apple Watch may be coming for your spot.
Christopher Mims, tech columnist for the Wall Street Journal, said Apple's wearables division may be the tech of company's future.
"Apple's strength at this point with wearables is creating accessories," Mims said Friday in an interview on Cheddar.
"You don't need the AirPods, you don't need the Watch or the glasses, but if you put them together, and you have a wireless connection, it might allow a new kind of computing ー a new way to interact with your environment."
Augmented reality, Mims said, is another area of focus for Apple. CEO Tim Cook has expressed enthusiasm for the industry, saying last year that he believes the tech will change the way the public operates forever.
But AR technology is still in its infancy, and mass adoption remains a pipe dream for insiders. As of now, Apple's ARKit can only add digital objects through an iPhone's camera. It's a feature that Mims said will continue to pose a challenge for the Silicon Valley giant.
"Apple's real challenge is no one knows what AR is for," Mims said.
"But we don't know what the killer app for consumers will be. I wouldn't be surprised if it were just some updated version of Pokémon GO," he said.
Apple will debut new its products and features on September 12 at an iPhone event in Cupertino, Calif.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/apples-next-act).
Ford says it’s reducing production of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup vehicle as it adjusts to weaker-than-expected electric vehicle sales growth. The automaker said about 1,400 workers will be impacted by the move.
Walmart Inc. is raising the starting base pay for store managers, while redesigning its bonus plan that will put more of an emphasis on profits for these leaders.
Despite concerns about shipping delays in the Red Sea, RSM Chief Economist Joe Brusuelas says there are still reasons to be optimistic about the state of the U.S. economy.
Dan Ives, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Wedbush Securities dives deeper into a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) that Apple has ended Samsung's 12-year reign as the world's largest smartphone seller.
Artificial intelligence is the biggest buzzword at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. Advances in generative AI stunned the world last year, and the elite crowd is angling to take advantage of its promise and minimize its risks.
Smartphones could get much smarter this year as the next wave of artificial intelligence seeps into the devices that accompany people almost everywhere they go.
In an annual assessment of global inequalities, Oxfam International said the first trillionaire could emerge within the next decade — as the anti-poverty organization pointed to the growing wealth gap that skyrocketed globally during the pandemic.