Is There An Apple Smartwatch In Your Future?

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- You can tell it's a somewhat slow time in tech news when years-old rumors begin to resurface. Take this weekend's stories about a possible Apple (AAPL) connected wristwatch which may or may not be in the works.

The New York Times had a story about Apple developing and testing a "smart watch" type of device which will run on its iOS software. The newspaper quotes sources who believe that Corning (GLW) has supplied Apple with some curved glass samples to use as crystals in its testing.

Apple refused The New York Times' request for a comment on the situation.

Not to be outdone, The Wall Street Journal had its own story about a possible Apple watch. The Journal reported that Apple has already been speaking with Chinese manufacturing giant Foxconn about producing the device.

Quite honestly, it really wouldn't be a huge stretch for Apple to develop such a product. A recent iPod, which could be set to display the time as a screen saver, was small enough to fit in a wrist band, and be worn as a watch. A number of other companies have already tried smart watches as health, fitness, or location-finding tools - but none have really caught on on a large scale.

The real question is how much an iOS-based smartwatch will cost and what will it let you do that can't be done on your iPhone (or your somewhat less portable iPad/iPad mini device)?

Even though wearing wristwatches has fallen out of favor with the "under-40" crowd, wearable computers, in some form or another, would logically be the next step to market to Apple's customers. And, if anyone could make a "smartwatch" a super-cool, must-have device, it's Apple.

--Written by Gary Krakow in New York.

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Gary Krakow is TheStreet's senior technology correspondent.