MOONRAKER: Nokia's smartwatch which never ever hit the market

Smartwatch and wearable, these are going to be next battle ground in tech industry. Samsung, LG, Motorola, all have released their respective Android based smartwatches. And now with Apple venturing into this market space with Apple Watch (yeah I too was disappointed it should have been called iWatch). Next round of bout for market supremacy has begun.

In all this Microsoft is nowhere to be seen, it’s not like Microsoft is too far behind. Well, it has already placed its Microsoft Band into the hands of people and as far as I have read the device is pretty good. I could not get hands on it as it’s not available here in India.

Yesterday I came across an interesting article on The Verge, and I really could not miss the opportunity to tell you people about it. According to Tom Warren of The Verge Nokia was planning its own smartwatch. Nokia’s handset division which is now a part of Microsoft was developing this smartwatch based on aesthetics design of their mobile phones OS, Windows Phone. How cool that would have been, it even had a cooler name “MOONRAKER”, it sounds something out of Bond movies. Even there were working prototypes of watch were ready and Finnish company was ready to launch these into market alongside its flagship phone Lumia930. But alas there was no such launch of watch from Nokia’s side as the plan was cancelled by Microsoft when it acquired Nokia’s handset division.

This new information was dug up by Evan Blass, on Tumblr blog, and now obviously from where it is now removed. Now why Microsoft did cancelled the project when it could have got a lead on its competitors, it was because the Redmond based company was working on its own wearable Band.

Moonraker had many sensors like when lifting arm you can read text messages and drop it to turn off display. The whole interface of Moonraker was based on Windows Phone and it worked with phone, messaging and email app. Facebook also would have worked with this smartwatch and as Nokia had made a habit of giving people and option to change the look mobiles, the watch too had option of different coloured straps.

Later this year once Microsoft is done with releasing Windows10, the company will be bringing the second generation Microsoft Band 2. May be that will have some looks and feature of Moonraker, may be Microsoft will bring its own separate smartwatch and maybe we will see this Moonraker taking on the market but then it may never happen. We will have to wait and see how this smartwatch market turns out for companies and consumers.

What you think of this Moonraker? Do tell us would you have liked such a watch, or what you think about this new category of technology.