Apple and Nokia bury the hatchet – which could mean better smartwatches for you

OK, bare with us here. This is a story about patent litigation, but it could mean that you're going to have a better Apple Watch in the future.

The short story of the courtroom drama between these two companies is as follows: Nokia has a lot (a lot) of patents that relate to the use of smartphones, and it has agreements to license them to Apple for its iPhones.

However, there were some other elements that it wasn't licensing and it was claiming Apple was using unfairly - and it used patent assertion entities (PAEs) to force companies like the Cupertino brand to pay up.

These PAEs have been called 'patent trolls' by many as their only role is to get more money for claimed patent infringements - and Apple was upset that it kept getting sued by those acting on Nokia's behalf.

Thankfully for fans of a non-courtroom narrative, that's all done and dusted now, with Nokia providing certain network infrastructure product and services to Apple in return for an undisclosed lump sum and future revenues during the multi-year licensing agreement.

Watch this space

But hey - there's some actual product stuff in this announcement that is more interesting to you. Firstly, Apple will resume stocking Withings' fitness devices (owned by Nokia) in its stores now that this dispute is over.

Apple and Nokia are also 'exploring future collaboration in digital health initiatives', and given these two brands are big hitters in the wearables industry, this could lead to some good breakthroughs in the way we monitor ourselves daily.

Given we've been hearing that the Apple Watch 3 could be able to monitor glucose levels - after Tim Cook was reportedly spotted sporting such a device on his Apple Watch - it's clear the direction the brand wants to take its Watch in, and a tie-in with Nokia could be just the thing to facilitate that.