The second iteration of the Apple Watch will reportedly come with dedicated cellular connectivity, meaning it can be used independent of the wearers iPhone.

This addition would make a lot of sense given yesterdays announcement that all Apple Watch apps must be developed with the watchOS 2 SDK, enabling them to operate independent of a paired device via wi-fi connectivity.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is trying to combat the shortcomings with the first model, released almost exactly a year ago. To improve on the originals sluggish performance, the next-generation Watch will have a faster processor, and the mobile connectivity will help overcome its reliance on a paired iPhone. But not all of the Watchs problems can be so easily tackled – namely, “its lack of a defining purpose”, as WSJs Daisuke Wakabayashi puts it.

Over the past year, has Apple sold around 12m Apple Watches, according to Bernstein Research estimates. Recently, sales have been buoyed by a $50 price cut, causing average daily sales to jump 250 per cent, according to figures from Slice Intelligence, but its still not the kind of world-conquering product weve come to expect from Apple.