Jony-come-lately
But that’s okay. Apple knows that success isn’t measured by “first.” It’s measured by “best.” And that’s kind of Cupertino’s thing.
Like all the forum and comment trolls, screaming “first” gets you nothing.
PermalinkApple Watch
Swiss Smartwatches Could Break Swiss Watch Industry
This isn’t the Quartz Crisis. This isn’t iPhone circa 2007. Apple isn’t Seiko, TAG Heuer isn’t Nokia, and Montblanc isn’t RIM. The worst thing any of these luxury watchmakers can do is to try to take on Apple in the mobile computing industry. It’s a waste of money.
It’s weird seeing these watchmakers scramble to challenge the Apple Watch. Apple is targetting the everyday customer. Yes, the Apple Watch is a piece of jewelry and unnecessary. But the iPod was unnecessary as well.
This isn’t your $20 Walmart watch or your $150 Fossil watch. But it also isn’t in the same class as the $10,000 TAG Heuer watch. Those in the market for TAG Heuer will likely get an Apple Watch too. They won’t be losing their market. So they shouldn’t be trying to chase something that lessens their brand.
PermalinkThe Apple Watch is actually priced lower than the original iPod
The Apple Watch is more affordable than the original iPod was, priced in today’s dollars of course. When the first iPod shipped in 2001, with 5GB of storage capacity mind you, it was priced at $399. Adjusting for inflation, that’s equivalent to $526 in 2015. When Apple in 2002 released a 20GB second-gen iPod, it was priced at $499, the equivalent to $648 in 2015. Even the fourth-gen iPod, released in 2004 and starting at $299, was more expensive in today’s dollars ($369) than the entry level Apple Watch is.
I know a lot of people that say the Apple Watch prices are too much. You likely do too. You might be one of them. But the prices are right in line with the original iPod. And they can do considerably more than the original iPod. Will it be too high for some? Yes. Will Apple still sell millions of them? Yes.
PermalinkPebble Time Is Not a Serious Apple Watch Competitor
That's just a sampling, but you can see the trend -- each of these analysts expects sales to be above 18 million for the calendar year. Over the past few years, these same analysts have been very conservative -- and wrong -- with their iPhone sales estimates. Even if the smartwatch market expands in 2015 because of new public awareness of the class of devices, I'd expect the Apple Watch to drastically cut into Pebble's sales -- even at the lower entry price points of $179 for the Pebble Time and $250 for the Pebble Time Steel.
Now I do believe there's a place in the market for Pebble Time, as the Pebble platform has a vibrant developer community for both iPhone and Android apps, the price point is lower and the new displays are much improved on the first-generation Pebble devices. Android Wear is even less of a competitor, with only about 500,000 devices sold in 2014 according to sources. Those half-million devices are split among a host of competitors, all of which are probably wondering why they chose to get into the smartwatch market.
Pebble has sold a million of their original devices and Android has sold 500,000. If Apple meets (when they usually exceed) analysts’ estimates of 18 million sales, these two categories of devices will be barely a blip on the radar of smartwatches. Hopefully the introduction and the success of the Apple Watch will encourage serious competitors in the space, but as of right now there are none.
PermalinkApple Watch Companion App for iPhone Revealed
Early this year, we posted the first screenshots and details of an early version of the Apple Watch Companion application for the iPhone. Now that the application is bundled into iOS 8.2, developer Hamza Sood has activated the Apple Watch Settings portion and has shared a view of screenshots. As can be seen in the full gallery below, the interface is dark black, like the Activity app for fitness revealed yesterday, and includes all of the functionality we detailed earlier. Some interesting new settings, however, were revealed today, such as one for assigning a left or right wrist to the Watch, Handoff support, Haptic Strength, and volume levels.
Lots of great tidbits of information from these screenshots.
PermalinkExample of Missing the Point
One-quarter of respondents said they were interested in purchasing the Apple Watch, but 69 percent said they had no desire, and 6 percent said they were unsure.
Exclusive: Apple Watch not on shopping list for 69 percent of Americans: Reuters poll
Darn. It’s upsetting that 75% of respondents said they have no desire or that they are unsure about buying an Apple Watch. Wait. So 25% of people are interested even though they’ve never seen one in person? Guys! You’re reporting the wrong side of this statistic! Apple is gonna make bank on this!
PermalinkShould you buy an Apple Watch?
The decision on whether or not you should buy one is probably going to be one of the most personal device decisions you’ve made in some time. It’s personal, it’s fashionable and it’s functional—only you can determine the importance of those three things.
Spot on. I doubt I’ll be getting one near launch, due to the cost, but I’ll be saving towards one very soon.
PermalinkHow Apple Makes the Watch
This walkthrough is a detailed narration of what we see in Apple's Watch Craftsmanship videos. Of course, we only get to see a mere fraction of the process; I've tried to provide plausible explanations for the likely steps taking place between the processes shown on film, but these are assumptions and are included only to provide a more satisfying and complete narration.
I’ve been doing a lot of research on manufacturing over the last week for a personal project. Most of the information out there is ridiculously boring. This article came into my feeds last night. Not boring at all. I might be geeking out a bit.
PermalinkApple Watch Spreadsheet
By my count, Apple will be shipping 38 separate models of watches. There’s a gallery page at Apple’s site where you can page through all of the watches, and get the details on each specific model. You can also view the watches in the store, where you can find pricing info.
Fascinating, isn’t it? Apple has more SKUs for this product than any other product in their store.
PermalinkHiRise for Apple Watch
HiRise for Apple Watch is designed, like HiRise for iPhone, with a stable, metal base that lets you interact with the screen on your watch while it’s charging. See alerts, reply to messages or check the time at a glance. This brushed metal stand is elevated and angled just right so you can see your Watch screen while lying in bed or glancing over at a countertop. A non-slip rubber base keeps HiRise in place.
Darn you, Twelve South. This is the must-have Apple Watch accessory.
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