Let’s start with the bad news: The Apple Watch. This beautiful, technological marvel is, in my view, the device our future selves point back to as delineating when Apple changed forever.
Not necessarily for the good.
The company long known for delivering absolutely amazing computing devices, so perfect, so uncannily universal that often times, one device, one product line, one price point is sufficient, is no more. The new Apple Watch starts out with three distinct variations and what appears to be a near-infinite number of eye-catching bands.
This feels wrong.
Tim Cook said the Apple Watch is the company’s most “personal device yet.” Maybe so. At present, my take is thus: The Apple Watch is a pricey talisman, one certain to accelerate the top-line yet with only marginal tangible benefit to Apple’s existing customers.
Have we crossed a line?
The Strange Changes
Yes, change is necessary, often good. I realize this is Tim Cook’s Apple, not Steve Jobs’ Apple. That’s both obvious and expected. What I find so troubling is that I no longer know if this is my Apple. Having defended Apple for years against the silly, baseless charge that “Apple is a marketing company,” I woke up last week to discover that, as John Gruber flatly stated, “Apple is not a tech company.”
I am at a loss to adequately explain why anyone would pay $349 for this device. Indeed, $349 just gets you in the door. Yes, many analysts made similar declarations about the iPhone and the iPad. Fair enough. The Apple Watch may prove transformative. Still, Apple was able to fully, succinctly proclaim exactly how we could and would all benefit from those earlier products. This is much less so with Apple Watch:
It’s the most personal product we’ve ever made, because it’s the first one designed to be worn.
Yes, but what does it do? And why should I buy one?
A device you wear is vastly different from one you keep on a desk or carry in your pocket. It’s more than a tool. It’s a very personal expression.
Yes, but what does it do?
Apple Watch combines a series of remarkable feats of engineering into a singular, entirely new experience. One that blurs the boundaries between the physical object and the software that powers it.
I do not understand.
Apple Watch also presents time in a more meaningful, personal context by sending you notifications and alerts relevant to your life and schedule.
Such as?
Apple Watch is right there on your wrist, so it makes all the ways you’re used to communicating more convenient.
Tell me one!
Don’t Want To Be A Richer Man
Most of the world could never afford Apple products, be they Macs or iDevices. This was, frankly, because the costs of quality, usability, integration and reliability necessitated those high prices. True, Apple margins on iPods, iPhones, iPads and some Macs are sizable. Prices can be lower, in theory. The bargain between Apple and customer, however, is we accept these large margins knowing that year after year after year Apple products will get better, without fail, until a completely new magical device takes flight. That’s money well spent.
Will this be so with Apple Watch?
I think not.
Based purely on the company’s marketing messages, the various Apple Watch(es) appear priced primarily for reasons almost fully extraneous to its technology or functionality. I find this disconcerting, to say the least.
For most users, Apple offers the very best smartphone, tablet, MP3 player and laptop available anywhere. The Apple Watch changes this equation in no way. Still, I can’t help but wonder if my relationship with Apple will change now that this “non-tech” company so proudly offers what we assume will be, per Gruber, gold bands on deluxe watches that retail for an astounding $10,000 or more.
I don’t even go into those stores.
Time May Change Me
Throughout its history, Apple has gifted us with numerous incredible devices. Recall the iMac, the iPod (classic) or the very first iPhone. We never envisioned such a device, then quickly wondered how we ever lived without it. It was as if someone from the future left this marvel behind, perhaps accidentally, perhaps as a test. But always, magic, always liberating.
The Apple Watch feels the opposite of this. Lock-in is not liberating. With Watch, Apple has created a mobile computing device with a small screen which requires another mobile computing device with a small screen, the iPhone, before it can function properly.
I can’t help but think how much better it would be — for us, the users — had Apple taken all that Watch work, all those Watch resources, and made the iPhone, iPad and Mac even better, more magical. This applies to the iPhone, in particular. The fact is, I believe Apple and iPhone are on the cusp of remaking everything and I selfishly do not want Apple to blow this opportunity by getting sidetracked with a watch.
And now the good news.
Change Their Worlds
In his long interview with Charlie Rose last week, Tim Cook stated it’s important to think about long term, big picture ideas. One of these, he said, is what comes after the Internet?
I suspect Apple is not merely thinking about what comes after the Internet, but actually working toward this. What is it? My prediction: The entire Internet done right. That is, a secure, family friendly, screen-optimized web paid for by all of us — with our money not our privacy.
Google should be very concerned.
With iTunes, apps, Apple Pay, Apple TV, iCloud, continuity, inter-app communication — now available across all screen sizes and devices — we can finally have our “web” the way we’ve always wanted, the way we’ve always deserved, before we foolishly allowed it down that horrible path back in the 1990s, funded by pornography, data tracking, unceasing ads and content “aggregation” that bordered on theft.
Apple has developed the tools to make these bad bits all go away. We get what we want, reliably, securely, privately, by paying for it, not by having bits of us taken, not by having our eyes and ears assaulted with unwanted garbage.
This will change everything. It cannot come soon enough.
Oh, and the company is not just remaking the digital web and e-commerce. Apple is helping to re-configure offline retail, making it better, faster, more personal. Consider its currently available toolkit:
- Apple Pay (money and credit)
- Touch ID (security)
- iPad (cash register)
- iBeacon and Passbook (for deals and rewards)
- AirDrop (peer-to-peer sharing of money and benefits)
No one else has anything like this.
Perhaps I’ve been unfair to the not-yet-released Apple Watch. But, companies can’t do everything. The iPhone is literally helping us to change the world. It is re-making commerce, the web, play, learning, work. I don’t want to lose this opportunity.
I fear the Apple Watch has captured Tim Cook’s focus and consumed the best of the company’s design, hardware and software skills. If so, while Watch may be great for Apple I believe it is detrimental for the rest of us.
I think they forgot the “magic” in the watch. I haven’t had echoes of that word being used, which says something either about the product, or about the new Apple.
As for the whole of Internet becoming a for-pay walled garden… Maybe it’ll become a reality for a few, but I don’t think most will be interested in a second AOL.
Apple may be holding their cards close to their chest. And as you constantly object to the word “magical”, I don’t know why it should worry you not to hear it. Perhaps they will let the developers reveal the “magic” around release time. Some speculations do indeed sound “magical”: such things as “the haptic sensors my be able indicate direction to you by touch as you set out walking to a destination, without the need to look at a screen or listen to verbal directions”.
BTW, I’m not interested in an AOL either; but neither am I interested in an “open”, “free” internet that really is anything but, because every link is aggregated and curated for me by some foggy entity somewhere, according to rules, money or interests totally opaque to me, the product.
“but neither am I interested in an “open”, “free” internet that really is anything but,…. totally opaque to me, the product.”
Right! But you’re really arguing over “which” closed internet. There is no “open” in your example.
No kidding. Google is subverting the whole internet. That was rather my point.
I agree. Then you must also admit that Apple does too.
Thing is, on one side you have no choice, you’re in the walled garden. Approved apps only (no competitors, thanks), proprietary protocols and buses, …
On the other side, you have all the choices you want, run any app even those in direct competition with Google’s, usually over standard protocols…
The choice is not between closed and… whatever evil you think Google is up to. It’s between closed and not closed.
It’s more about giving up some nebulous “freedoms” that seem to matter mainly to geeky types who want direct control over the guts of the OS and of the device, and the very real freedoms that quietly evaporate as our lives enter the corporate domain.
Well “geeky types” won’t fall for the “charge your iPhone in the microwave” fraud. I wouldn’t dismiss them out of hand… 😉
Yes, I don’t mean to dismiss geeky types. A person who is a tech “enthusiast,” let’s say, will of course be more fluent in its use and tend to push the boundaries. The point I’m making is that the specific location of those boundaries is, overall, very low-order in its overall impact on any kind of real “freedom,” whereas the boundaries of personal privacy are very high-order.
That! is an excellent point! Well put!
Are they mutually exclusive?
Why do you only associate these freedoms with geeky types, and not with freedom-loving types? There are plenty of geeks that use iOS.
At work I use what they give me. They control it because they own it. On my stuff I use what I want, I control it, and they are never to lay their paws on it.
Yes. As you say yourself, I’m quite sure you’re being “unfair to the not-yet-released Apple Watch”.
I don’t think you should read too much into a single presentation, which may actually have been intended for the fashion guys for all I know. I’m sure that they actually talk like this all the time.
As for Gruber’s article, he uses the word “guess” for his price predictions.
I think you should too.
So much tasty Apple Watch claim chowder simmering all over the Internet.
It will be several months before we really get a chance to experience what the Apple watch can do for us. I suggest waiting to see how that evolves. It is very easy to predict the future based on extensive current knowledge and be totally wrong. One analyst was convinced the iPhone 6+ was actually going to be a remote control for the home only to learn two weeks later that it was in fact a big phone. There is a worthwhile piece on the pitfalls of speculation about new Apple product categories by John Kirk that I commend to you. It’s on a site called Techpinions.
Spot on. Apple can take the long view; they have breathing space, burn time. Beholden to nobody.
The Watch? It’s a push. Cool looks and famous likes are push tactics. Why? No horse to pull this cart. No tunes. No apps. No new and massive digital media explosion to fuel the watch launch. Digital cash and digital ME … my heart rate, temp, etc … will grow slowly.
Here’s the thing: Apple can afford to push the cart along down the road a bit. It cannot afford a Microsoft sized failure to exploit every aspect of digital content, distribution, and delivery.
Just imagine what Apple will learn over the next five years about every aspect of microcomputing, including interface, processors, sensors, software, hardware, and services.
“Yes, but what does it do?”
Use your imagination, there’s all sorts of interesting and useful jobs-to-be-done that can be handled by the Apple Watch. I would guess Apple was a bit vague on specifics for good reason. The watch isn’t shipping for a while, why give competitors a detailed road map?
One thing it doesn’t do is make a lot of noise when set to vibrate only. A far more silent method of notification will be worth something to someone. Maybe it will result in fewer people setting their phone out on the table when getting together with others to eat and meet. Always seemed rude to me, that.
Joe
When it replaces my cellphone, it will catch my interest. Not before.
So maybe in the 2020’s I might wear some form of smart watch, but I don’t see it anytime soon.
You’ll wear a device like this when the jobs-to-be-done provide enough convenience (value) to you to make it worth buying/wearing. Maybe that will never happen *for you*, but obviously the Apple Watch is going to be more useful for some and less useful for others based on the jobs-to-be-done that different people value.
Obviously that was about me, hence the constant use of the word “I”.
OTOH, I don’t think this has the kind of universal appeal that iPhone has. It does look a lot more like a status/fashion play, than a function play.
Your comments definitely have a kind of ‘speaking for others’ feel to them. You say “constant use of the word I”, but in the very next sentence you say “I don’t think this has the kind of universal appeal that iPhone has.”
We could go back to 2007 and replace “iPhone” with “iPod” in your comment and that would be a decent summary of much of the iPhone criticism at the time. What Apple product hasn’t immediately been met with the conclusion that it wasn’t very functional, was mostly about status, and would not sell well?
I would guess in five years much of the current analysis of the Apple Watch is going to look very silly. It’s as if people don’t realize that Apple iterates *and* isn’t run by idiots.
Of course out of the gate the Apple Watch isn’t going to match current iPhone sales. That much is obvious. It’ll be interesting to see if it beats first year iPhone sales though, I think that was less than two million.
Purposefully obtuse?
I made no such reference in the original post, in the followup I prefaced it with OTOH.
My original post was all about my personal reaction. But OTOH, I am allowed to speculate how this works out for others.
You know just like you are allowed your opinion that Apple can do no wrong.
“I don’t even go into those stores.”
I went back and re-watched the Apple Watch portion of the Keynote to make sure of my thoughts. With the Apple Watch and the many fashion industry new hires, I think it is safe to deduce that Apple has clearly settled on the fashion aspect of the watch as one of two differentiators. This is not only foreign to technophiles, it is anathema. In reality, it is the only reason left to wear a watch. As so many people have pointed out, me included, no one wears a watch to tell time anymore. We have our cell phones for that (even before smartphones).
Fortunately for Apple and unfortunately for us, this leaves many of us scratching our heads. But for the time being, I think this is the smart tact. It quickly differentiates the Apple Watch from 99% of the current crop of smartwatches. For myself, I’m still not convinced the smartwatch is the future of smart devices, other than that might be all that any company offers. Glass seems to be a bust.
In terms of function I think Apple has clearly defined how they are different from Android Wear. Wear is focused on quickly giving you feedback from your smartphones. Watch is focused on giving you that with the ability to not need to pull out your smartphone to respond to that feedback. Plus, fewer reasons to have to pull out your phone or even use it for many functions at all. In one device, the Apple Watch has collected all the reasons one currently wears a device on their wrist into one device. No other wrist device out there does that. Time will tell if either focus is what the market wants, or even both.
I don’t think the rest of the real world is as confused as we are. Just read what the watch industry has said about the Apple Watch so far, both positive and negative responses. I do think the rest of the world gets confused when we focus on the tech aspects of wearing a smartwatch vs the fashion. Even with Wear devices, I hear “Why do I want a watch to do that?” I think aardman was one of the ones who kept pointing out here about the jewelry nature of watches. Apple apparently agrees.
Joe
Personally, I think totally ditching a new model 4″ form factor iPhone and going full bore 4.7″+ is more seminal than the Watch. Nothing says “This ain’t your Jobs’ Apple anymore” than that.
Joe
great point and something no one seems to be talking about. in our giddiness over having a large iPhone(s), we failed to notice that 4″ did not get any updates. Perhaps with the next generation, but we don’t know that yet.
EXACTLY. I’ve been saying the same thing. I quite like my 4″ thank you very much. I hope it sees an upgrade with the in-between-cycle. They can’t just leave that behind..can they???
The whole idea of a one-size-fits-all device is dead, as is the idea that one-handed mode is non-negotiable. Assume *lots* of new iPhone sizes in the years ahead, including 4″.
I’m not sure it matters much whether they keep the 4 inch, but if they do I’d expect the 5C form factor to be what they use for it, or they new form factor which is 5C-ish but with the colors. The colors are fun, I’d be sad to see those go away.
Anyway, back to the 4 inch, the 4.7 inch really doesn’t seem all that different volume-wise. I’ll reserve judgment until I have more than a paper prototype to go by, but even the iPhone 6 Plus didn’t seem huge to me, because I have huge hands and an exceptional reach/spread hand-wise. I think I want the Plus.
I even thought up a catch phrase to describe Apple’s approach to growing the Apple watch market: Buy the style, keep the function.
Meaning people will buy it as a fashion item and they will keep (and use) it for it’s functions.
People keep asking ‘How does it fit into the way I live?” Wrong question. This is Apple, the relevant question is ‘How will it change and improve the way I live?”
Have any of you noticed the rave reviews that companies/websites like Fitbit and MyFitnessPal have been receiving? Has anyone noticed that weight loss businesses like Weight Watchers are in serious trouble from DiY social weight loss sites and the devices that complement them. Apple probably spotted this trend, looked at the demographics,the obesity statistics, the health cost projections and asked what if? What if we go in and develop this market along the usual Apple principles and turned this nascent trend into a more widespread activity?
Apple knows one thing few people really give them credit for: if they make the user experience clever, playful and delightful enough (and they can), they can make people do things that they used to think wasn’t worth the effort.
I just gave HealthKit as an example. AppleWatch is designed to do more than just that.
I hope you are right.
Me too.
Great comment. Thanks.
I’m not sure how anyone can proclaim something that hasn’t even been released yet a failure. But it’s par for the course with Apple. Every new product they release is dismissed by the tech press (and even some fans at the time). No doubt Apple is holding some things close to the vest that will be announced when the watch is unveiled next year.
“I’m not sure how anyone can proclaim something that hasn’t even been released yet a failure.”
Well, there’s the Zune, the Kin phone, the Surface 2, the Windows Phone, and before you know it, people think it’s that easy to make accurate predictions.
perhaps this is the post post pc or post device phase as gruber alludes to.
“I suspect Apple is not merely thinking about what comes after the Internet, but actually working toward this. … The entire Internet done right. That is, a secure, family friendly, screen-optimized web paid for by all of us — with our money not our privacy.”
Ugh. The last thing I want is an “entire internet” defined by Apple or any other corporation. Sounds like hell.
I’m a huge Apple customer but the reason I don’t find Apple’s iPhone curation a problem is that it is available alongside the open internet. If the whole internet looked like Apple’s iPhone app store, the world is in trouble. And of course I’m not singling out Apple here–no corporation or even group of corporations should have that much power over the modern world’s main communication medium.
Good point. I wish I could get a do-over. I mean, Apple is offering us a practical, viable alternative to what we’ve accepted for far too long: aggregation, clickbait, ads, porn.
I’m afraid that aggregation, click bait, ads and porn are what freedom of speech looks like. You can’t have all the good parts of freedom of speech without allowing in the bad parts.
The problem that needs to be solved is that people have gotten used to the everything must be free from cost model of the internet. We need to have people value online content at more than $0.00 and some of my private information. I don’t know how to accomplish that but I do not think that letting corporations define a new internet will get us there.
For my part, when Yosemite is released, I will be 100% Google free. I already have duck duck go on all my iOS 8 devices. I’m dumping gmail this week and paying for fastmail.fm.
James, have you looked at StartPage which piggybacks off Google Search. That is one possibility. But StartPage is working on StartMail which will be a paid service and is walled off from spying eyes. One can sigh up in advance for SM.
These kinds of offerings might answer your (and my) concerns.
N/C
mhikl
Its like what Andy Warhol said, re coke. Unfortunately, Tim’s strategy to differntiate early to three design will backfire to them in the end. Apple watch owners will no longer be feeling that they have bought the best watch, because in part, another substrata( the rich if the price entry of gold edition is to be believed) of people will be purchasing them. Plus, as you pointed out, itll need a phone to work properly or make sense with the data it collects.
Finally, while I believe Apple has firm stance on security, I believe, hackers will just up their game and will be able to exploit the vulnerabilities in the new os of apple watch- just like what happend in their iCloud services.
” Apple watch owners will no longer be feeling that they have bought the best watch”
You mean Apple watch owners who think like you, maybe. I, on the other hand, believe that people who purchase Apple products, are like most people in that ‘having bought the very best, bar none’ is not the absolute overriding requirement. Why do I think so? Because common sense tells me if one thinks that way, then he’ll be buying the latest iPhone each year it comes out. Very few iPhone owners do that.
I did not posit in absolutes. Why will you buy something if its not the best? And by best the definition is what you deem best for you. Best that suits you.
I was addressing your assertion or speculation that because there is a gold apple watch that is beyond most people’s budgets, then people who might have bought the cheaper versions won’t anymore because Apple customers only want things that are at the top of the strata.
If that is not what you meant when you wrote about how Tim’s strategy might ‘backfire’, then my bad.
There’s a great overview of Apple Pay in a comment over on Asymco, lots of details. If by security you mean the new Apple Pay system, it can in no way be compared to iCloud.
the Andy Warhol Coke analogy seems completely wrong to me. All of us can afford a Coke and can’t get better. Very few of us can afford an iPhone.
Brian, I updated my thoughts to include those coming from gruber and adam.
The argument to affordable luxury and why rolling out more expensive types of this luxury is indeed quite a no-brainer aa posited by the writers cited above.
Id like to hear you further thoughts on this though.
I don’t think so. A low buy-in price will give access to the full technological capabilities of the Watch. A low-end buyer won’t feel they’re missing out on anything; the high-end buyer is just drinking the same Coke from a finer glass. Everybody gets what they choose to pay for.
A plane ticket might be a better comparison. How many different prices did people pay to all essentially get the same thing, a ride from one point to another? Different prices based on things from timing to class of travel. But they are all riding the same plane, some a little more comfortable than others, some spent less, some more.
Joe
To quote Andy Warhol in full, “What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.” —Andy Warhol
—
And to cite further, Grubers logic as to why this will backfire:
That’s what the iPhone and iPad are like. There are hundreds of millions of people who have bought these products, and they now own the best phones and tablets in the world. A few years ago at SXSW in Austin, I saw Michael Dell waiting outside a restaurant. The thought that popped into my head: He’s a billionaire, but I know for a fact that I have a better phone than he does. Not everyone can afford an iPhone, not by a long shot, but everyone who can knows they’re getting the best phone in the world.
Apple Watch changes this dynamic.
And also by Adam Fields: below:
Gruber was talking about the $6,000 Vertu there, but he might as well have been talking about the Apple Watch. Apple has long been ‘the luxury brand’, but it’s been an accessible luxury, unlike luxury cars or jewelry. The products are expensive, but they’re not outrageously expensive (and if they are, it’s because they’re so massively overpowered that most people really don’t actually need them). Apple has even been steadily pushing prices down and making their products more consumer-friendly so they’re now in some cases a markedly better value than what their competitors offer. With the Apple Watch, that is no longer the case — there’s a gold version whose only substantial differentiating feature is that it’s more expensive. Because it’s “gold” and not “gold-colored”, it’s not just a style choice, it’s a lifestyle choice. In other words — it’s the watch that most people won’t have. I’m sure the fashion experts have plenty to say about this from the perspective of desirability, but it’s a real shock to the standard approach of the tech world. I think Apple knows this, too — which results in the strange nomenclature. The only way they could name it that doesn’t sound overtly elitist is the awkward “Edition” edition.
Brian, I find it ironic and delightful that you and John Kirk have articles out on the Apple Watch at the same time. Your risk, is of course you can be included into his future “Claim Chowder” list of quotes.
Let’s hope I’m around long enough to be proven wrong 😉
In all games, the cards must be held close to the chest. What are Apple’s plans for the Watch in the near future, in what directions are the iterations going to develop the plot? Surely Apple knows and all will be seen in time.
I wonder if Apple has learned hard lessons from Samsung and its skulduggery. The iPod and iPhone did not at first take the world by storm and this will possibly be the same with the iWatch; so why pile it with features that gives Samsung the time from which to learn and then to copy. Keeping SS on its toes may be a stratagem Apple has at its forethought now.
As Samsung copies, slowly add the features that fails its imagination, leaving the unimaginative company always in the scramble. It is the burlesque trick, show a little, starting at a leg, a peek at another delight, while teasing out the dance.
Namaste and care,
mhikl
I am going to wait and see what the final product released in 2015 actually does before doing any deep thinking about whether to purchase it or not. It certainly appeals to me more than Google glass.
As your fellow writer John Kirk says, if you don’t get it, STFU until you do, Brian!
Margins? Fashion, Apparel, Drug companies, Food has higher margins than Apple. Yet Apple is expensive.
It is a Watch. If you can’t afford a Seiko than you can’t afford Apple Watch either.
It is a communication and computing device. Do you need it more than iphone. Of course not.
You are send your heart beat. What is more personal.
Watches were invented because the Swiss Church banded waring of Jewelry. So do you need jewelry that tells time.
So you can’t afford it. You don’t need to communicate, You don’t need to tell time.
Apple is not making it for you. I am sure you can understand that.
Apple Watch will be successful if it has a psychological component which is rewarded by the brain.
It is a fashion item. It is a jewelry.
Apple products are not for you.
Exactly! There are many things that we do not need but we desire and want. What Apple is going to do is move the bar on want to need for the Apple Watch. I really do think that the way the Apple Watch feels is going to be as important if not more so to it’s success but Apple is great at passing the touch test. So once enough people get to touch, feel and use the Apple Watch in a store or showroom I really do think they will have a hit on their hands.
You are right about Apple’s products not being for everyone but the same is true for many premium brands. Thats ok as it is part of the choice that is good for the marketplace.
My thinking on the Watch is that it will be something of a sleeper hit. Rumors before the announcement pegged Apple’s projections for the Watch as being fairly modest. I buy that. There is no initial, gotta-have-it capability that will drive everybody to go out and buy one right away.
The magic will be in the way the way the watch makes routine tasks a bit easier, communication a bit more direct. Slight efforts saved here and there, and the convenience of having a device literally attached to you that gives a pretty good abbreviated set of phone functions, plus some increasingly desirable personal health-and-fitness monitoring functions.
People who get used to it won’t want to go back. Adoption will increase, capabilities will increase, and in five years we’ll barely remember life without it.
I am fairly certain I will always be okay without a watch/Apple Watch. An iPhone? No. That I can’t do without.
I agree that the Apple Watch marks a big change for Apple. I think a lot of people in the computer industry are, and will continue to be, uncomfortable with this. Computers are becoming just as personal as apparel. Right now the watch is in the expensive jewelry segment of the apparel business, but I think it is inevitable that other apparel segments will eventually be computerized.
The women’s apparel business is the most profitable part of apparel, compared to men and kids. So, in the long term, companies in the personal computer business must think and act like women’s clothing companies in order to survive. Apple may be the only tech company that gets this as an organization and is busy transforming itself so that it will prosper as an apparel manufacturer in the future.
I’ll admit, my first reaction to this was, “EEEyyyeeewwww!” 🙂 So, yeah, it does feel a bit wrong!
I also agree that the “why” of the watch was not presented well by Apple. Ben Thompson wrote a pretty good post about that on his stratechery site.
I have my own question about a watch. I can see that before long a watch will have enough transistors, radios, and battery power to be used without tethering to a phone. But the screen will never be as easy to read as a phone screen. My question is what input and output method will replace reading on a screen?
I think the success of phablets is a reminder to tech companies how much normal people value having one device instead of two. A big phone replaces a phone and a tablet because it’s so much simpler. A “good enough” laptop replaced an underpowered laptop and a desktop – not because people needed to be mobile all the time, but because they hate having two machines. They would rather live with the smaller screen and poor ergonomics all the time than have to deal with two different computers. A smart watch will have to have a very good reason to exist alongside a phone to get over this inconvenience factor.
Along the same lines, I think that phablets will not only cut into tablet sales, but will eventually cut into laptop sales, just because one device is so much better than two for a lot of people in this world.
“just because one device is so much better than two for a lot of people in this world”
Whenever I hear this kind of talk I remember in 2007 one dance company I was touring with and we were in Armenia. I had to get some printouts and copies of documents made and I needed my laptop, so I was taken to the embassy or some other US government facility. When I was going through security, they said I had to take out all my electronics from my computer bag. I think I was only allowed to take through what I needed and they would hold the bag for me until I came back through, I don’t remember exactly. I just looked at them and said, “Are you sure? I mean, I have a lot of electronics”. They said “Yes”. I said, “No, really. I have a lot of stuff”. They insisted. So, I proceeded to take out my digital camera, my laptop (I think I had two at the time), a portable external drive, two cell phones, my iPhone, an iPod, a flash drive, and all the power supplies. I think I even had a couple of gadgets from one of the dancers I was holding for them. About halfway through, they stopped me and just took the bag.
I think about this and can only counter, while we want fewer gadgets, at the same time, it is amazing how much we will justify to ourselves to carry.
Joe
Funny story! I’d say it shows that you are an exceptional person. 🙂 Another exceptional person was Albert Einstein, who used the same kind of soap for shaving, bathing, and washing his hair. He didn’t want to use mental resources for keeping track of different kinds of soap. Personally I enjoy learning about gadgets, but a lot of people I have done tech support for over the years for don’t enjoy it, aren’t particularly good at it, and consider it a waste of time.
Thinking more about this, while I don’t think the smart watch will replace the smart phone, it does have the potential to replace a wallet which holds ID and money. That could make it attractive to the general public.
“the same kind of soap for shaving, bathing, and washing his hair”
I do the same thing, bulk bars of soap which I use for everything. I’m not alone!
“just because one device is so much better than two for a lot of people in this world”
Whenever I hear this kind of talk I remember in 2007 one dance company I was touring with and we were in Armenia. I had to get some printouts and copies of documents made and I needed my laptop, so I was taken to the embassy or some other US government facility. When I was going through security, they said I had to take out all my electronics from my computer bag. I think I was only allowed to take through what I needed and they would hold the bag for me until I came back through, I don’t remember exactly. I just looked at them and said, “Are you sure? I mean, I have a lot of electronics”. They said “Yes”. I said, “No, really. I have a lot of stuff”. They insisted. So, I proceeded to take out my digital camera, my laptop (I think I had two at the time), a portable external drive, two cell phones, my iPhone, an iPod, a flash drive, and all the power supplies. I think I even had a couple of gadgets from one of the dancers I was holding for them. About halfway through, they stopped me and just took the bag.
I think about this and can only counter, while we want fewer gadgets, at the same time, it is amazing how much we will justify to ourselves to carry.
Joe
No doubt John Kirk is loading stocking his larder with this trove of claim chowder.
Oops, please delete “loading” from the above.
Greetings! Very helpful advice in this particular article! It is the little changes which will make the most important changes. Thanks a lot for sharing!
Greetings! Very helpful advice in this particular article! It is the little changes which will make the most important changes. Thanks a lot for sharing!