How many are getting an Apple watch?

[Achtung!]

See, that's where the folks that post here get blindsided, people that post here aren't the target demographic by a long shot.

The iPhone was going to fail, the iPad was going to fail, "Apple is doomed"

How'd that all work out again?

Apple Just Had The Most Profitable Quarter Of Any Company Ever

Most analysts predict that Apple's profits may decline in 2015.

Remember in 2013 when Samsung's quarterly profit surpassed that of Apple.

A company like Apple and Samsung can fall at any time.

Actually Apple has a higher risk of failing because it's nowhere near as diversified. Look at what happened to Nokia. Yes, Apple is much more profitable than Nokia was but sitting on a pile of cash will do nothing for growth. That's why Apple is investing in iCars.

Apple has limited options for investment. Smartphones still remain profitable, much more profitable than cars for example. Apple can't invest into manufacturing as this will decrease their profitability when big players like Samsung, SK Hynix and TSMC already have the most technologically advanced facilities in the world that took decades of investment.

Apple can't enter developed markets like aerospace, memory chips, CPU chips, etc.

This is why Apple is going full force into smart watches and electric cars because these sectors are still in their infancy.

 

[Artdeco]

Most analysts predict that Apple's profits may decline in 2015.

Remember in 2013 when Samsung's quarterly profit surpassed that of Apple.

A company like Apple and Samsung can fall at any time.

Actually Apple has a higher risk of failing because it's nowhere near as diversified. Look at what happened to Nokia. Yes, Apple is much more profitable than Nokia was but sitting on a pile of cash will do nothing for growth. That's why Apple is investing in iCars.

Apple has limited options for investment. Smartphones still remain profitable, much more profitable than cars for example. Apple can't invest into manufacturing as this will decrease their profitability when big players like Samsung, SK Hynix and TSMC already have the most technologically advanced facilities in the world that took decades of investment.

Apple can't enter developed markets like aerospace, memory chips, CPU chips, etc.

This is why Apple is going full force into smart watches and electric cars because these sectors are still in their infancy.

Not sure what your point is?

I'm saying that a tech enthusiast forum is a poor predictor of success. What is the ratio here 9.5:1 Android?

Not going to predict what Apple will do in the long term future, it's sort of a fools game. I will say Apple is really pushing Car Play, to get Car Play to work, they need to put it in, gasp, cars, and make it bulletproof, that explains the recent hires, and all the real estate/garage/office rumors etc...

Cook did an interview on Charlie Rose and made a point about how everything Apple builds would fit on the table between them, a car is not something in Apple's DNA, Car Play is, and is very important to Apple's future.

Samsung made strategic errors and didn't expect that they'd get clobbered from the bottom and the top of the market, I don't think much of their current strategy of going upmarket with tiered memory sealed phones, but it'll be interesting to see how that works out for them.

 

[Achtung!]

Not sure what your point is?

I'm saying that a tech enthusiast forum is a poor predictor of success. What is the ratio here 9.5:1 Android?

Not going to predict what Apple will do in the long term future, it's sort of a fools game. I will say Apple is really pushing Car Play, to get Car Play to work, they need to put it in, gasp, cars, and make it bulletproof, that explains the recent hires, and all the real estate/garage/office rumors etc...

Cook did an interview on Charlie Rose and made a point about how everything Apple builds would fit on the table between them, a car is not something in Apple's DNA, Car Play is, and is very important to Apple's future.

Samsung made strategic errors and didn't expect that they'd get clobbered from the bottom and the top of the market, I don't think much of their current strategy of going upmarket with tiered memory sealed phones, but it'll be interesting to see how that works out for them.

If you don't think that Apple is serious about the iCar then you haven't been following Apple lately.

2014 was a bad year for Samsung just like 2012 was a bad year for Apple.

2015 will be a good year for Samsung. All indicators point to high Galaxy S6 sales.

 

[Commodus]

If you don't think that Apple is serious about the iCar then you haven't been following Apple lately.

2014 was a bad year for Samsung just like 2012 was a bad year for Apple.

2015 will be a good year for Samsung. All indicators point to high Galaxy S6 sales.

This year might be good for Samsung. We need to know whether or not Chinese OEMs will continue to eat Samsung's lunch, and if Samsung's high-end reinvention actually registers. I'd note that Apple conveniently timed its Watch pre-order / in-store preview day for the same time as Samsung's GS6 launch... intentional or not, that's gonna hurt the GS6 buzz.

 

[Subyman]

What problem did the iPhone solve? Phones could already call and text. Smartphones could already email and access the web. Blackberrys had been around for years.

Kaido's answer is great. I didn't move to the iPhone until iPhone 4. I used a flip phone until then. I didn't care at all for the first iterations of smart phones. Too slow. Bad UI, etc. Once it was iterated enough and a bunch of functionality was added, like Kaido's list, then I was on board. I haven't seen the utility for the watch yet. Even wish lists seem like they are stretching to try to find ways to use the watch. I don't know what Apple's plan is long term, but I'm curious to see how they make the watch compelling enough for normal people to want one.

 

[Artdeco]

The plan is to make them, SW's independent from your phone...

I can see the future, it's clicking on my SW and summoning an autonomous car to take me somewhere, paying for my stuff with my SW, essentially everything I do with my phone.

And for some numbers/polls that are a bit more grounded in reality:

http://watchaware.com/post/7045/apple-watch-polling-in-line-with-2010-ipad-figures

 

[Commodus]

Responding to Raduque's questions/concerns from the other thread:

I don't take watch apps seriously. There's very little use I have for apps beyond what's included with Android Wear (notifications, answering calls is pretty much it) and anything more complicated is unusable on a small screen.

It's more the accessibility and priority than anything. In Android Wear, you have to either speak out the name of your app (which is usually a terrible idea) or scroll all the way to the bottom of a menu before you can even start browsing apps. On an Apple Watch? Tap the crown. Watch apps can only be so sophisticated, but it'd nice to have an OS that actually encourages you to start tasks from your watch instead of Google's "oh, if you must" attitude.

I'm not sure what you mean by this contextual menus). If you mean more options on the long-press menus, I'm sure it's going to be in the next update for AW.

On the Apple Watch, a "force touch" (basically, a hard press) brings up a contextual menu for the app at hand. You can tell the music app to stream to your TV, for example. True, Android Wear could get something like this soon... but it doesn't have that now.

Typing on a 1.x" screen (as opposed to live voice dictation)?! No thanks!

Apple's not asking you to type. If you get a text message on the Watch, you can also use a pre-selected text response (if someone asks "A or B," for example, you can respond with A or B) or record a short voice message. There's also a walkie talkie mode that lets you have a back-and-forth voice chat, although you'll need Apple Watches on both sides for that to work.

How are you going to show content on a tiny screen, and have it be readable, without obscuring part of the screen?

That's what the crown is for. You can zoom and scroll in apps without having to put your finger on the screen and obscure what you're looking at.

Point of this (Wi-Fi)? Other than draining the battery?

There's a couple of reasons. First, it allows for high-bandwidth tasks that wouldn't work so well over Bluetooth. I'm not sure how often that'll crop up, but it's there. The more important one is that you're not limited by Bluetooth's 33-foot range -- you could still get data without having to be close to your phone.

Motorola 360 does this (inductive charging) now.

This was a specific gripe with the ZenWatch, not Android Wear stuff in general. Although it is true that a lot of Android Wear devices sadly resort to cables and cradles.

It's subjective whether or not it (the ZenWatch) looks good on thin wrists. Now, if you had said it fits better on thin wrists, I might have agreed with you if I knew what the Apple Watch looked like on a thin wrist.

The general rule is that you don't want an oversized watch on your wrist -- otherwise, you look like the smartwatch equivalent of Flavor Flav. The real issue, I'd say, is that most of the current Android Wear crop basically doesn't acknowledge that you exist if you either have thin wrists or prefer relatively subtle wristwear. Here's what the smaller 38mm Apple Watch looks like on an average man's arm (via Hodinkee http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/hodinkee-apple-watch-review ):

See what I mean? That looks more like a watch and less like a giant screen strapped to your arm. A subtler design like this makes smartwatches more accessible, more socially acceptable.

 

[touchstone]

its definitely way way nicer than any of the android wear watches imo, which really sucks because ios is just not ok with me. i think the asus watch looks like the closest to this in terms of form factor, but i really think it will require another company to either put the time and effort into doing a real quality job or just outright ape the apple watch just everybody ape'd the iphone. apple has spent hundreds of millions, probably billions, developing this thing. i doubt samsung spent even a full ten percent of that on the S gear. you just wont get something as nice unless you put the time into thinking through all the little details

i really think apple is shooting themselves in the foot at the start of the race though with iphone exclusivity. nobody is gonna switch to ios and lose all that functionality for the watch. i wont, not unless i see something really amazing come in the 6s like retina scanners or tractor beams

 

[poofyhairguy]

its definitely way way nicer than any of the android wear watches imo,

Really? You actually like the look of this:

More than this?

I mean I know it is a personal opinion. Just curious.

Of course that isn't really a fair comparison, that 360 is $50 cheaper.

 

[touchstone]

Really? You actually like the look of this:

More than this?

I mean I know it is a personal opinion. Just curious.

Of course that isn't really a fair comparison, that 360 is $50 cheaper.

ha. that would be fair if you were actually comparing a photo and another photo of even close to similar scale. instead you pick a render of indeterminate scale and a photo of the watch with no arm so you cant see how big it is to compare. here is a better comparison, both actual photos of watches on actual arms. i can tell you which of these two i would wear, and which i wouldn't be caught dead with, what about you? Just curious....

 

[Artdeco]

Some great pics of the SS AW: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1856335

 

[NEDM64]

Really? You actually like the look of this:

More than this?

I mean I know it is a personal opinion. Just curious.

Of course that isn't really a fair comparison, that 360 is $50 cheaper.

Personal opinions aside

The hardware is much better on the Apple Watch

 

[poofyhairguy]

Good point.

 

[Achtung!]

This year might be good for Samsung. We need to know whether or not Chinese OEMs will continue to eat Samsung's lunch, and if Samsung's high-end reinvention actually registers. I'd note that Apple conveniently timed its Watch pre-order / in-store preview day for the same time as Samsung's GS6 launch... intentional or not, that's gonna hurt the GS6 buzz.

Virtually no one is talking about the Apple Watch anymore.

It was too overhyped which led to disappointments.

Now everyone is back to talking about the Galaxy S6 / S6 Edge.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Honestly the Moto 360 looks dorky. It looks great in renders, but maybe I have small wrists, but it definitely looks a bit nerdy/gadgety on me. With that said I'm in the SF Bay Area, so who cares. Even though I'm not in mobile, and I'm in a much more conservative/older industry, the look still works with my business casual dress.

I wouldn't mind a smaller watch face though and a slimmer watch overall though.

I do think round watches are better, but the Apple Watch isn't bad by any means. In my opinion Android Wear was a very much beta product, but I'm guessing Apple Watch is too. What remains to be seen is how well both products do in 2015.

I also hold the opinion that smartwatches are overrated right now. They're just extensions of your phone right now and considering we're all too connected to our devices already, does having notifications at our wrist really change things? Things like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp chats are nice to have, but in honestly having everything buzz your wrist is overkill. In the end maybe work email or calendar events are important enough to light up my wrist, but I end up turning all notifications on my 360 off. The vibrator motor is cheap enough that everyone in the conference room hears my wrist vibrating nonstop.

 

[Artdeco]

Virtually no one is talking about the Apple Watch anymore.

It was too overhyped which led to disappointments.

Now everyone is back to talking about the Galaxy S6 / S6 Edge.

Not really: http://www.google.com/trends/explor...edge, galaxy s6, iphone 6, /m/0k8z&cmpt=q&tz=

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Not really: http://www.google.com/trends/explor...edge, galaxy s6, iphone 6, /m/0k8z&cmpt=q&tz=

Maybe amongst tech bloggers and tech enthusiast sites, people are talking about the S6 and S6 Edge, but I can tell you amongst the 25-35 age demographic that I'm very familiar with, I'm willing to bet very few even knew about the S6 launch, whereas most if not all are familiar with the Apple Watch being launched last week.

 

[touchstone]

yeah as somebody living with a couple 20 somethings who are less technically inclined i can say that i am the only one who really cares at all about the samsung s6. ive really seen a loss in popularity of samsung phones specifically and android phones in general. the new iphone has a reputation that is way bigger than it should be. its not even a good iphone, i would say it is like the iphone 5. its new but in a year everybody will complain about how slow it is


really the apple watch deserves a lot of attention, it is a huge technical effort and is the first time a company will sell millions of smartwatches. i dont like apple's software and im not a fan at all of their policies towards their hardware, but i can recognize quality and i can recognize good engineering. apple is both of these. overpriced, but still high quality and well engineered.

 

[Commodus]

The sneaky bit is that the watch market plays into Apple's strengths. The "overpriced" argument doesn't matter so much because it's not just about functionality. It doesn't matter that the Gear S has the largest screen and carries built-in 3G... it's ugly by most standards. The G Watch R may last a long time on battery and carry a nifty circular display, but it's not very appealing if you don't like that giant sports watch look.

Not to say that the Apple Watch look appeals to everyone, by any stretch, but it's not as sensitive to price differences as the iPhone is in smartphones.

 

[touchstone]

it is pretty apalling that rolex has gotten away with pitching ~2k worth of parts and labor for 30k plus. its funny that people call them 'timeless' and refer to them as a better long term value, the only reason they last so long is they do so little. if all the apple watch did was tell date and time and look pretty i am sure apple could make it last just as long as rolex. a rolex (using it as typical super-expensive watch) does nothing but tell the time and look pretty, the apple watch does immeasurably more yet costs a fraction of the price. even the expensive edition versions are priced at pretty much low-mid range on rolex-class watches


it is more an inditement of the swiss watch industry and the watch industry in general than any testament to apple giving good value. i hope rolex goes out of business. i dont appreciate hoity-toity pretentious junk that does nothing. if apple is pretentious then rolex is on some new level

 

[sm625]

I recently saw the movie Nightcrawler. And in it I noticed something that I've been noticing a few times over the past year: They zoom in on an oversized watch. Why would they do this? Why devote that extra 2 seconds of precious film time to show us some stupid bulky looking watch. It wasnt even a smartwatch. It was just a really big watch. But it was the size that the Apple watch will be. It's like they're preparing the masses to begin to want these stupid things. And they will succeed. People see that crap in movies and especially on tv shows, and they just got to have it. cant explain why, wont know, wont care. They will simply have to have it. It is truly sick.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I like gadgetry A LOT, so for that reason alone I'm watching this market with interest. I can't say I'm particularly interested in buying anything I've seen yet though. I'll be waiting for reviews and perhaps even waiting to see a few out in the wild to watch how people use them and what kind of real world convenience they can offer. Right now I'm closest to the "no" side of this question.

 

[Achtung!]

Not really: http://www.google.com/trends/explor...edge, galaxy s6, iphone 6, /m/0k8z&cmpt=q&tz=

Lol those are unfair search terms. Putting "Apple Inc" into the search terms when you're comparing the Samsung Galaxy S6 against the Apple Watch is unfair.

Btw Samsung has a higher number of Google search terms than Apple:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=/m/07gv72, /m/0k8z&cmpt=q&tz=

And Samsung is actually a non-western company. It actually has the highest search terms in Naver (a Korean/Japanese search engine).

Also if you look at March 2015, seems like the Apple Watch ranks below the Galaxy S6. Just to reiterate, this is just Google. Although it's the largest search engine in the world, there are many large search engines especially in Asia.

And these are Google search terms... it does not give any indication of whether people will buy the Apple Watch or not.

 

[WelshBloke]

I recently saw the movie Nightcrawler. And in it I noticed something that I've been noticing a few times over the past year: They zoom in on an oversized watch. Why would they do this? Why devote that extra 2 seconds of precious film time to show us some stupid bulky looking watch. It wasnt even a smartwatch. It was just a really big watch. But it was the size that the Apple watch will be. It's like they're preparing the masses to begin to want these stupid things. And they will succeed. People see that crap in movies and especially on tv shows, and they just got to have it. cant explain why, wont know, wont care. They will simply have to have it. It is truly sick.

This is the advertising narrative.

Keep equating smartwatches with high end mechanical watches and hope that everyone falls for it.

Massive profit margins for all!!

 

[Artdeco]

Lol those are unfair search terms. Putting "Apple Inc" into the search terms when you're comparing the Samsung Galaxy S6 against the Apple Watch is unfair.

Btw Samsung has a higher number of Google search terms than Apple:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=/m/07gv72, /m/0k8z&cmpt=q&tz=

And Samsung is actually a non-western company. It actually has the highest search terms in Naver (a Korean/Japanese search engine).

Also if you look at March 2015, seems like the Apple Watch ranks below the Galaxy S6. Just to reiterate, this is just Google. Although it's the largest search engine in the world, there are many large search engines especially in Asia.

And these are Google search terms... it does not give any indication of whether people will buy the Apple Watch or not.

Perhaps you could contain your S6 enthusiasm to the S6 thread?

~40% of adult iPhone owners interested in the Apple Watch:

http://news.yahoo.com/nearly-40-percent-iphone-owners-interested-apple-watch-184011818--finance.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/13/us-apple-watch-idUSKBN0M92C420150313?irpc=932

Ignore the headlines, and do the math, then take the potential buyers and divide by 10, and you still get massive numbers, and that's only in the US.

(if you don't want to do the math, it's around 6 million sales in the US only, by most counts, that's a massive hit if you factor in overseas sales. It's obvious Apple isn't popular here in the forums, but there's no denying what will likely be some serious numbers of Apple watches getting sold)