Perfectly reasonable way to think. The smartwatch may be very good, but maybe not many people will be interested in it. I might be interested, but I'd be very surprised if it was as big as the iPhone or iPad. And if they sell well without changing everything again, it will be fine for sure. But anti-Apple pundits will use it as an excuse to say that Apple isn't the magical company it was supposed to be before.
The smartwatch thing is simple. Instead of making it have the same look and feel of a current generation smart device (which drives up the price while simultaneously making it pretty much useless) instead create and market a device for $200 bucks that is basically an old Blackberry or a cheap Android phone being sold in developing countries.
Trutthfully, it doesn't even have to be a touchscreen device. Or if it absolutely must be, you can run Android Gingerbread or Honeycomb on a very small device. It could have like a 3-3.5 inch screen ... basically you could take a stripped down version of the Samsung Galaxy Music and make it a watch. You would still be able to surf the web, do social networking, play certain games, and have it be a standalone device. Square screen, circle screen, octagonal screen ... doesn't matter. People would buy it.
Google and Samsung are not very bright for not having thought of this already. OR Apple could retrofit their first I-Phone, released in 2007, into a watch and have it on the market by this time next year for about the same amount of money that they charge for an I-Pad. (Don't roll your eyes, you can get an I-Phone 4s for free with a 2 year contract from most carriers.) If they did that, they would CRUSH the wearables market and single-handledly bring watches back into fashion. That would be an immediate home run, not a single.
Throwing billions at start up companies is not "innovating."
1. Companies do it all the time, including Apple.
2. I must have missed it where Google threw billions at a startup for Google Glass, Android and ChromeOS/ChromeBox or Samsung did the same with Tizen and smart watches.
I don't really see a big market for the iwatch with individuals, however all of the rumors about health related sensors make me think there maybe a huge market in the medical field. If this is really aimed at that field then the pricing maybe very different as well (the cost of a typical apple product is very low in medical device" terms).
I don't really see a big market for the iwatch with individuals, however all of the rumors about health related sensors make me think there maybe a huge market in the medical field. If this is really aimed at that field then the pricing maybe very different as well (the cost of a typical apple product is very low in medical device" terms).
That is because you are thinking of it as a watch. Think of it is a cool looking or fashionable phone that you can strap on your wrist with a cool looking leather or metal band (if the smartwatch/smartphone case market is so huge, imagine the smart watch strap market!), and - assuming that it is an Android or FirefoxOS or Canonical Ubuntu device - much cheaper than what most smartphones cost.
Again, you could put Gingerbread on a watch-sized phone already. You could put the 1st generation or second generation IOS on a watch-sized phone.
No way will a single be good enough for Wall Street. They're looking for a home run and the stock will take a HUGE hit if it's not. A single will also be confirmation that Apple has lost its mojo.
I doubt Apple really cares about the stock price. They really never have, so why start now? When they start focusing on whats going to make their stock price raise, then its time to sell your stock and start looking elsewhere for products.
I'm sure investors think differently, but as far as Apple is concerned, I don't think its a major concern with releasing new products. If Apple does what Apple does best, the stock price will take care of itself.
I guess i can see how that could grab some more market share (at least for those people who use bluetooth), but in terms of profit, I think the medical side shouldn't be overlooked. Perhaps they'll come out with a consumer device first and then a more sensor-rich device for the medical community (and with a very different price tag). Personally the idea of slapping a phone onto my wrist isn't appealing to me but I'm one of those people hoping the 5.5" iPhone rumors are true, so I'm obviously biased.
Although Bayes theorem is commonly used to determine the probability of an event occurring, it can also be applied to verify someones credibility as a prognosticator. Many pundits claim to be able to predict the outcome of an event; political elections, trials, the weather and even sporting events."
When will analysts finally understand that Apple doesn't work the way other companies work or like anything they supposedly learned in school. If I used Bayes' theorem on analysts I'd say there's a huge statistical certainty that 99% of them will be wrong in everything they guess at. In order to provide a probable theory, these analysts actually need to understand what Apple is doing and that's the first thing they have no grasp of and never will.
Based on that chart above they could use another hit to end that plateauing of revenue but I hope they wait until the product is ready, not simply to fill a short-term gap like others. Historically speaking, waiting a few quarters doesn't seem to get remembered but releasing a bad product does.
Apple products (the ones that succeed anyway) generally start out as singles and wind up as outside the park grand slams. No one knew that the I-Pod would utterly dominate the MP3 player market when it came out. Before the I-Pod, companies were making junk like MP3 player boom boxes, and Sony had an MP3 player version of their Walkman. Then within a few years of coming out with the Shuffle and I-Tunes for Windows ... that whole market was gone to Apple.
Similarly, the I-Pod and the I-Pad were mocked, derided devices initially that took a couple of years to catch on. So the chances are that even if Apple comes out with a home run, we won't know it for awhile. For all we know, their home run might be an Apple TV upgrade that turns it into a standalone gaming console that doesn't need AirPlay mirroring from a game that is really being played on an I-Pad or I-Pod Touch. The Roku 3 has gaming support but it stinks (Angry Birds is the only game and you have to use the remote as a controller). Chromecast developers are working on gaming applications, but it is very limited right now. The various Android game consoles have all failed, with the Ouya team stating that they are transitioning from consoles towards being a gaming as a service cloud platform (but they have no partners lined up to distribute their content, and not much in the way of developers lined up either). Amazon is rumored to introduce a dongle with streaming games capability today, but that effort has been so much start/stop/delay/back to the drawing board that it may not be until the second generation gets it right.
But think about it: Apple TV with the new A7 chip that could support a variety of controllers (or use the remote as a controller if you do not want to buy one) with the ability to both stream games (from a variety of sources, such as a cloud service or from your Mac or PC, so they could turn I-Tunes into a games delivery service the way that they have done with music and movies and TV shows ... since you can already sync apps bought through the I-Tunes Store for your phone or I-Pod that capability already potentially exists, they just have to develop it, where the app would run on I-Tunes itself ... I guess I-Tunes could be updated to include a platform-independent IOS virtual machine, which is very easy to do) and save games to the device and play them from the device using the same IOS virtual machine.
That would make Apple TV a competitor with the XBox, Playstation and Nintendo (or more accurately just Nintendo because it would be for casual gamers) consoles. They would succeed where the crowdfunded Android boxes failed, and also succeed where Nintendo and XBox failed (in their attempts to make people center their living rooms around their consoles). It would be both evolutionary (leveraging existing technology into a single combined product) and revolutionary (giving a new, vastly improved gaming experience in a smaller, cheaper console).
It might up the price of an Apple TV to about $125, but it would be well worth it: still much cheaper than everything but the stripped down last generation Wii that Nintendo will allow those who do not want to pay $300 for their Wii U. It would be even better if they were to copy (steal) the Roku Wi-Fi remote concept for the Apple TV remote/controller, so no matter where you point the controller (no worry about IR line of sight nonsense that the Wii and the Kinect impose on you) it will still work, so gaming will be all about response time and pressing the right button, not doing those while continuing to have to point it in the right direction. Roku 3 already has a version of this, and so do the mirroring type games where you use your tablet or phone as the controller, but Apple could do it better - do it RIGHT - with the Apple TV.
Then Apple could sell tens of millions of Apple TVs a quarter - driving Roku out of business altogether and forcing Amazon and Chromecast to play catch up - while watching Samsung and Google write down billions of losses with wearables.
Sound like a plan?
Couldnt have said it any better. I agree that Amazon is going to flop with their first 'streaming stick' and i honestly not sure if it will ever catch on, everyone has an Apple TV or a Chromecast. I have both and the Chromecast NEVER gets used, but yet i use my Apple TV everyday. You need more than just streaming support. Once Apple has inked a deal with providers so they can provide a cable experience in their new box it will be there next home run i believe, all the cable providers interface suck. It will be there next home run unless they release the Watch first.
The smartwatch thing is simple. Instead of making it have the same look and feel of a current generation smart device (which drives up the price while simultaneously making it pretty much useless) instead create and market a device for $200 bucks that is basically an old Blackberry or a cheap Android phone being sold in developing countries.
Trutthfully, it doesn't even have to be a touchscreen device. Or if it absolutely must be, you can run Android Gingerbread or Honeycomb on a very small device. It could have like a 3-3.5 inch screen ... basically you could take a stripped down version of the Samsung Galaxy Music and make it a watch. You would still be able to surf the web, do social networking, play certain games, and have it be a standalone device. Square screen, circle screen, octagonal screen ... doesn't matter. People would buy it.
Google and Samsung are not very bright for not having thought of this already. OR Apple could retrofit their first I-Phone, released in 2007, into a watch and have it on the market by this time next year for about the same amount of money that they charge for an I-Pad. (Don't roll your eyes, you can get an I-Phone 4s for free with a 2 year contract from most carriers.) If they did that, they would CRUSH the wearables market and single-handledly bring watches back into fashion. That would be an immediate home run, not a single.
I wonder how small they could make something as powerful as the original iPhone.
Even then, people are much more sensible nowadays to lag than before. And the first iPhone wasn't very fast relative to current phones.
I still don't see how you could comfortably browse on such a small screen, and you probably couldn't type an email for example. And a lot of people even in developing countries use email as a way of communicating outside of work.
The iPhone had a touchscreen that made the user feel closer to it.
The iWatch will need something like that. Having a personal assistant superior to the current Siri at your wrist would be one way of marketing it. I would actually change the microphone in Siri to a simple smiley face
Personally the idea of slapping a phone onto my wrist isn't appealing to me but I'm one of those people hoping the 5.5" iPhone rumors are true, so I'm obviously biased.
I know what you are saying. If I get a legit smartphone, it will be an Android phablet. But then again, I am an old guy who works in IT, and my purchases are based on utility/practicality, not fashion. But remember: we are talking about a consumer market who makes purchasing decisions largely based on whether it is available in a color that matches their shoes and handbag. And Apple has leveraged that heavily: a huge part of their appeal is that their hardware simply has a better look and feel, even vastly superior to its imitators, with the only thing holding back Apple's market share in many respects being cost.
But hey, I am just someone who personally likes watches. But I haven't regularly worn a watch since getting a mobile phone either. And you are right ... people talking into a phone and putting it into their ear isn't as practical or cool as it looks in James Bond movies. You would still need a bluetooth headset to make it work, and you can have that with a phone, which is a much superior device. So I guess the wearables market doesn't have the potential that I hope. A niche market for the upscale exercise crowd I guess. And even the vast majority of the gadgets aimed at that market bombs.
For the millionth time, Apple has launched a bunch of products that did not pan out either. They have had a good run starting with the I-Pod, other devices that built on the I-Pod (I-Phone and I-Pad) as well as with Mac OS X. But get this.
1. Apple has not come out with a new product that is not an iteration of the I-Pod. (I-Phone = I-Pod touch + telephone, I-Pad = large I-Pod touch, App Store = ITunes Store, etc.) Until they do, analysts are going to prefer companies that are trying new things, or at least trying new ways to achieve what Apple and other companies have done. Android (a free, open source OS) is new, even if it is often (but not always) used to emulate Apple products. Social networking is new, or at least newer than Apple's I-line. ChromeOS, FirefoxOS? New. Chromecast and Amazon's new offering? New, or newer than Apple TV. Wearables? New, and who knows it may actually catch on in a year or 3 like it took the I-Pod, I-Phone and I-Pad to. Maybe it just needs someone to come out with a practical device, and a Chinese chip manufacturer (the same one behind the $100 Android tablets that are, well better than the other Chinese Android tablets) that may make them possible: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2138640/newton-is-the-first-mipsbased-minicomputer-for-wearables.html
I still say that the ticket is a standalone smart watch that doesn't need to be tethered to a phone. It is already technologically feasible, even if at this point it is only capable of a very cheap or very early smart phone. Firefox should come out with $200 standalone smart watches for this market instead of $25 smart phones for developing markets, for instance.
2. You guys need to get your gripes consistent. First, you bash other companies for ripping off Apple (even when they haven't ripped off Apple you guys still claim that they have, like DED did yesterday). Then you guys bash other companies for trying to innovate. Again, what is it that you want? For Apple to be the only technology company on the planet?
Your first point is total wrong. First of all, the iPhone was never
For the millionth time, Apple has launched a bunch of products that did not pan out either. They have had a good run starting with the I-Pod, other devices that built on the I-Pod (I-Phone and I-Pad) as well as with Mac OS X. But get this.
1. Apple has not come out with a new product that is not an iteration of the I-Pod. (I-Phone = I-Pod touch + telephone, I-Pad = large I-Pod touch, App Store = ITunes Store, etc.) Until they do, analysts are going to prefer companies that are trying new things, or at least trying new ways to achieve what Apple and other companies have done. Android (a free, open source OS) is new, even if it is often (but not always) used to emulate Apple products. Social networking is new, or at least newer than Apple's I-line. ChromeOS, FirefoxOS? New. Chromecast and Amazon's new offering? New, or newer than Apple TV. Wearables? New, and who knows it may actually catch on in a year or 3 like it took the I-Pod, I-Phone and I-Pad to. Maybe it just needs someone to come out with a practical device, and a Chinese chip manufacturer (the same one behind the $100 Android tablets that are, well better than the other Chinese Android tablets) that may make them possible: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2138640/newton-is-the-first-mipsbased-minicomputer-for-wearables.html
I still say that the ticket is a standalone smart watch that doesn't need to be tethered to a phone. It is already technologically feasible, even if at this point it is only capable of a very cheap or very early smart phone. Firefox should come out with $200 standalone smart watches for this market instead of $25 smart phones for developing markets, for instance.
2. You guys need to get your gripes consistent. First, you bash other companies for ripping off Apple (even when they haven't ripped off Apple you guys still claim that they have, like DED did yesterday). Then you guys bash other companies for trying to innovate. Again, what is it that you want? For Apple to be the only technology company on the planet?
Your first point is total wrong. The iPhone line did not evolve from the iPod line at all. It went iPod to mini to nano to video. The iPhone line
The smartwatch thing is simple. Instead of making it have the same look and feel of a current generation smart device (which drives up the price while simultaneously making it pretty much useless) instead create and market a device for $200 bucks that is basically an old Blackberry or a cheap Android phone being sold in developing countries.
Trutthfully, it doesn't even have to be a touchscreen device. Or if it absolutely must be, you can run Android Gingerbread or Honeycomb on a very small device. It could have like a 3-3.5 inch screen ... basically you could take a stripped down version of the Samsung Galaxy Music and make it a watch. You would still be able to surf the web, do social networking, play certain games, and have it be a standalone device. Square screen, circle screen, octagonal screen ... doesn't matter. People would buy it.
Google and Samsung are not very bright for not having thought of this already. OR Apple could retrofit their first I-Phone, released in 2007, into a watch and have it on the market by this time next year for about the same amount of money that they charge for an I-Pad. (Don't roll your eyes, you can get an I-Phone 4s for free with a 2 year contract from most carriers.) If they did that, they would CRUSH the wearables market and single-handledly bring watches back into fashion. That would be an immediate home run, not a single.
The smartwatch thing is simple. Instead of making it have the same look and feel of a current generation smart device (which drives up the price while simultaneously making it pretty much useless) instead create and market a device for $200 bucks that is basically an old Blackberry or a cheap Android phone being sold in developing countries.
Trutthfully, it doesn't even have to be a touchscreen device. Or if it absolutely must be, you can run Android Gingerbread or Honeycomb on a very small device. It could have like a 3-3.5 inch screen ... basically you could take a stripped down version of the Samsung Galaxy Music and make it a watch. You would still be able to surf the web, do social networking, play certain games, and have it be a standalone device. Square screen, circle screen, octagonal screen ... doesn't matter. People would buy it.
Google and Samsung are not very bright for not having thought of this already. OR Apple could retrofit their first I-Phone, released in 2007, into a watch and have it on the market by this time next year for about the same amount of money that they charge for an I-Pad. (Don't roll your eyes, you can get an I-Phone 4s for free with a 2 year contract from most carriers.) If they did that, they would CRUSH the wearables market and single-handledly bring watches back into fashion. That would be an immediate home run, not a single.
The smartwatch thing is simple. Instead of making it have the same look and feel of a current generation smart device (which drives up the price while simultaneously making it pretty much useless) instead create and market a device for $200 bucks that is basically an old Blackberry or a cheap Android phone being sold in developing countries.
Trutthfully, it doesn't even have to be a touchscreen device. Or if it absolutely must be, you can run Android Gingerbread or Honeycomb on a very small device. It could have like a 3-3.5 inch screen ... basically you could take a stripped down version of the Samsung Galaxy Music and make it a watch. You would still be able to surf the web, do social networking, play certain games, and have it be a standalone device. Square screen, circle screen, octagonal screen ... doesn't matter. People would buy it.
Google and Samsung are not very bright for not having thought of this already. OR Apple could retrofit their first I-Phone, released in 2007, into a watch and have it on the market by this time next year for about the same amount of money that they charge for an I-Pad. (Don't roll your eyes, you can get an I-Phone 4s for free with a 2 year contract from most carriers.) If they did that, they would CRUSH the wearables market and single-handledly bring watches back into fashion. That would be an immediate home run, not a single.
Really? You want a device with 3-3.5 inch screen AND physical input strapped to your wrist? So basically you want a pre iphone Blackberry with a strap. Sorry, that is a terrible idea.
Couldnt have said it any better. I agree that Amazon is going to flop with their first 'streaming stick' and i honestly not sure if it will ever catch on, everyone has an Apple TV or a Chromecast. I have both and the Chromecast NEVER gets used, but yet i use my Apple TV everyday. You need more than just streaming support. Once Apple has inked a deal with providers so they can provide a cable experience in their new box it will be there next home run i believe, all the cable providers interface suck. It will be there next home run unless they release the Watch first.
I hope Amazon's stick doesn't flop because I plan to buy it :-). I already have a ton of apps bought through their Kindle store (don't ask ... I was playing around with a cheap Chinese tablet that I bought for programming purposes, turned out it didn't have Google Play) that are waiting for just such a device. I bought an Apple TV but returned it because A) AirPlay didn't work with my last generation I-Pod Touch and it did not have Amazon Prime. (Yes, there are people out there capable of appreciating Apple, Android AND Windows products ... I personally get whatever gets the job done that I am willing to pay for. Thinking of getting the latest I-Pad as a Christmas present for the wife as her 3 year old Android tablet cannot play the latest, best apps. She would LOVE the Office for Android on it and likely never use her Windows laptop again.)
But Apple is already best suited to come out with a streaming box that is capable of fully maximizing its potential just by leveraging what is already in its ecosystem. Really, all they need to do is marry the existing Apple TV and I-Pod touch functionality and they have a grand slam.
Really? You want a device with 3-3.5 inch screen AND physical input strapped to your wrist? So basically you want a pre iphone Blackberry with a strap. Sorry, that is a terrible idea.
Yeah, I agree. And I still maintain that the I-Phone, I-Pad and I-Pod Touch are devices that came from the same line of thinking, the same "thought base" even if not the same hardware and software base. You can have the same general idea and implement it with radically different technology. Hence, iterations of the same product instead of any of them being radically new technology.
2. I must have missed it where Google threw billions at a startup for Google Glass, Android and ChromeOS/ChromeBox or Samsung did the same with Tizen and smart watches.
Android was a stolen product and was developed as an OS for Danger and Kin. It became its own company, Android Inc WHICH WAS BOUGHT BY GOOGLE.
ChromeOS was Chromium OS which was open source. Most of the good stuff was added by every day non Google coders like Hexxeh. Google then took all of the open source stuff and made ChromeOs.
Google Glass has countless prior art, there is nothing special there.
Samsung had to do Tizen to get away from Android.
Samsung wouldn't have done a smart watch if rumours of Apple doing theirs hadn't come out.
I would already have an android phablet if i didn't hate android. I tried a motorola phone a few years ago and couldn't stand it after two weeks. The interface is much more polished for apple and so I've stuck with them entirely for the software (and the seamless synchronization with my mac), but that hasn't made me want a truly bigger screen any less. I also like to wear a decent watch once in a while (I have a Citizen eco-drive) but that just doesn't get used nearly as much since I got my first iPhone back in '09. I tried going with the iPad mini to satisfy my need for a bigger screen but the truth is I don't want two devices to take with me (the iPad stays home, where I once again wouldn't mind a bigger screen) so once again, bigger phone. I've gotten back into fitness more as of late but even with me going to the gym 5 times a week, I don't see myself ever getting a fit bit or anything like that (I see my friends getting them but I haven't gotten a logical explanation from anyone as to why they actually need/want it). The most I do is use my phone for music and if I go for a run outside (vs treadmill) then I'll use mapmyrun. So once again, I just don't get what the point is of the wearable devices. I don't need to see my stats in excruciating detail.... I keep a little log of how much I lift but that requires a 2 dollar notepad and a pen... not a 100-200 dollar gadget. I'm not that old (30s) and I do love tech (professionally in life science R&D though) but as of late I really don't get a lot of what's going on in Silicone Valley in general. It seems like they're expecting every little thing to be a paradigm shift and game changer so I feel like there is a lot of hype and money being thrown around to get the next big thing without anyone stopping to ask whether or not something is actually addressing a need. All that said, a streamlined, cost-effective device with a great UI could be of great use in a hospital setting, and with the mess that is electronic medical records, Apples elegance could be a huge boon in that market (and it's a HUGE $$$$ market).
Samsung wouldn't have done a smart watch if rumours of Apple doing theirs hadn't come out.
It's more like Samsung saw a faster path to market and rode that horse until the foal in the barn was old enough to ride.
Tizen is from the LiMo project which was created (just) before the iPhone was introduced, and before you could get Android from Google. It was more an effort to avoid licensing costs of WiMo and Nokia/Symbian.
Samsung worked on LiMo for a while, but committed to Android 18 months later (Nov 2007), and put LiMo/Tizen on hold until 2011.
Really? You want a device with 3-3.5 inch screen AND physical input strapped to your wrist? So basically you want a pre iphone Blackberry with a strap. Sorry, that is a terrible idea.
I think the key here is ecosystem. The problem in the past is that your watch, pda, mp3, phone, laptop, and TV SetTop Box desktop were all separate ecosystems.
I'd rather have countless specialized workers all part of the same 'collective' than trying to engineer integration between 5-10 different systems.
Even if they didn't evolve from the same HW/SW design base, their integration frameworks are seamlessly integrated.
ITMS. AppleID. Secure Enclave. AppStore. iCloud. iWork. A heckuva lot more important than the A7 chip or gorilla glass or AAC vs MP3 (and they are important).
That's why an iPod and an iPhone and AppleTV and Mac iTunes work well together, and why MS has failed so badly in the consumer market (I'm a man of a certain age, where you ability to integrate your work environment through PERL, batch scripts, helper apps, DCL, TCL, was a mark of distinction... now it's poor use of a stubborn person's time.)
Again, alluding to the baseball analogy (I know I said I wouldn't), I'd rather have 12 utility players and one or 2 big hitters who 'know how to play the game as a team', than 12 big hitters who take 3 big cuts every at bat, because 'home runs' are the only thing that is important.
Apple's next product? They desperately need to focus on substantially improving if not perfecting the software products and processes they do have.
iBooks is really awful. The syncing between iBooks on iOS and the cloud (ibooks on the mac) performs poorly. One cannot change the info about the iBooks, especially the PDFs one might import. In iBooks (and Kindle and Nook, etc) one cannot have multiple documents (books) open at the same time.
Apple's iWork, iBooks Author and ePub do not support math and science symbols. Needs to get done.
iBooks does not support highlighting or placing notes in imported PDF documents. Needs to.
iBooks does not support support the kind of note taking that is required for "digesting" book content.
Comments
Perfectly reasonable way to think. The smartwatch may be very good, but maybe not many people will be interested in it. I might be interested, but I'd be very surprised if it was as big as the iPhone or iPad. And if they sell well without changing everything again, it will be fine for sure. But anti-Apple pundits will use it as an excuse to say that Apple isn't the magical company it was supposed to be before.
The smartwatch thing is simple. Instead of making it have the same look and feel of a current generation smart device (which drives up the price while simultaneously making it pretty much useless) instead create and market a device for $200 bucks that is basically an old Blackberry or a cheap Android phone being sold in developing countries.
Trutthfully, it doesn't even have to be a touchscreen device. Or if it absolutely must be, you can run Android Gingerbread or Honeycomb on a very small device. It could have like a 3-3.5 inch screen ... basically you could take a stripped down version of the Samsung Galaxy Music and make it a watch. You would still be able to surf the web, do social networking, play certain games, and have it be a standalone device. Square screen, circle screen, octagonal screen ... doesn't matter. People would buy it.
Google and Samsung are not very bright for not having thought of this already. OR Apple could retrofit their first I-Phone, released in 2007, into a watch and have it on the market by this time next year for about the same amount of money that they charge for an I-Pad. (Don't roll your eyes, you can get an I-Phone 4s for free with a 2 year contract from most carriers.) If they did that, they would CRUSH the wearables market and single-handledly bring watches back into fashion. That would be an immediate home run, not a single.
Throwing billions at start up companies is not "innovating."
1. Companies do it all the time, including Apple.
2. I must have missed it where Google threw billions at a startup for Google Glass, Android and ChromeOS/ChromeBox or Samsung did the same with Tizen and smart watches.
I don't really see a big market for the iwatch with individuals, however all of the rumors about health related sensors make me think there maybe a huge market in the medical field. If this is really aimed at that field then the pricing maybe very different as well (the cost of a typical apple product is very low in medical device" terms).
I don't really see a big market for the iwatch with individuals, however all of the rumors about health related sensors make me think there maybe a huge market in the medical field. If this is really aimed at that field then the pricing maybe very different as well (the cost of a typical apple product is very low in medical device" terms).
That is because you are thinking of it as a watch. Think of it is a cool looking or fashionable phone that you can strap on your wrist with a cool looking leather or metal band (if the smartwatch/smartphone case market is so huge, imagine the smart watch strap market!), and - assuming that it is an Android or FirefoxOS or Canonical Ubuntu device - much cheaper than what most smartphones cost.
Again, you could put Gingerbread on a watch-sized phone already. You could put the 1st generation or second generation IOS on a watch-sized phone.
No way will a single be good enough for Wall Street. They're looking for a home run and the stock will take a HUGE hit if it's not. A single will also be confirmation that Apple has lost its mojo.
I doubt Apple really cares about the stock price. They really never have, so why start now? When they start focusing on whats going to make their stock price raise, then its time to sell your stock and start looking elsewhere for products.
I'm sure investors think differently, but as far as Apple is concerned, I don't think its a major concern with releasing new products. If Apple does what Apple does best, the stock price will take care of itself.
I guess i can see how that could grab some more market share (at least for those people who use bluetooth), but in terms of profit, I think the medical side shouldn't be overlooked. Perhaps they'll come out with a consumer device first and then a more sensor-rich device for the medical community (and with a very different price tag). Personally the idea of slapping a phone onto my wrist isn't appealing to me but I'm one of those people hoping the 5.5" iPhone rumors are true, so I'm obviously biased.
def: "In probability theory and statistics, Bayes' theorem (alternatively Bayes' law or Bayes' rule) is a result that is of importance in the mathematical manipulation of conditional probabilities. It is a result that derives from the more basicaxioms of probability.
...
Although Bayes theorem is commonly used to determine the probability of an event occurring, it can also be applied to verify someones credibility as a prognosticator. Many pundits claim to be able to predict the outcome of an event; political elections, trials, the weather and even sporting events."
When will analysts finally understand that Apple doesn't work the way other companies work or like anything they supposedly learned in school. If I used Bayes' theorem on analysts I'd say there's a huge statistical certainty that 99% of them will be wrong in everything they guess at. In order to provide a probable theory, these analysts actually need to understand what Apple is doing and that's the first thing they have no grasp of and never will.
Apple products (the ones that succeed anyway) generally start out as singles and wind up as outside the park grand slams. No one knew that the I-Pod would utterly dominate the MP3 player market when it came out. Before the I-Pod, companies were making junk like MP3 player boom boxes, and Sony had an MP3 player version of their Walkman. Then within a few years of coming out with the Shuffle and I-Tunes for Windows ... that whole market was gone to Apple.
Similarly, the I-Pod and the I-Pad were mocked, derided devices initially that took a couple of years to catch on. So the chances are that even if Apple comes out with a home run, we won't know it for awhile. For all we know, their home run might be an Apple TV upgrade that turns it into a standalone gaming console that doesn't need AirPlay mirroring from a game that is really being played on an I-Pad or I-Pod Touch. The Roku 3 has gaming support but it stinks (Angry Birds is the only game and you have to use the remote as a controller). Chromecast developers are working on gaming applications, but it is very limited right now. The various Android game consoles have all failed, with the Ouya team stating that they are transitioning from consoles towards being a gaming as a service cloud platform (but they have no partners lined up to distribute their content, and not much in the way of developers lined up either). Amazon is rumored to introduce a dongle with streaming games capability today, but that effort has been so much start/stop/delay/back to the drawing board that it may not be until the second generation gets it right.
But think about it: Apple TV with the new A7 chip that could support a variety of controllers (or use the remote as a controller if you do not want to buy one) with the ability to both stream games (from a variety of sources, such as a cloud service or from your Mac or PC, so they could turn I-Tunes into a games delivery service the way that they have done with music and movies and TV shows ... since you can already sync apps bought through the I-Tunes Store for your phone or I-Pod that capability already potentially exists, they just have to develop it, where the app would run on I-Tunes itself ... I guess I-Tunes could be updated to include a platform-independent IOS virtual machine, which is very easy to do) and save games to the device and play them from the device using the same IOS virtual machine.
That would make Apple TV a competitor with the XBox, Playstation and Nintendo (or more accurately just Nintendo because it would be for casual gamers) consoles. They would succeed where the crowdfunded Android boxes failed, and also succeed where Nintendo and XBox failed (in their attempts to make people center their living rooms around their consoles). It would be both evolutionary (leveraging existing technology into a single combined product) and revolutionary (giving a new, vastly improved gaming experience in a smaller, cheaper console).
It might up the price of an Apple TV to about $125, but it would be well worth it: still much cheaper than everything but the stripped down last generation Wii that Nintendo will allow those who do not want to pay $300 for their Wii U. It would be even better if they were to copy (steal) the Roku Wi-Fi remote concept for the Apple TV remote/controller, so no matter where you point the controller (no worry about IR line of sight nonsense that the Wii and the Kinect impose on you) it will still work, so gaming will be all about response time and pressing the right button, not doing those while continuing to have to point it in the right direction. Roku 3 already has a version of this, and so do the mirroring type games where you use your tablet or phone as the controller, but Apple could do it better - do it RIGHT - with the Apple TV.
Then Apple could sell tens of millions of Apple TVs a quarter - driving Roku out of business altogether and forcing Amazon and Chromecast to play catch up - while watching Samsung and Google write down billions of losses with wearables.
Sound like a plan?
Couldnt have said it any better. I agree that Amazon is going to flop with their first 'streaming stick' and i honestly not sure if it will ever catch on, everyone has an Apple TV or a Chromecast. I have both and the Chromecast NEVER gets used, but yet i use my Apple TV everyday. You need more than just streaming support. Once Apple has inked a deal with providers so they can provide a cable experience in their new box it will be there next home run i believe, all the cable providers interface suck. It will be there next home run unless they release the Watch first.
The smartwatch thing is simple. Instead of making it have the same look and feel of a current generation smart device (which drives up the price while simultaneously making it pretty much useless) instead create and market a device for $200 bucks that is basically an old Blackberry or a cheap Android phone being sold in developing countries.
Trutthfully, it doesn't even have to be a touchscreen device. Or if it absolutely must be, you can run Android Gingerbread or Honeycomb on a very small device. It could have like a 3-3.5 inch screen ... basically you could take a stripped down version of the Samsung Galaxy Music and make it a watch. You would still be able to surf the web, do social networking, play certain games, and have it be a standalone device. Square screen, circle screen, octagonal screen ... doesn't matter. People would buy it.
Google and Samsung are not very bright for not having thought of this already. OR Apple could retrofit their first I-Phone, released in 2007, into a watch and have it on the market by this time next year for about the same amount of money that they charge for an I-Pad. (Don't roll your eyes, you can get an I-Phone 4s for free with a 2 year contract from most carriers.) If they did that, they would CRUSH the wearables market and single-handledly bring watches back into fashion. That would be an immediate home run, not a single.
I wonder how small they could make something as powerful as the original iPhone.
Even then, people are much more sensible nowadays to lag than before. And the first iPhone wasn't very fast relative to current phones.
I still don't see how you could comfortably browse on such a small screen, and you probably couldn't type an email for example. And a lot of people even in developing countries use email as a way of communicating outside of work.
The iPhone had a touchscreen that made the user feel closer to it.
The iWatch will need something like that. Having a personal assistant superior to the current Siri at your wrist would be one way of marketing it. I would actually change the microphone in Siri to a simple smiley face
Personally the idea of slapping a phone onto my wrist isn't appealing to me but I'm one of those people hoping the 5.5" iPhone rumors are true, so I'm obviously biased.
I know what you are saying. If I get a legit smartphone, it will be an Android phablet. But then again, I am an old guy who works in IT, and my purchases are based on utility/practicality, not fashion. But remember: we are talking about a consumer market who makes purchasing decisions largely based on whether it is available in a color that matches their shoes and handbag. And Apple has leveraged that heavily: a huge part of their appeal is that their hardware simply has a better look and feel, even vastly superior to its imitators, with the only thing holding back Apple's market share in many respects being cost.
But hey, I am just someone who personally likes watches. But I haven't regularly worn a watch since getting a mobile phone either. And you are right ... people talking into a phone and putting it into their ear isn't as practical or cool as it looks in James Bond movies. You would still need a bluetooth headset to make it work, and you can have that with a phone, which is a much superior device. So I guess the wearables market doesn't have the potential that I hope. A niche market for the upscale exercise crowd I guess. And even the vast majority of the gadgets aimed at that market bombs.
Your first point is total wrong. First of all, the iPhone was never
Your first point is total wrong. The iPhone line did not evolve from the iPod line at all. It went iPod to mini to nano to video. The iPhone line
Really? You want a device with 3-3.5 inch screen AND physical input strapped to your wrist? So basically you want a pre iphone Blackberry with a strap. Sorry, that is a terrible idea.
Couldnt have said it any better. I agree that Amazon is going to flop with their first 'streaming stick' and i honestly not sure if it will ever catch on, everyone has an Apple TV or a Chromecast. I have both and the Chromecast NEVER gets used, but yet i use my Apple TV everyday. You need more than just streaming support. Once Apple has inked a deal with providers so they can provide a cable experience in their new box it will be there next home run i believe, all the cable providers interface suck. It will be there next home run unless they release the Watch first.
I hope Amazon's stick doesn't flop because I plan to buy it :-). I already have a ton of apps bought through their Kindle store (don't ask ... I was playing around with a cheap Chinese tablet that I bought for programming purposes, turned out it didn't have Google Play) that are waiting for just such a device. I bought an Apple TV but returned it because A) AirPlay didn't work with my last generation I-Pod Touch and
it did not have Amazon Prime. (Yes, there are people out there capable of appreciating Apple, Android AND Windows products ... I personally get whatever gets the job done that I am willing to pay for. Thinking of getting the latest I-Pad as a Christmas present for the wife as her 3 year old Android tablet cannot play the latest, best apps. She would LOVE the Office for Android on it and likely never use her Windows laptop again.)
But Apple is already best suited to come out with a streaming box that is capable of fully maximizing its potential just by leveraging what is already in its ecosystem. Really, all they need to do is marry the existing Apple TV and I-Pod touch functionality and they have a grand slam.
Really? You want a device with 3-3.5 inch screen AND physical input strapped to your wrist? So basically you want a pre iphone Blackberry with a strap. Sorry, that is a terrible idea.
Yeah, I agree. And I still maintain that the I-Phone, I-Pad and I-Pod Touch are devices that came from the same line of thinking, the same "thought base" even if not the same hardware and software base. You can have the same general idea and implement it with radically different technology. Hence, iterations of the same product instead of any of them being radically new technology.
1. Companies do it all the time, including Apple.
2. I must have missed it where Google threw billions at a startup for Google Glass, Android and ChromeOS/ChromeBox or Samsung did the same with Tizen and smart watches.
Android was a stolen product and was developed as an OS for Danger and Kin. It became its own company, Android Inc WHICH WAS BOUGHT BY GOOGLE.
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-08-16/google-buys-android-for-its-mobile-arsenal
ChromeOS was Chromium OS which was open source. Most of the good stuff was added by every day non Google coders like Hexxeh. Google then took all of the open source stuff and made ChromeOs.
Google Glass has countless prior art, there is nothing special there.
Samsung had to do Tizen to get away from Android.
Samsung wouldn't have done a smart watch if rumours of Apple doing theirs hadn't come out.
I would already have an android phablet if i didn't hate android. I tried a motorola phone a few years ago and couldn't stand it after two weeks. The interface is much more polished for apple and so I've stuck with them entirely for the software (and the seamless synchronization with my mac), but that hasn't made me want a truly bigger screen any less. I also like to wear a decent watch once in a while (I have a Citizen eco-drive) but that just doesn't get used nearly as much since I got my first iPhone back in '09. I tried going with the iPad mini to satisfy my need for a bigger screen but the truth is I don't want two devices to take with me (the iPad stays home, where I once again wouldn't mind a bigger screen) so once again, bigger phone. I've gotten back into fitness more as of late but even with me going to the gym 5 times a week, I don't see myself ever getting a fit bit or anything like that (I see my friends getting them but I haven't gotten a logical explanation from anyone as to why they actually need/want it). The most I do is use my phone for music and if I go for a run outside (vs treadmill) then I'll use mapmyrun. So once again, I just don't get what the point is of the wearable devices. I don't need to see my stats in excruciating detail.... I keep a little log of how much I lift but that requires a 2 dollar notepad and a pen... not a 100-200 dollar gadget. I'm not that old (30s) and I do love tech (professionally in life science R&D though) but as of late I really don't get a lot of what's going on in Silicone Valley in general. It seems like they're expecting every little thing to be a paradigm shift and game changer so I feel like there is a lot of hype and money being thrown around to get the next big thing without anyone stopping to ask whether or not something is actually addressing a need. All that said, a streamlined, cost-effective device with a great UI could be of great use in a hospital setting, and with the mess that is electronic medical records, Apples elegance could be a huge boon in that market (and it's a HUGE $$$$ market).
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Samsung had to do Tizen to get away from Android.
Samsung wouldn't have done a smart watch if rumours of Apple doing theirs hadn't come out.
It's more like Samsung saw a faster path to market and rode that horse until the foal in the barn was old enough to ride.
Tizen is from the LiMo project which was created (just) before the iPhone was introduced, and before you could get Android from Google. It was more an effort to avoid licensing costs of WiMo and Nokia/Symbian.
Samsung worked on LiMo for a while, but committed to Android 18 months later (Nov 2007), and put LiMo/Tizen on hold until 2011.
Really? You want a device with 3-3.5 inch screen AND physical input strapped to your wrist? So basically you want a pre iphone Blackberry with a strap. Sorry, that is a terrible idea.
I think the key here is ecosystem. The problem in the past is that your watch, pda, mp3, phone, laptop, and TV SetTop Box desktop were all separate ecosystems.
I'd rather have countless specialized workers all part of the same 'collective' than trying to engineer integration between 5-10 different systems.
Even if they didn't evolve from the same HW/SW design base, their integration frameworks are seamlessly integrated.
ITMS. AppleID. Secure Enclave. AppStore. iCloud. iWork. A heckuva lot more important than the A7 chip or gorilla glass or AAC vs MP3 (and they are important).
That's why an iPod and an iPhone and AppleTV and Mac iTunes work well together, and why MS has failed so badly in the consumer market (I'm a man of a certain age, where you ability to integrate your work environment through PERL, batch scripts, helper apps, DCL, TCL, was a mark of distinction... now it's poor use of a stubborn person's time.)
Again, alluding to the baseball analogy (I know I said I wouldn't), I'd rather have 12 utility players and one or 2 big hitters who 'know how to play the game as a team', than 12 big hitters who take 3 big cuts every at bat, because 'home runs' are the only thing that is important.
iBooks is really awful. The syncing between iBooks on iOS and the cloud (ibooks on the mac) performs poorly. One cannot change the info about the iBooks, especially the PDFs one might import. In iBooks (and Kindle and Nook, etc) one cannot have multiple documents (books) open at the same time.
Apple's iWork, iBooks Author and ePub do not support math and science symbols. Needs to get done.
iBooks does not support highlighting or placing notes in imported PDF documents. Needs to.
iBooks does not support support the kind of note taking that is required for "digesting" book content.