Who in their right mind would buy a Vertu? Smart phones are all about ecosystem and functionality.
What could be more functional than a phone that comes with an unlimited human based Siri, that can obtain almost anything for you, as well as make reservations, plan a trip, etc.?
I don't want to sound callous about the lost jobs but... good. This kind of luxury disgust me. The entire point seems to be elitism and wastefulness. It's antisocial.
I'm assuming that the 200 workers can be hired on elsewhere in a similar industry. We know the executives will float away on a golden parachute, so the bigger ethical concern in my mind is HOW they sever the jobs.
Your view is elitist too. Elitist doesn’t mean people with money, who spend it. It means people who think they are better than someone else because of their own life choices. Sometimes those life choices are made because they are not as successful as they think they deserve to be, and so they dump on these who are successful.
Apple's solid gold effort with the watch collapsed because it did not design for perpetual upgradeability of the watch case. Very few people will want to buy a $10K bauble if it's useless after a few years.
What they could have done was fix the design hard points as dictated by the case so that the screen, back cover, and internal components of future versions will fit the gold cases. Luxury watches need to be shipped to a service center for an overhaul every 3-4 (?) years to stay on tip-top shape. And it ain't a low cost service. Apple could have had a similar scheme for the gold Apple Watch and have the overhaul done by the Genius Bar. (And price it so that it only makes sense for gold watches.)
But the loss of design flexibility resulting from fixing the watch's hard points (location of buttons and crown, shape of screen and back cover, internal component dimensions, etc.) into perpetuity was just not something Apple was willing to commit to. Which in the high tech business is very understandable.
No, no, no. The gold watch didnt "collapse" at all. Cook said very clearly in the launch event -- this was a short-term, limited edition thing. It got maybe two-sentences, that was it. There's no reason to believe they planned on keeping it going since he said something specifically to the contrary at launch. It wasn't designed for upgrades or for practical people, it was designed for those so rich they don't care. Believe it or not but 10 grand is soda money to some people. In addition it generated major attention to the fledgling product, so I'm sure it served its purpose. (I also personally consider if it was a passion project for Ive, both a watch and materials guy).
I had the impression that Apple was giving the gold watch away to celebrities just to get free publicity and not that many were sold.
No wonder Vertu went out of business. I mean c'mon, that phone looks like a thing someone would have dreamed up in 1994 as a future of cellphones. Just like watching a scifi-show from the 60's or 70's where the future looks like the 80's. 🙈😆
Vertu wasn’t a company that just sold crazy expensive mid level phones in extremely expensive cases. To be fair, it was more than that. The phones themselves were over the top, to be sure, but the point was also the concierge service it had. You could get almost everything through that. I’m not going to try to explain it here, but it was a major convenience for those who could afford it. Something like Siri, but with actual people doing the work. Was it worth it? I guess for those who could afford it, it was. But technology has bypassed a lot of this. And the phones were well behind everything else in technology.
Vertu wasn’t a company that just sold crazy expensive mid level phones in extremely expensive cases. To be fair, it was more than that. The phones themselves were over the top, to be sure, but the point was also the concierge service it had. You could get almost everything through that. I’m not going to try to explain it here, but it was a major convenience for those who could afford it. Something like Siri, but with actual people doing the work. Was it worth it? I guess for those who could afford it, it was. But technology has bypassed a lot of this. And the phones were well behind everything else in technology.
Why not just post a link to one of the innumerable reviews of the concierge service?
Long story short, it's effectively no different than any of the other personal concierge service offered with certain automobiles, credit cards, yachts, and other items for those with deep pockets, but Vertu was nice because it was a dedicated button on the device so you didn't have to add the number, save it as a favorite, or anything else that may seem irksome for the person who doesn't want to deal with setting up gadgets, which is more common with older people who are the ones that are more likely to have a higher disposable income.
The fee was quite reasonable, too, at just a few grand a year. With that concierge service you were also given access to things that would be much harder to come by if not for Vertu's connections if you were merely wealthy but not famous. This makes these services useful today.
when I bought the mechanical watches I have, I thought of the effort and skills that went into designing and making them. I thought of the amazing precision of the hands of those watchmakers. I thought of the complexity of the movements, and how incredible it was that such things could be made, and actually work so reliably. I thought of the reputations of those manufacturers, and how they invented such delicate devices to overcome the inherent obstacles to keeping time in a small mechanical device subject to the daily swings and bangs they receive. I thought of the beauty of the engraving on the usually hidden movements, or of the wonderful designs of the cases.
This is why mechanical watches aren't really going anywhere. Quartz watches have totally outclassed them in every conceivable metric for decades. Today, people buy mechanical watches as works of art which you can wear. They are among the pinnacles of precision we as a species have attained.
I am disappointed to see that Vertu is shutting down. While I'm not a fan of the software they used (either Android or Symbian), they made some devices which appeal to that "How amazing could we make this with unrestricted budget?" part of my brain. I mean, they used synthetic sapphire bearings for the buttons! Ceramics and steel and more sapphire all over the surface. They're ridiculously impractical, but extremely interesting from an engineering perspective.
The Apple Watch is considerably more precise at telling time than any mechanical watch could ever be without it also being periodically synced with atomic clocks. As for "works of art," aesthetics are one thing, but wearing a watch as jewelry over utility is the very definition of form over function.
Vertu dies because people with unlimited budgets bought iPhones. If you wanted to take it further you could get your iPhone plated in some other metal or get diamond glued to it to make it ugly as fuck, if that's your desire, but you'd still get to use an iPhone because utility matters when it coms to CE.
Well, the entire purpose of a watch, as Cartier first created it, was all about utility. But as with anything else, utility is never enough. If you’re going to wear something on your wrist, shouldn’t it look good too?
i don’t see the purpose of people criticizing because of cost, or looks, or lack of some feature, or other. A lot of people, likely most of them for the foreseeable future, see no advantage to a smart watch, and that’s great. I have no problem with that. But sometimes, the exact time is of no importance. Does it really matter if my watch is off by several seconds a week, or month? Not really.
i didn’t buy my Apple Watch for the exact time.
First you write, "when I bought the mechanical watches I have, I thought of the effort and skills that went into designing and making them. I thought of the amazing precision of the hands of those watchmakers," and then you scoff at precision when I bring it up with the Apple Watch. It's great that you like to wear mechanical watches but don't talk about precision and then pooh-pooh the Apple Watch when it's mentioned that it's even more precise. Just say you like archaic tech for his aesthetic appeal. There's nothing wrong with a guy liking jewelry.
Vertu wasn’t a company that just sold crazy expensive mid level phones in extremely expensive cases. To be fair, it was more than that. The phones themselves were over the top, to be sure, but the point was also the concierge service it had. You could get almost everything through that. I’m not going to try to explain it here, but it was a major convenience for those who could afford it. Something like Siri, but with actual people doing the work. Was it worth it? I guess for those who could afford it, it was. But technology has bypassed a lot of this. And the phones were well behind everything else in technology.
Why not just post a link to one of the innumerable reviews of the concierge service?
Long story short, it's effectively no different than any of the other personal concierge service offered with certain automobiles, credit cards, yachts, and other items for those with deep pockets, but Vertu was nice because it was a dedicated button on the device so you didn't have to add the number, save it as a favorite, or anything else that may seem irksome for the person who doesn't want to deal with setting up gadgets, which is more common with older people who are the ones that are more likely to have a higher disposable income.
The fee was quite reasonable, too, at just a few grand a year. With that concierge service you were also given access to things that would be much harder to come by if not for Vertu's connections if you were merely wealthy but not famous. This makes these services useful today.
It was something that was useful to people. You couldn’t use the automobile services very well. Many weren’t full service, just offering directions, hotel bookings, etc.
what’s interesting about all of these services is that many of the people who had access also had real personal assistants. You know, the flesh and blood type.
when I bought the mechanical watches I have, I thought of the effort and skills that went into designing and making them. I thought of the amazing precision of the hands of those watchmakers. I thought of the complexity of the movements, and how incredible it was that such things could be made, and actually work so reliably. I thought of the reputations of those manufacturers, and how they invented such delicate devices to overcome the inherent obstacles to keeping time in a small mechanical device subject to the daily swings and bangs they receive. I thought of the beauty of the engraving on the usually hidden movements, or of the wonderful designs of the cases.
This is why mechanical watches aren't really going anywhere. Quartz watches have totally outclassed them in every conceivable metric for decades. Today, people buy mechanical watches as works of art which you can wear. They are among the pinnacles of precision we as a species have attained.
I am disappointed to see that Vertu is shutting down. While I'm not a fan of the software they used (either Android or Symbian), they made some devices which appeal to that "How amazing could we make this with unrestricted budget?" part of my brain. I mean, they used synthetic sapphire bearings for the buttons! Ceramics and steel and more sapphire all over the surface. They're ridiculously impractical, but extremely interesting from an engineering perspective.
The Apple Watch is considerably more precise at telling time than any mechanical watch could ever be without it also being periodically synced with atomic clocks. As for "works of art," aesthetics are one thing, but wearing a watch as jewelry over utility is the very definition of form over function.
Vertu dies because people with unlimited budgets bought iPhones. If you wanted to take it further you could get your iPhone plated in some other metal or get diamond glued to it to make it ugly as fuck, if that's your desire, but you'd still get to use an iPhone because utility matters when it coms to CE.
Well, the entire purpose of a watch, as Cartier first created it, was all about utility. But as with anything else, utility is never enough. If you’re going to wear something on your wrist, shouldn’t it look good too?
i don’t see the purpose of people criticizing because of cost, or looks, or lack of some feature, or other. A lot of people, likely most of them for the foreseeable future, see no advantage to a smart watch, and that’s great. I have no problem with that. But sometimes, the exact time is of no importance. Does it really matter if my watch is off by several seconds a week, or month? Not really.
i didn’t buy my Apple Watch for the exact time.
First you write, "when I bought the mechanical watches I have, I thought of the effort and skills that went into designing and making them. I thought of the amazing precision of the hands of those watchmakers," and then you scoff at precision when I bring it up with the Apple Watch. It's great that you like to wear mechanical watches but don't talk about precision and then pooh-pooh the Apple Watch when it's mentioned that it's even more precise. Just say you like archaic tech for his aesthetic appeal. There's nothing wrong with a guy liking jewelry.
You miss the point. With the Apple Watch, the precision is in the cases and in the bracket. I’ve got the black SS model with bracelet, and I’m amazed at just how precise those are, particularly the bracelet. But the device itself is electronic. We expect that screens and circuit boards with chips are precise. But it’s different. You can go and see watchmakers working. It’s an amazing thing to watch. Since I have machine shops, and design and make some equipment and parts that are fairly precise, I appreciate that quality of hand working.
but I’m certainly not talking about precision of timing. We all know that no matter what the mechanism, a fully mechanical watch will never approach the precise time of even a quartz watch, much less that of one connected to network time.
you just don’t have any understanding of what I was saying. I’ve also stated that I wear my Apple Watch most of the time. I bought if for what it can do. Not for the perfect time. The truth is that no one needs to know the time within a millisecond from a device on your wrist. And if you really don’t comprehend esthetics, then I just don’t know how to respond.
I actually worked here for a while,there was an in joke amongst staff about how iPhones and Samsung's were better ,it always seemed slightly pretentious to me to be honest. You could even borrow the phones if you wanted although I couldn't see the point but they were hand built and I guess that reflected in the price. I remember thinking how can all this make money ,well my gut feeling was right ,premium phones are pointless purely for the fact you averagely drop your phone a few times a year ,il stock with my Motorola G4 thanks
Comments
What could be more functional than a phone that comes with an unlimited human based Siri, that can obtain almost anything for you, as well as make reservations, plan a trip, etc.?
the phone was almost incidental to the service.
Um, no!
Your view is elitist too. Elitist doesn’t mean people with money, who spend it. It means people who think they are better than someone else because of their own life choices. Sometimes those life choices are made because they are not as successful as they think they deserve to be, and so they dump on these who are successful.
Why not just post a link to one of the innumerable reviews of the concierge service?
- https://www.wired.com/2014/06/vertu-signature-touch/
Long story short, it's effectively no different than any of the other personal concierge service offered with certain automobiles, credit cards, yachts, and other items for those with deep pockets, but Vertu was nice because it was a dedicated button on the device so you didn't have to add the number, save it as a favorite, or anything else that may seem irksome for the person who doesn't want to deal with setting up gadgets, which is more common with older people who are the ones that are more likely to have a higher disposable income.The fee was quite reasonable, too, at just a few grand a year. With that concierge service you were also given access to things that would be much harder to come by if not for Vertu's connections if you were merely wealthy but not famous. This makes these services useful today.
what’s interesting about all of these services is that many of the people who had access also had real personal assistants. You know, the flesh and blood type.
You miss the point. With the Apple Watch, the precision is in the cases and in the bracket. I’ve got the black SS model with bracelet, and I’m amazed at just how precise those are, particularly the bracelet. But the device itself is electronic. We expect that screens and circuit boards with chips are precise. But it’s different. You can go and see watchmakers working. It’s an amazing thing to watch. Since I have machine shops, and design and make some equipment and parts that are fairly precise, I appreciate that quality of hand working.
but I’m certainly not talking about precision of timing. We all know that no matter what the mechanism, a fully mechanical watch will never approach the precise time of even a quartz watch, much less that of one connected to network time.
you just don’t have any understanding of what I was saying. I’ve also stated that I wear my Apple Watch most of the time. I bought if for what it can do. Not for the perfect time. The truth is that no one needs to know the time within a millisecond from a device on your wrist. And if you really don’t comprehend esthetics, then I just don’t know how to respond.
You could even borrow the phones if you wanted although I couldn't see the point but they were hand built and I guess that reflected in the price.
I remember thinking how can all this make money ,well my gut feeling was right ,premium phones are pointless purely for the fact you averagely drop your phone a few times a year ,il stock with my Motorola G4 thanks