Like the iPhone and other devices, many parts are made in other countries!!! The Processor is more then likely made here in the U.S. at Samsung's Texas plant. The Gorilla Glass is also made here in the U.S. Some parts are made in China and at Foxconn, and who knows where else. It's a global economy.
Personally I don't see how Apple expects to sell all these watches. To who??? Watches are a dying market. Once in a rare while I'll throw on my fancy watch I got way back as a High School graduation gift. It will works to this day, many years later. This Smart Watch, you can't even really replace the battery. It'll have limited life before it's just outdated hardware wise and until the battery finally takes a dump and before that just last less and less until not even worth wearing. Has any company even sold 1 Million of any Smart Watch yet? Just because you stick a Apple name on it, people will buy it?
Again, why dump $399+ on a limited watch when you can just easily grab your big screen iPhone? I know Apple in the past said they expected to sell 5 million in a quarter. I just don't see it. I don't know of anyone personally that has said they plan to get one and most everyone I know have iPhones!!! This is not like bring out a iPhone, you know where they all sucked before that, but was also still a new and growing Smart Phone market. Or the iPad, where there just as never any good Tablets before, there just wasn't much of a market to begin with, it wasn't dying. Watches are completely different.
Those that still wear a watch every day do it for Fashion, Spend money on buying something fancy, maybe big money for a Rolex or some such. Most of these people aren't going to buy a Smart Watch. It's like the Calculator Watch of the past. A Tiny market of Geeks will buy it. I don't see how Apple expects to grow a dying market like this. I don't even think Pebble has sold 1 million watches yet. Samsung had 6 this year and combined not 1 million.
No one at Apple has ever said how many watches they expect to sell per quarter or in the first year. Watches might be dying but ?Watch is as much a watch as iPhone is a phone. Leo Laporte and Andy Ihnatko were both very skeptical about smartwatches but now having used the Moto Almost 360 for a while they can see the convenience of not always having to pull your phone out of your pocket/purse. Especially now with phones getting a lot bigger. I think it's way to early to write off wearables/smartwatches.
I got used to being 'watch less' since I stopped wearing a watch in 2001 when my watch's battery died. As I use a credit card often, stores are so bad at keeping credit card info secure, and the replacement credit card I received this week still isn't chipped, I really want to use Apple Pay for security. However, I have an iPhone 5s and I'm not one for updating phones very often. So that leaves me the following choices:
1) Status quo. Keep my current setup. - Hey it is the credit card company's money if the card gets hacked and they have such lousy security. But it is my time.
2) Get an iWatch - It would be cheaper than getting a new iPhone but maybe not if you figure in what I would get for a 5s trade-in. This option may give me access to Apple Pay.
3) Break down and get an iPhone 6 - Actually I'm leaning towards the 6+ but I would take a look at them at the store before deciding.
My choice? Status quo for now. I used to be an early adopter but I've mellowed.
I’ve never been able to understand this concept. I’ve never wanted to buy anything under the whim of emotion.
Having said that, not ten minutes ago I learned of the existence of 8TB 3.5” HDDs. Neat. I’m not going to buy any more drives until SSDs are larger (and more affordable) than the 2TB HDDs I already have, though.
Geezaloo, I wish they’d hurry that up. There’s no reason we should have to worry about being limited by the amount of storage we have. It’s (close enough to) 2015, for heaven’s sake. We can put a man on the Moon, but we can’t even put a man on the Moon! And another thing, WHERE’S MY APPLE-DESIGNED IPHONE 6 DOCK?
Jewelry is a popular gift item for St. Valentine's Day.
The Apple Watch is a bit of jewelry, maybe a "smart" jewelry, but still jewelry nonetheless.
I agree that it is jewelry, but what percentage of ALL Valentine's Day gift are $350+ items? Couple that with also being CE and not sure how much a preemptive launch to make intime for VD will help the product.
I'm still curious about manufacturing. Is everything going to be manufactured in China? Or is China just for final assembly? On the ?Watch website Apple says the milanese loop is woven on special Italian machines. The leather in the bands comes from France, Italy and Netherlands. Are the materials and machines shipped to China for manufacturing or are the bands made outside of China and shipped there for final assembly? The back of the watch doesn't have any manufacturing info. Can Apple sell an Edition watch for thousands of dollars if it says assembled in China on the back?
Like the iPhone and other devices, many parts are made in other countries!!! The Processor is more then likely made here in the U.S. at Samsung's Texas plant. The Gorilla Glass is also made here in the U.S. Some parts are made in China and at Foxconn, and who knows where else. It's a global economy.
Personally I don't see how Apple expects to sell all these watches. To who??? Watches are a dying market. Once in a rare while I'll throw on my fancy watch I got way back as a High School graduation gift. It will works to this day, many years later. This Smart Watch, you can't even really replace the battery. It'll have limited life before it's just outdated hardware wise and until the battery finally takes a dump and before that just last less and less until not even worth wearing. Has any company even sold 1 Million of any Smart Watch yet? Just because you stick a Apple name on it, people will buy it?
Again, why dump $399+ on a limited watch when you can just easily grab your big screen iPhone? I know Apple in the past said they expected to sell 5 million in a quarter. I just don't see it. I don't know of anyone personally that has said they plan to get one and most everyone I know have iPhones!!! This is not like bring out a iPhone, you know where they all sucked before that, but was also still a new and growing Smart Phone market. Or the iPad, where there just as never any good Tablets before, there just wasn't much of a market to begin with, it wasn't dying. Watches are completely different.
Those that still wear a watch every day do it for Fashion, Spend money on buying something fancy, maybe big money for a Rolex or some such. Most of these people aren't going to buy a Smart Watch. It's like the Calculator Watch of the past. A Tiny market of Geeks will buy it. I don't see how Apple expects to grow a dying market like this. I don't even think Pebble has sold 1 million watches yet. Samsung had 6 this year and combined not 1 million.
I agree that it is jewelry, but what percentage of ALL Valentine's Day gift are $350+ items? Couple that with also being CE and not sure how much a preemptive launch to make intime for VD will help the product.
Who cares what percentage are $350+ items? Apple's customer demographic is pretty rich to begin with, plus the first round of buyers will likely be early adopters with large amounts of disposable income.
Remember the first iPad? The typical buyer was over 40 with over $100K in income.
Apple wants to be the top in the product price categories they compete in, and making a profit. Apple's business is not to sell a $99 watch with 2% gross margins.
If you are the type of person to shell out $400 for a Valentine's Day gift, Apple wants your money to go to them. Same if you are a notebook computer buyer with a $1000 budget. If you only have $400 for a notebook, Apple concedes that you should go buy an Acer/whatever.
Who cares what percentage are $350+ items? Apple's customer demographic is pretty rich to begin with, plus the first round of buyers will likely be early adopters with large amounts of disposable income.
You're focusing an argument to fit your desired narrative, and you also seem pretty emotional about it. Could it be you simply want this to be released ASAP which is why you're not considering how trying to force a release for Valentine's Day may not be the best course of action for Apple? If it's ready they will release it I can't image that VD is such a powerful "holiday" that they'd do like they've done with many other late colander year products that really should have waited until after the holiday season before going on sale.
The comment isn't about what most users need or how much better it's become since it's initial release, it's whether it's been decoupled from ever needing machine running iTunes for all actions. It hasn't.
"Decoupled" isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. When the iPod came out, you couldn't do anything with it until attaching it to a Mac (a little later: or a PC). That was tightly coupled. Now you can buy an iPhone or iPad and not even own a Mac or PC and have a very complete experience. My wife has and iPhone and an iPad and she has never futzed around with iTunes. When she gets a new device, I copy her stuff to the new one, and she's good to go. If you asked her if she needs iTunes to use her iPhone or iPad she would say no (and complain that she can't delete music from either device). That parenthenical part is the only reason it's not a clear cut "they are decoupled."
But this is a discussion about the Apple Watch. Is the watch coupled to the iPhone. Yes, by design. The watch will be basically useless when you don't have your iPhone in your pocket. Slightly less useless when you're in range of WiFi I suppose, but the watch is designed specifically to augment the phone. If someone asks if they should get an Apple Watch, the first question should be "do you have or will you have an iPhone?" and if the answer is no then no they shouldn't get an Apple Watch. Will that be the case 2 years from now or 4 years from now? Most of us are thinking that the answer is "no way." With advances in battery life and efficient computing power and efficient radios, it should be possible to decouple the Apple Watch from the iPhone. But this is "no duh" stuff, right? Requiring a Mac or PC to use a iPod or iPhone or iPad wasn't a feature or selling point, it was a reluctant reality. Same goes for the Apple Watch with respect to the iPhone. It's not hard to imagine a day when the watch is the engine and an iPhone or iPad is just a dumb screen to see what's on your watch (or really they are all just methods of accessing what's in the cloud).
You're focusing an argument to fit your desired narrative, and you also seem pretty emotional about it. Could it be you simply want this to be released ASAP which is why you're not considering how trying to force a release for Valentine's Day may not be the best course of action for Apple? If it's ready they will release it I can't image that VD is such a powerful "holiday" that they'd do like they've done with many other late colander year products that really should have waited until after the holiday season before going on sale.
Personally, I don't care when the Apple Watch is going to show up on a store shelf. I'm not buying one. I like old watches, not new ones.
Plus, this is one of those sketchy rumors from a Southeast Asia media source, I don't put much credence into those.
As an AAPL shareholder, I prefer if they ship something high quality, not something half-assed that ships earlier. They should take their time, do it right.
Except other smartwatches already have GPS and many fitness bands do as well. Apple is going to need GPS sooner rather than later, especially if they're going to push it as a comprehensive fitness device.
Do you need a fitness tracker with GPS? Or is this just concern and handwringing over the length of Apple's spec sheet?
You're focusing an argument to fit your desired narrative, and you also seem pretty emotional about it. Could it be you simply want this to be released ASAP which is why you're not considering how trying to force a release for Valentine's Day may not be the best course of action for Apple? If it's ready they will release it I can't image that VD is such a powerful "holiday" that they'd do like they've done with many other late colander year products that really should have waited until after the holiday season before going on sale.
He seems to be saying that a VD launch is irrelevant. Perhaps you're arguing with someone else?
I think it's obvious that being available before a major gift-giving event would be better than not being available. Just like debuting your blockbuster movie over Thanksgiving weekend would be better than debuting a week later. A) All things being equal sooner is always better than later ("real artists ship"). If I'm going to be buying something for my wife for VD and I spend that money on something other than an Apple Watch, that will absolutely reduce the likelihood that she gets an Apple Watch in that calendar quarter. As I said before Apple products are very popular gifts. I have no doubt if we had the data we would see consistently across product lines Apple has a higher percentage of owners who "received as a gift" rather than "self purchased" than other brands. Combine this with the fact that a huge percentage of watches are gifted, being ready for Feb 14 is better than not being ready for Feb 14. And yes, being ready for Christmas would have been much, much better, but obviously it wasn't. And it might not be ready for Feb 14. But I have no doubt that Apple cares about that date.
He seems to be saying that a VD launch is irrelevant. Perhaps you're arguing with someone else?
I think it's obvious that being available before a major gift-giving event would be better than not being available. Just like debuting your blockbuster movie over Thanksgiving weekend would be better than debuting a week later. A) All things being equal sooner is always better than later ("real artists ship"). If I'm going to be buying something for my wife for VD and I spend that money on something other than an Apple Watch, that will absolutely reduce the likelihood that she gets an Apple Watch in that calendar quarter. As I said before Apple products are very popular gifts. I have no doubt if we had the data we would see consistently across product lines Apple has a higher percentage of owners who "received as a gift" rather than "self purchased" than other brands. Combine this with the fact that a huge percentage of watches are gifted, being ready for Feb 14 is better than not being ready for Feb 14. And yes, being ready for Christmas would have been much, much better, but obviously it wasn't. And it might not be ready for Feb 14. But I have no doubt that Apple cares about that date.
Don't forget Chinese New Year which is five days after Valentine's Day.
Don't forget Chinese New Year which is five days after Valentine's Day.
Right. I wasn't aware of this, but the same logic holds. Better to be ready for events like that than to miss them. Some of those sales are lost forever and others are deferred.
I never said it would be DOA. My point is I think lack of GPS and wifi is currently a compromise in order to get acceptable battery life. In the Watch intro video Jony Ive references using GPS and wifi from the iPhone to get a complete picture of your daily activities. So I think Apple is well aware that a fitness device needs GPS to be truly useful and IMO GPS is high up on the priority list for future versions.
1) Everything is a compromise.
2) Why do you keep saying it doesn't have WiFi?
3) Your argument is that it should becaus other fitness trackers have had them. That's a BS argument.
I agree that it is jewelry, but what percentage of ALL Valentine's Day gift are $350+ items? Couple that with also being CE and not sure how much a preemptive launch to make intime for VD will help the product.
“Last year, the three weeks ending on Valentine’s Day accounted for a full 12 percent of the year’s online spending in the Flowers & Gifts category -- a seasonal peak that’s expected and pronounced across channels,” said Dan Hess, senior vice president of comScore Networks.
As to percentage of gifts above $350 you have to look at demographics. In this case, high end demographics. For many in that demographic $350 is chump change.
I think it's obvious that being available before a major gift-giving event would be better than not being available.
If that means launching well before the product is ready to launch just so you meet a date of "holiday" that isn't even a major holiday, absolute not. If it's all about the release date and Christmas is the biggest ahipping holiday then why isn't it available this month? Because it's not ready and forcing on the market now in swould hurt the launch.
The back of the watch doesn't have any manufacturing info. Can Apple sell an Edition watch for thousands of dollars if it says assembled in China on the back?
Yeah, Apple must be really stupid to be not asking -- or have an answer to -- such questions. It's a good thing we have you to alert Apple.
Maybe because that is what is reported on the Apple website:
"Wi-Fi and GPS. Apple Watch uses the GPS and Wi?Fi in your iPhone to help measure the distance you travel during the day or during workouts that can’t be measured in steps, such as cycling."
Apple Watch's connectivity appears to only be via BT4.0 (and the magsafe charger into a USB device.). This is sort of interesting given that Apple also reported that it's timekeeping is accurate to the "universal standard" within 50ms. I think the implication is "...when coupled to an iPhone or when updated via the charger."
Comments
No one at Apple has ever said how many watches they expect to sell per quarter or in the first year. Watches might be dying but ?Watch is as much a watch as iPhone is a phone. Leo Laporte and Andy Ihnatko were both very skeptical about smartwatches but now having used the Moto Almost 360 for a while they can see the convenience of not always having to pull your phone out of your pocket/purse. Especially now with phones getting a lot bigger. I think it's way to early to write off wearables/smartwatches.
I got used to being 'watch less' since I stopped wearing a watch in 2001 when my watch's battery died. As I use a credit card often, stores are so bad at keeping credit card info secure, and the replacement credit card I received this week still isn't chipped, I really want to use Apple Pay for security. However, I have an iPhone 5s and I'm not one for updating phones very often. So that leaves me the following choices:
1) Status quo. Keep my current setup. - Hey it is the credit card company's money if the card gets hacked and they have such lousy security. But it is my time.
2) Get an iWatch - It would be cheaper than getting a new iPhone but maybe not if you figure in what I would get for a 5s trade-in. This option may give me access to Apple Pay.
3) Break down and get an iPhone 6 - Actually I'm leaning towards the 6+ but I would take a look at them at the store before deciding.
My choice? Status quo for now. I used to be an early adopter but I've mellowed.
I’ve never been able to understand this concept. I’ve never wanted to buy anything under the whim of emotion.
Having said that, not ten minutes ago I learned of the existence of 8TB 3.5” HDDs. Neat. I’m not going to buy any more drives until SSDs are larger (and more affordable) than the 2TB HDDs I already have, though.
Geezaloo, I wish they’d hurry that up. There’s no reason we should have to worry about being limited by the amount of storage we have. It’s (close enough to) 2015, for heaven’s sake. We can put a man on the Moon, but we can’t even put a man on the Moon! And another thing, WHERE’S MY APPLE-DESIGNED IPHONE 6 DOCK?
I agree that it is jewelry, but what percentage of ALL Valentine's Day gift are $350+ items? Couple that with also being CE and not sure how much a preemptive launch to make intime for VD will help the product.
It's all relative er.... questionable!
Convenience!
Is Valentine's Day typically a big day for watch and/or CE sales?
iDevices still aren't decoupled from Macs/PCs with iTunes so I'm not sure that's likely to happen anytime soon.
I don't know about Valentine's Day but Chinese New Year is a big gift giving time of year. And it's on February 19th this time.
I agree that it is jewelry, but what percentage of ALL Valentine's Day gift are $350+ items? Couple that with also being CE and not sure how much a preemptive launch to make intime for VD will help the product.
Who cares what percentage are $350+ items? Apple's customer demographic is pretty rich to begin with, plus the first round of buyers will likely be early adopters with large amounts of disposable income.
Remember the first iPad? The typical buyer was over 40 with over $100K in income.
Apple wants to be the top in the product price categories they compete in, and making a profit. Apple's business is not to sell a $99 watch with 2% gross margins.
If you are the type of person to shell out $400 for a Valentine's Day gift, Apple wants your money to go to them. Same if you are a notebook computer buyer with a $1000 budget. If you only have $400 for a notebook, Apple concedes that you should go buy an Acer/whatever.
You're focusing an argument to fit your desired narrative, and you also seem pretty emotional about it. Could it be you simply want this to be released ASAP which is why you're not considering how trying to force a release for Valentine's Day may not be the best course of action for Apple? If it's ready they will release it I can't image that VD is such a powerful "holiday" that they'd do like they've done with many other late colander year products that really should have waited until after the holiday season before going on sale.
The comment isn't about what most users need or how much better it's become since it's initial release, it's whether it's been decoupled from ever needing machine running iTunes for all actions. It hasn't.
"Decoupled" isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. When the iPod came out, you couldn't do anything with it until attaching it to a Mac (a little later: or a PC). That was tightly coupled. Now you can buy an iPhone or iPad and not even own a Mac or PC and have a very complete experience. My wife has and iPhone and an iPad and she has never futzed around with iTunes. When she gets a new device, I copy her stuff to the new one, and she's good to go. If you asked her if she needs iTunes to use her iPhone or iPad she would say no (and complain that she can't delete music from either device). That parenthenical part is the only reason it's not a clear cut "they are decoupled."
But this is a discussion about the Apple Watch. Is the watch coupled to the iPhone. Yes, by design. The watch will be basically useless when you don't have your iPhone in your pocket. Slightly less useless when you're in range of WiFi I suppose, but the watch is designed specifically to augment the phone. If someone asks if they should get an Apple Watch, the first question should be "do you have or will you have an iPhone?" and if the answer is no then no they shouldn't get an Apple Watch. Will that be the case 2 years from now or 4 years from now? Most of us are thinking that the answer is "no way." With advances in battery life and efficient computing power and efficient radios, it should be possible to decouple the Apple Watch from the iPhone. But this is "no duh" stuff, right? Requiring a Mac or PC to use a iPod or iPhone or iPad wasn't a feature or selling point, it was a reluctant reality. Same goes for the Apple Watch with respect to the iPhone. It's not hard to imagine a day when the watch is the engine and an iPhone or iPad is just a dumb screen to see what's on your watch (or really they are all just methods of accessing what's in the cloud).
You're focusing an argument to fit your desired narrative, and you also seem pretty emotional about it. Could it be you simply want this to be released ASAP which is why you're not considering how trying to force a release for Valentine's Day may not be the best course of action for Apple? If it's ready they will release it I can't image that VD is such a powerful "holiday" that they'd do like they've done with many other late colander year products that really should have waited until after the holiday season before going on sale.
Personally, I don't care when the Apple Watch is going to show up on a store shelf. I'm not buying one. I like old watches, not new ones.
Plus, this is one of those sketchy rumors from a Southeast Asia media source, I don't put much credence into those.
As an AAPL shareholder, I prefer if they ship something high quality, not something half-assed that ships earlier. They should take their time, do it right.
There's no desired narrative.
Do you need a fitness tracker with GPS? Or is this just concern and handwringing over the length of Apple's spec sheet?
You're focusing an argument to fit your desired narrative, and you also seem pretty emotional about it. Could it be you simply want this to be released ASAP which is why you're not considering how trying to force a release for Valentine's Day may not be the best course of action for Apple? If it's ready they will release it I can't image that VD is such a powerful "holiday" that they'd do like they've done with many other late colander year products that really should have waited until after the holiday season before going on sale.
He seems to be saying that a VD launch is irrelevant. Perhaps you're arguing with someone else?
I think it's obvious that being available before a major gift-giving event would be better than not being available. Just like debuting your blockbuster movie over Thanksgiving weekend would be better than debuting a week later. A) All things being equal sooner is always better than later ("real artists ship").
If I'm going to be buying something for my wife for VD and I spend that money on something other than an Apple Watch, that will absolutely reduce the likelihood that she gets an Apple Watch in that calendar quarter. As I said before Apple products are very popular gifts. I have no doubt if we had the data we would see consistently across product lines Apple has a higher percentage of owners who "received as a gift" rather than "self purchased" than other brands. Combine this with the fact that a huge percentage of watches are gifted, being ready for Feb 14 is better than not being ready for Feb 14. And yes, being ready for Christmas would have been much, much better, but obviously it wasn't. And it might not be ready for Feb 14. But I have no doubt that Apple cares about that date.
He seems to be saying that a VD launch is irrelevant. Perhaps you're arguing with someone else?
I think it's obvious that being available before a major gift-giving event would be better than not being available. Just like debuting your blockbuster movie over Thanksgiving weekend would be better than debuting a week later. A) All things being equal sooner is always better than later ("real artists ship").
If I'm going to be buying something for my wife for VD and I spend that money on something other than an Apple Watch, that will absolutely reduce the likelihood that she gets an Apple Watch in that calendar quarter. As I said before Apple products are very popular gifts. I have no doubt if we had the data we would see consistently across product lines Apple has a higher percentage of owners who "received as a gift" rather than "self purchased" than other brands. Combine this with the fact that a huge percentage of watches are gifted, being ready for Feb 14 is better than not being ready for Feb 14. And yes, being ready for Christmas would have been much, much better, but obviously it wasn't. And it might not be ready for Feb 14. But I have no doubt that Apple cares about that date.
Don't forget Chinese New Year which is five days after Valentine's Day.
Don't forget Chinese New Year which is five days after Valentine's Day.
Right. I wasn't aware of this, but the same logic holds. Better to be ready for events like that than to miss them. Some of those sales are lost forever and others are deferred.
1) Everything is a compromise.
2) Why do you keep saying it doesn't have WiFi?
3) Your argument is that it should becaus other fitness trackers have had them. That's a BS argument.
I agree that it is jewelry, but what percentage of ALL Valentine's Day gift are $350+ items? Couple that with also being CE and not sure how much a preemptive launch to make intime for VD will help the product.
“Last year, the three weeks ending on Valentine’s Day accounted for a full 12 percent of the year’s online spending in the Flowers & Gifts category -- a seasonal peak that’s expected and pronounced across channels,” said Dan Hess, senior vice president of comScore Networks.
As to percentage of gifts above $350 you have to look at demographics. In this case, high end demographics. For many in that demographic $350 is chump change.
If that means launching well before the product is ready to launch just so you meet a date of "holiday" that isn't even a major holiday, absolute not. If it's all about the release date and Christmas is the biggest ahipping holiday then why isn't it available this month? Because it's not ready and forcing on the market now in swould hurt the launch.
Yeah, Apple must be really stupid to be not asking -- or have an answer to -- such questions. It's a good thing we have you to alert Apple.
2) Why do you keep saying it doesn't have WiFi?
Maybe because that is what is reported on the Apple website:
"Wi-Fi and GPS. Apple Watch uses the GPS and Wi?Fi in your iPhone to help measure the distance you travel during the day or during workouts that can’t be measured in steps, such as cycling."
Apple Watch's connectivity appears to only be via BT4.0 (and the magsafe charger into a USB device.). This is sort of interesting given that Apple also reported that it's timekeeping is accurate to the "universal standard" within 50ms. I think the implication is "...when coupled to an iPhone or when updated via the charger."