Apple sells more watches in a year, than the entire wearables industry (like FitBit) did since existence, and this wad is saying that Apple is doing it wrong?
I know FitBit's CEO has to say that in order for his company to (barely) remain relevant. I just wonder if he knows he's on borrowed time.
It's not what the AppleWatch is doing now that makes him stay up at night, it's what it's capable of doing down the road, especially when the extended capabilities of that wristband port come into play. Companies, especially the medical industry, are already cranking away on it and when that comes online, one can pretty much kiss companies like FitBit goodbye.
Keep that poker face up FitBit. We all know you're bluffing.
Right. I was in hospital last week and I never saw more Apple Watch owners in any other places from paramedics, ambulance guys to nurses and doctors and of course, patients too. Apple Watch really rules medical fields!
I work at a stadium that hires off-duty police officers for security. I have gotten to know quite a number of them (just as work friends) and started to notice that they were all wearing Apple Watches. I asked about it and one of the guys told me that they get alerts on the watch silently via haptic feedback to notify them of trouble in the stadium. Often times in the noise of the crowd radios are difficult to use even while using earpieces. Stadium security can also send them still images taken from security cameras. All management and security staff at the stadium are issued iPhone's and Apple Watches.
Fitbit have few established competitors at this price point, and are likely to be eaten soon by generic brands that offer the same feature set.
Meanwhile the first year sales of the Apple Watch have already eclipsed fitbit's entire company revenue. How I see it: Fitbit are already gone, now it's just going to be a few years of thrashing while the only valuable IP left is their brand name. (They'll probably be purchased by HTC or similar and have their logo slapped onto whatever copy-cat design they're working on at the moment.)
Maybe you'd like to expand on how the Watch doesn't also fit this definition.
Apple has an established customer base and ecosystem, mostly willing to try anything Marketed under the Apple brand name. That's the greatest asset the Watch has going for it -- certainly features and price alone don't give it an edge over all of the competition. And speaking of slapping their logo onto someone else's product, there's the Watch|Hermes.
Fitbit's CEO looks at the world in the same way that in-car GPS makers did five years ago. Now their hardware business is gone. Fitbit makes an app whose functions will be subsumed by Apple Watch, at no incremental cost to the user. Fitbit can serve an important niche, perhaps, but not the broader market.
Despite the smugness on this forum so far, I will play devil's advocate.
Between FitBit and Apple Watch, which one "just works"? Which has the less cluttered physical and logical UI? Which provides a GPS option along with at least some notifications? Which is selling more devices? Which has better battery life? Which has the more "Apple" approach (carefully adding new features), and which has the more "Samsung" approach (throwing in the kitchen sink regardless of user experience, like 5-second app. load times)?
Two yeas ago I would have replied exactly as you have so far. But with the "new" Apple, along with my own decision to go Garmin instead of Apple, I am not as confident, and neither should you be. In the end I would still like to believe Apple will get it right, but I no longer believe it is a given.
Of course the Watch takes more time to learn all the features. That's like expecting an iPhone to be easier to use than a standalone GPS unit.
Its easy for a UI to be uncluttered if it literal does just one thing. ...
Which has more battery life? Another stupid question. That's like saying which has more battery life a Fitbit or a Casio digital watch. Of course the watch that does less is going to have better battery life.
You just reinforced the OP's point that a jack of all trades necessarily makes compromises when compared to purpose-built tools.
I see Fitbit devices all the time. I hardly ever see them worn by men. They either don't adjust well or people seem to wear them loosely. If they are worn loosely are they accurate? Or do people do that so they appear to get more steps than they actually do? They are ugly. With the Apple Watch you can raise your wrist and see the time. Apparently the FitBit is supposed to do a similar action but worn loosely it creates a two handed problem to see the time.
My wife bought a FiBit and praised how wonderful it was. Now I rarely see her wear it. She used to plug it into an Apple charger in the bathroom with it's stiff little connector cable sticking out and the FitBit hanging in free air like and acrobat! I asked her about how she uses it and the app she uses. What is the FitBit app like? Does she use the Apple Health app? Has she looked at any of the really good fitness apps that integrate with her FitBit? Has she used the FitBit web portal? She admitted that mostly she just looks at the device display as the day goes on to see how many steps she has made. How many FitBit users are like that? How many of those FitBit's were purchased, used for a short period and then thrown in a drawer?
Mr. Park is making statements about the competition that indicate his company may be in trouble. It's true that health-minded products are in a different category than Apple Watch. However his wouldn't be the first company to miss the mark by underestimating consumer demand as technology and features become available. (Blackberry, Windows Phone, Surface/RT, etc.) He reminds me of the Blackberry CEO, what's-his-name, that was trying to hide the fact that his company didn't have the technical resources to deliver their needed products. Of course by that time it was too late. Mr. Park was smart enough to take advantage of Apple's technology to create a great business. Now it's time to be smart enough to create his own tech that won't be me too but go beyond what everyone including Apple is doing. Unfortunately getting someone to fund such projects is not an easy task. I wish Mr. Park well. Competition whether it is real or imagined is always a good thing.
Lol. In a year or two, when Apple dominates wearable market even more. When the Apple Watch S comes out and Apple Watch 2 comes out. Fitbit will be history. Either they'll die out or get purchased by Apple.
Just another company man trying to create a narrative to rationalize his own company's non-dominant position in the market. One point he gets totally wrong and ends up sabotaging his claims is that "Apple Watch is a computing platform." Wrong ... Apple Watch is a connected watch. Watches are inextricably linked to time and everything that orbits around the wearer's relationship with time and time related events in their lives. As a watch thats not clad in rubber or festooned with spinning gizmos it also has to project an aestetic appeal that warrants an unapolagetic place on one's arm when they're not clad in gym shorts or swim fins. As a modern watch in a highly connected and mobile world the Apple Watch also has to keep wearer's connected to their lives as they move around. The fact that Apple Watch also provides high quality activity and fitness functions is a matter of convenience and practicality. Once you as a wearer have made the investment of occupying 50% of your arm-based real estate to a wearable device you want it to earn its keep and avoid having to strap on a separate device. The Apple Watch is an integrated device much like the iPhone, and just like iPhone subsumes all iPod functions, the Apple Watch subsumes fitness and activity functions to avoid having to wear two devices.
Like it or not, the limited function fitness devices will increasingly fall prey to the integrated devices that provide more capability in a still reasonable footprint. Sure there will still be a market for limited function devices to satisfy the edge cases, niches, and price points, much like the iPod Nano and Shuffle hang in there as ultra portable and lightweight alternatives to iPhone. The iPod Touch remains as a lower cost phone-less version of iPhone but pulls in the vast Apple iTunes ecosystem. So there's still going to be a place for Fitbit to sell their products that were purposely designed to be fitness and activity devices. Sure they can add time and connectivity functions to their portfolio and start to encroach of Apple Watch from the other side. But Apple Watch started as a time and connectivity based device with integrated fitness and activity capability. It also leverages the Apple iTunes ecosystem because frankly that's now one of antes into the Apple product portfolio. Every Apple connected product has to extend the Apple iTunes ecosystem and create additional consumption points. Sorry Fitbit, that's going to be a tough mountain to climb if you want to put yourself in the same league as Apple Watch. Or you can try to create a new narrative that explains why your products are still worthy despite their apparent shortcomings against the dominant player. It's worth a try, but not everyone is going to buy into your argument. You could also recognize the niche where your product can be highly profitable and play to your strengths without denigrating the things that are outside of your happy niche.
Bingo - these activity trackers are the MP3 players of the day. The bridge product until full integration can be completed. You know, once Apple shows everyone the way.
Why would anyone sign up for FitBit pay, and what does that have to do with their product line and business line? Nothing. But Apple did it so they must, too.
Anyone who owns a fitbit will already have an iPhone, Samsung phone or Android phone, all with their respective pay services. FitBit Pay will be a separate ecosystem, so it makes little to no sense, where PAY, Samsung Pay, and android Pay all make logical extensions of their respective companies ecosystems.
You walk in to a butcher shop wanting to buy a top cut of beef like filet mignon or Rib-Eye and the butcher, who isn't on that level, pulls a hunk of chewy, gristly chuck out and proceeds to tell you you don't know what you are talking about and what he is showing you is the best and that the guys with those "fancy" cuts of beef are full of it and they really don't taste better.They say "listen to me. I know better", when they know very well their product isn't in the same class.
says the guy who runs a company that manufactures essentially one-trick ponies
I would not be so dismissive. Sometimes you just need a screw driver sometime a Swiss Army knife is preferred. These products are for different customers.
I think fitbit, which makes some good products, is focusing on the entirely wrong thing. They don't need to added text messaging, payment, email notifications. They are going to loose to apple in that way. They just aren't going to be able to create a smart watch better then apple but what they need to do is add more health features, more in-depth tech that helps you be a better athlete. They need to single focus on great great tech for training and growing as an athlete. That would be a great company move.
So, Apple has at least sold 32 Mio watches the last 4 quarters?
And they don't communicate on that?
Mmmm...
The estimate is about 14M at the end of Q2 2016. Apple has actually hinted at the numbers indirectly. (Saying more than Ipad in similar timeframe in Q2 2015 (3M) in the analyst call and that all increase in OTHERS in Q3 2015(gives 5-6M sold up till then)was related to the watch, they said something else in Q1 2016 but can't recall and third party firms estimated from all that data that Apple had sold 5-5.5M in the holiday quarter. With the extra 2M in this quarter were up to the stated 14M.
Apple has said, long long time before release that it wouldn't release sales info on the watch. BTW, who the fuck else releases actual sales numbers on ANYTHING : no one. Yet Apple is expected to spill the beans all the time.;
You do know that the ASP of the Apple Watch is likely 4-5 that of a fitbit with massively more profits per watch too.
Fitbit as but a tiny fraction of Apple's Watch profits : that's a fact.
Despite the smugness on this forum so far, I will play devil's advocate.
Between FitBit and Apple Watch, which one "just works"? Which has the less cluttered physical and logical UI? Which provides a GPS option along with at least some notifications? Which is selling more devices? Which has better battery life? Which has the more "Apple" approach (carefully adding new features), and which has the more "Samsung" approach (throwing in the kitchen sink regardless of user experience, like 5-second app. load times)?
Two yeas ago I would have replied exactly as you have so far. But with the "new" Apple, along with my own decision to go Garmin instead of Apple, I am not as confident, and neither should you be. In the end I would still like to believe Apple will get it right, but I no longer believe it is a given.
Of course the Watch takes more time to learn all the features. That's like expecting an iPhone to be easier to use than a standalone GPS unit.
Its easy for a UI to be uncluttered if it literal does just one thing.
The AppleWatch is selling way more units than all the Fitbit smart Watches. Most of the units Fitbit sells are activity trackers not smartwatches (Blaze being the exception)
Which has more battery life? Another stupid question. That's like saying which has more battery life a Fitbit or a Casio digital watch. Of course the watch that does less is going to have better battery life.
Of course the Watch is going to take longer to be a polished product. Was the iPod, iPad, iPhone perfect in generation 1? Hell no. The Watch is brand new territory, it will take time.
Apple is not selling more units than all the Fitbit smart Watches.
Thanks for hingting at not buying an imperfect appleWatch
He is right. Apple's watch is selling this well only because it has the entire Apple weight and momentum behind it. For a small company, Fitbit is doing very well.
And Pebble was doing well for a while too. But they got put out of business by the Watch. And the same thing will happen to Fitbit.
You don't sell 15 million units and $7 billion in sales just because of momentum. That is totally idiotic. The Apple Watch is the best smartwatch and wearable on the planet. Stop trying to take away all credit from it.
Bullshit. Show me where Apple admitted this.
Do you know what type of people buy the $17k edition watches? We are talking about people who drop $10k on a bottle of wine for dinner without a second thought. We are talking about people who have more houses and cars then they can keep track of. We are talking about people who buy $200k watches that do nothing but tell time.
The $17k Apple Watch is all about exclusivity. The ultra rich don't think like you. To them $17k is like $100 to them. These guys have 100x or 1000x more money than we have. Do you think these guys think that the Ferrari they drive will depreciate $50k in the first year? Hell no.
The whole deal about the Edition Watches was to make the Apple Watch a socially acceptable thing to wear. That was a HUGE barrier. Never before was it socially acceptable to wear a computer in public (except for health reasons). The Edition Watches made it cool for celebrities to wear the Watch. It made the smartwatch socially acceptable. If you don't think that was important look at the failure of Google Glass. People were pissed off at it. It was NOT socially acceptable. And that's why it failed. The Watch in 2016 is a perfectly acceptable item to wear in public. In fact with the Edition its a status symbol.
the $17K watch is not exclusive.
On the contrary. It's the opposite of exclusive
The watches at $200K are exclusive. And they do more than just tell time.
These are watches with real complications (not software)
Lol. In a year or two, when Apple dominates wearable market even more. When the Apple Watch S comes out and Apple Watch 2 comes out. Fitbit will be history. Either they'll die out or get purchased by Apple.
What about all the non-iPhone owning people, plus the iPhone owners that don't want an Apple Watch? Are you saying I will rush out and purchase an iPhone and an Apple Watch when v2 comes out?
Despite the smugness on this forum so far, I will play devil's advocate.
Between FitBit and Apple Watch, which one "just works"? Which has the less cluttered physical and logical UI? Which provides a GPS option along with at least some notifications? Which is selling more devices? Which has better battery life? Which has the more "Apple" approach (carefully adding new features), and which has the more "Samsung" approach (throwing in the kitchen sink regardless of user experience, like 5-second app. load times)?
Two yeas ago I would have replied exactly as you have so far. But with the "new" Apple, along with my own decision to go Garmin instead of Apple, I am not as confident, and neither should you be. In the end I would still like to believe Apple will get it right, but I no longer believe it is a given.
That's not devil's advocate, look the frack up what that means.
As for sales number, under $200 Android phones also outsell Apple... What's your point?
The Watch is 10 months old so I don't have a clue what your talking about.
The S2 versions is going to put them into the ground, mark my word. Apple has the engineering might to make them suffer and suffer bad; if Apple gets 99% of profits (they're at 90% now for smart watches, who the hell cares about people building products on generic hardware for near zero profit like fitbit).
Fitbit have few established competitors at this price point, and are likely to be eaten soon by generic brands that offer the same feature set.
Meanwhile the first year sales of the Apple Watch have already eclipsed fitbit's entire company revenue. How I see it: Fitbit are already gone, now it's just going to be a few years of thrashing while the only valuable IP left is their brand name. (They'll probably be purchased by HTC or similar and have their logo slapped onto whatever copy-cat design they're working on at the moment.)
Maybe you'd like to expand on how the Watch doesn't also fit this definition.
Apple has an established customer base and ecosystem, mostly willing to try anything Marketed under the Apple brand name. That's the greatest asset the Watch has going for it -- certainly features and price alone don't give it an edge over all of the competition. And speaking of slapping their logo onto someone else's product, there's the Watch|Hermes.
Comments
Maybe you'd like to expand on how the Watch doesn't also fit this definition.
Apple has an established customer base and ecosystem, mostly willing to try anything Marketed under the Apple brand name. That's the greatest asset the Watch has going for it -- certainly features and price alone don't give it an edge over all of the competition. And speaking of slapping their logo onto someone else's product, there's the Watch|Hermes.
My wife bought a FiBit and praised how wonderful it was. Now I rarely see her wear it. She used to plug it into an Apple charger in the bathroom with it's stiff little connector cable sticking out and the FitBit hanging in free air like and acrobat! I asked her about how she uses it and the app she uses. What is the FitBit app like? Does she use the Apple Health app? Has she looked at any of the really good fitness apps that integrate with her FitBit? Has she used the FitBit web portal? She admitted that mostly she just looks at the device display as the day goes on to see how many steps she has made. How many FitBit users are like that? How many of those FitBit's were purchased, used for a short period and then thrown in a drawer?
Mr. Park is making statements about the competition that indicate his company may be in trouble. It's true that health-minded products are in a different category than Apple Watch. However his wouldn't be the first company to miss the mark by underestimating consumer demand as technology and features become available. (Blackberry, Windows Phone, Surface/RT, etc.) He reminds me of the Blackberry CEO, what's-his-name, that was trying to hide the fact that his company didn't have the technical resources to deliver their needed products. Of course by that time it was too late. Mr. Park was smart enough to take advantage of Apple's technology to create a great business. Now it's time to be smart enough to create his own tech that won't be me too but go beyond what everyone including Apple is doing. Unfortunately getting someone to fund such projects is not an easy task. I wish Mr. Park well. Competition whether it is real or imagined is always a good thing.
Why would anyone sign up for FitBit pay, and what does that have to do with their product line and business line? Nothing. But Apple did it so they must, too.
Anyone who owns a fitbit will already have an iPhone, Samsung phone or Android phone, all with their respective pay services. FitBit Pay will be a separate ecosystem, so it makes little to no sense, where PAY, Samsung Pay, and android Pay all make logical extensions of their respective companies ecosystems.
Apple is not selling more units than all the Fitbit smart Watches.
the $17K watch is not exclusive.
As for sales number, under $200 Android phones also outsell Apple... What's your point?
The Watch is 10 months old so I don't have a clue what your talking about.
The S2 versions is going to put them into the ground, mark my word.
Apple has the engineering might to make them suffer and suffer bad; if Apple gets 99% of profits (they're at 90% now for smart watches, who the hell cares about people building products on generic hardware for near zero profit like fitbit).