Rumor: 'Aggressive' plans for second-gen Apple Watch could ship 2M per month

Posted:
in Apple Watch
A new report from the Far East claims that Apple and its suppliers are now gearing up to launch a second-generation Apple Watch, with orders for the new wearable device said to be higher than the supply chain expected.




Citing its usual supply chain sources, DigiTimes reported on Wednesday that orders for the new Apple Watch have been "rather aggressive." With its current pace of orders, suppliers believe Apple could be looking to ship as many as 2 million units per month.

Apple is said to be buying chips and components for the new wearable device, and shipments are expected to begin in the third quarter of the year, which runs from July through September.

If accurate, that would put the device on track to launch by this fall, or about a year and a half after the first-generation model became available. While DigiTimes has an inconsistent track record in predicting Apple's future product plans, it does have sources in the company's supply chain that catch advance word of component orders.

Externally, the new Apple Watch is expected to look largely the same as the current model, with Apple instead focusing on internal improvements, such as a larger battery and a display with improved outdoor visibility. It's also been rumored that the new Apple Watch will gain cellular connectivity for data on the go without being tethered to an iPhone.

Apple gave its first-generation wearable device a $50 price cut in March, with the 38-millimeter Apple Watch Sport now starting at $299. The larger 42-millimeter version can be had for $349.

The current Apple Watch will also see a software overhaul this fall with the launch of watchOS 3, adding new features like an app dock for quickly accessing preferred and recent applications. The update also places an emphasis on speed, keeping apps in a paused state that will allow them to reopen more promptly.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 48
    watchOS 3 looks to be a major improvement, and a faster second generation model would be a good move (hopefully it'll be A7 derived). 
    schlacklolliver
  • Reply 2 of 48
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    "Reports" have been that sales of the Apple Watch jumped between 30-40% after Apple dropped the price, and put a lot of pressure on Android wear and Tizen based watches, as many cost between $250-$300.

    my concern is that Apple has done that for the first gen model, but will go back to the old pricing for the 2nd model. It would likely be best if they retain the new pricing. I'm seeing more of them as time goes on, and most all are the sports models. Just yesterday, on the subway here in NYC I saw a young woman, across from me, wearing the smaller model.

    im really interested in the 2nd gen model. I want the black SS version. I'm wondering whether we will see an additional case in Liquidmetal at a slightly higher price than the SS versions. While Liquidmetal is too expensive for most of their products, it's perfect for a watch for which they can charge more, as that's a fairly small amount of material. If they do that, I could be interested, depending on the price, including metal band.
    edited June 2016
  • Reply 3 of 48
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,258member
    I really hope Apple will offer upgrades for existing users, at least to Watch and Edition users (maybe not Sport). The upgrade path I have in mind would be -- take your watch into an Apple Store and have the old guts swapped out and replaced by the new guts (I'm not suggesting that users can or should do this themselves). I imagine the cost of the upgrade would be about the same as the cost of buying a new Sport. 

    Why do this? Four related points:

    1. If they don't, Edition is dead.
    2. Many people view watches as keepsakes. Apple Watch cannot compete in that market if people are throwing them out and/or recycling them every two years. 
    3. It reinforces the view of Apple  employees as craftsmen, and Apple products as valuable things, not disposable things
    4. It can be pitched as environmentally friendly -- people aren't discarding, they're re-using. 

    I'm not predicting they'll do this... just hoping that they will. 
    redraider11cyberzombie1983NumNutslito_lupenalollivercornchipargonautpalomine
  • Reply 4 of 48
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,258member
    watchOS 3 looks to be a major improvement, and a faster second generation model would be a good move (hopefully it'll be A7 derived). 
    People aren't playing Infinity blade or editing video on their watch, and they probably never will, so A7 would be massive overkill and a waste of die space and battery power. I'd rather have them spend that transistor budget on LTE. 

    At this point, a 32 bit processor in the performance range of the A4 would be *plenty* for the Watch. Also maybe a bit more RAM and/or 3d XPoint and/or faster flash to help with speed in launching/switching apps.


    jackansi
  • Reply 5 of 48
    jackansijackansi Posts: 116member
    Hopefully they mean to get to those sales figures with 'aggressive' pricing.

    I doubt the 2nd gen will have cellular.  If it does I'd put money on Apple running the service.  Similar to an Amazon Kindle with 3G, except instead of the 3G included with the price, Apple charges you $3-$10 a month.  More for notifications and small stuff, less for streaming Apple music (I doubt the battery could take much streaming over 3G anyway).

    At the very least a new watch coming out right about then would make it easier to substantiate the watchOS 3 being faster claim.  You know, if watchOS 3 were in a faster watch it would be faster at opening apps.  Right now it doesn't seem any faster at all on built-in apps and generally slightly slower on third party.  It is insignificant really and, seemingly, random between opening the same speed and opening slightly slower.  I did have slightly higher hopes than normal that things would be snappy.  So far it's just the same.
    kermit4krazy
  • Reply 6 of 48
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    blastdoor said:
    I really hope Apple will offer upgrades for existing users, at least to Watch and Edition users (maybe not Sport). The upgrade path I have in mind would be -- take your watch into an Apple Store and have the old guts swapped out and replaced by the new guts (I'm not suggesting that users can or should do this themselves). I imagine the cost of the upgrade would be about the same as the cost of buying a new Sport. 

    Why do this? Four related points:

    1. If they don't, Edition is dead.
    2. Many people view watches as keepsakes. Apple Watch cannot compete in that market if people are throwing them out and/or recycling them every two years. 
    3. It reinforces the view of Apple  employees as craftsmen, and Apple products as valuable things, not disposable things
    4. It can be pitched as environmentally friendly -- people aren't discarding, they're re-using. 

    I'm not predicting they'll do this... just hoping that they will. 
    I was thinking that once. But to what purpose? For the Edition model, yes, for the SS models, well, maybe. But for the sports models, which most people are buying, no. The internals cost most of the watch, and so how much would you save?

    ive got several expensive mechanical watches. The newest purchase was over 10 years ago. Since I've bought those, the manufacturers have discontinued some of the case styles, added newer models with better movements, and added versions with more complications. Are mine obsolete? Well, yes, and no. Do I expect them to be upgraded with new movements? Uh, no. That would be a good joke within the watch industry. They don't really intend you to keep their watches forever. That's an advertising thing to make the prices seem worthwhile.
    edited June 2016 nolamacguymacky the mackyschlackargonautpatchythepirate
  • Reply 7 of 48
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,403member
    Such supply chain rumors amount to a hill of beans: Apple needs to provide sales numbers for the Watch. Their silence on this has backfired, feeding a narrative that it has been a less-than-successful product (when it probably has not been).

    (I await all the stupid down-votes...)
    edited June 2016 jbishop1039cnocbuikermit4krazy
  • Reply 8 of 48
    jackansijackansi Posts: 116member
    blastdoor said:
    I really hope Apple will offer upgrades for existing users, at least to Watch and Edition users (maybe not Sport). The upgrade path I have in mind would be -- take your watch into an Apple Store and have the old guts swapped out and replaced by the new guts (I'm not suggesting that users can or should do this themselves). I imagine the cost of the upgrade would be about the same as the cost of buying a new Sport. 

    Why do this? Four related points:

    1. If they don't, Edition is dead.
    2. Many people view watches as keepsakes. Apple Watch cannot compete in that market if people are throwing them out and/or recycling them every two years. 
    3. It reinforces the view of Apple  employees as craftsmen, and Apple products as valuable things, not disposable things
    4. It can be pitched as environmentally friendly -- people aren't discarding, they're re-using. 

    I'm not predicting they'll do this... just hoping that they will. 
    I hope so too, but I don't think a gut-swap would be as doable in-store as just a trade-in program (I definitely wouldn't ever have my "upgraded" Watch within 10 feet of water ever again).  Getting 40-60% of the purchase price toward a new one might offset the pain a bit though.

    If they don't do some incentive, I too think the Edition is probably dead to all but the most vain people.  I would even argue that the Watch might suffer a small but significant decline as well.
    edited June 2016
  • Reply 9 of 48
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member

    blastdoor said:
    watchOS 3 looks to be a major improvement, and a faster second generation model would be a good move (hopefully it'll be A7 derived). 
    People aren't playing Infinity blade or editing video on their watch, and they probably never will, so A7 would be massive overkill and a waste of die space and battery power. I'd rather have them spend that transistor budget on LTE. 

    At this point, a 32 bit processor in the performance range of the A4 would be *plenty* for the Watch. Also maybe a bit more RAM and/or 3d XPoint and/or faster flash to help with speed in launching/switching apps.


    In the longer run, I would expect the watch to go 64 bits. Maybe the next model after this one. Not because it's going to be needed, at least, not for some time, but for the simple purpose of getting all software to the same code base of 64 bits. That makes development easier, and the apps more transportable across devices, and data types compatible.
    cyberzombielolliver
  • Reply 10 of 48
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    Such supply chain rumors amount to a hill of beans: Apple needs to provide sales numbers for the Watch. Their silence on this has backfired, feeding a narrative that it has been a less-than-successful product (when it probably has not been).

    (I await all the stupid down-votes...)
    No if anything Apple needs to go further in not providing sales figures. Providing sales figures for iPhone and iPad is only hurting Apple right now.
    edited June 2016
  • Reply 11 of 48
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Such supply chain rumors amount to a hill of beans: Apple needs to provide sales numbers for the Watch. Their silence on this has backfired, feeding a narrative that it has been a less-than-successful product (when it probably has not been).

    (I await all the stupid down-votes...)
    No if anything Apple needs to go further in not providing sales figures. Providing sales figures for iPhone and iPad is only hurting Apple right now.
    They don't have to provide sales numbers for anything. But, if a product, or product line, comprises a "significant" percentage of their business, they must provide the dollar amount of sales. Given what we know about pricing, that would mean that a good guess as to numbers would be possible anyway. Apple rarely provides a breakdown of numbers of models sold within a line.
  • Reply 12 of 48
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    Such supply chain rumors amount to a hill of beans: Apple needs to provide sales numbers for the Watch. Their silence on this has backfired, feeding a narrative that it has been a less-than-successful product (when it probably has not been).

    (I await all the stupid down-votes...)
    your premise is unsound. if it's been a successful product, then how exactly has not releasing sales numbers backfired? angry tech pundits and bloggers don't count for shit. sales and profits are what counts. explain. 

    downvoted. and not stupid for doing so. 
    edited June 2016 ai46brucemcRayz2016macky the mackyroundaboutnowlolliverpatchythepirate
  • Reply 13 of 48
    blastdoor said:
    watchOS 3 looks to be a major improvement, and a faster second generation model would be a good move (hopefully it'll be A7 derived). 
    People aren't playing Infinity blade or editing video on their watch, and they probably never will, so A7 would be massive overkill and a waste of die space and battery power. I'd rather have them spend that transistor budget on LTE. 

    At this point, a 32 bit processor in the performance range of the A4 would be *plenty* for the Watch. Also maybe a bit more RAM and/or 3d XPoint and/or faster flash to help with speed in launching/switching apps.


    The current model is A5 derived and is widely criticized for being too slow, and you want them to go even slower?
    lolliver
  • Reply 14 of 48
    jakebjakeb Posts: 562member
    i wonder where the slowness really is? It seems from WatchOS 3 it's really fast once the app is in memory and data is loaded? Maybe there's still too much reliance on communicating with the iPhone? Maybe the storage SSD is very slow?
  • Reply 15 of 48
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    melgross said:
    "Reports" have been that sales of the Apple Watch jumped between 30-40% after Apple dropped the price, and put a lot of pressure on Android wear and Tizen based watches, as many cost between $250-$300.

    my concern is that Apple has done that for the first gen model, but will go back to the old pricing for the 2nd model. It would likely be best if they retain the new pricing. I'm seeing more of them as time goes on, and most all are the sports models. Just yesterday, on the subway here in NYC I saw a young woman, across from me, wearing the smaller model.

    im really interested in the 2nd gen model. I want the black SS version. I'm wondering whether we will see an additional case in Liquidmetal at a slightly higher price than the SS versions. While Liquidmetal is too expensive for most of their products, it's perfect for a watch for which they can charge more, as that's a fairly small amount of material. If they do that, I could be interested, depending on the price, including metal band.
    I really doubt this will happen. 

    In in my mind this version is a proof of concept much like the first iPads and iPhones.  The fact that the watch was implemented on somewhat older technology processes highlights this.  

    As as for LiquidMetal that is likely a very cheap way to make a watch.  Machining SS is expensive.   Injection molded processes are pretty cheap once perfected.  
    cornchip
  • Reply 16 of 48
    I've already sold my SS gen 1 watch in preparation for gen 2.

    I'm a buyer regardless what they put out as it will be an improvement over gen 1 which was okay, but not great.
  • Reply 17 of 48
    19831983 Posts: 1,225member
    melgross said:
    "Reports" have been that sales of the Apple Watch jumped between 30-40% after Apple dropped the price, and put a lot of pressure on Android wear and Tizen based watches, as many cost between $250-$300.

    my concern is that Apple has done that for the first gen model, but will go back to the old pricing for the 2nd model. It would likely be best if they retain the new pricing. I'm seeing more of them as time goes on, and most all are the sports models. Just yesterday, on the subway here in NYC I saw a young woman, across from me, wearing the smaller model.

    im really interested in the 2nd gen model. I want the black SS version. I'm wondering whether we will see an additional case in Liquidmetal at a slightly higher price than the SS versions. While Liquidmetal is too expensive for most of their products, it's perfect for a watch for which they can charge more, as that's a fairly small amount of material. If they do that, I could be interested, depending on the price, including metal band.
    I agree the Space-Black SS version is my favourite too. And I'd love nothing more than for them to offer a Liquidmetal version. But I still believe that would be prohibitively expensive. Another interesting but expensive casing material would be Forged Carbon, already available on some high-end Swiss branded watches. But most likely, if Apple does offer alternative casing materials, it would be Titanium and/or Ceramic.
    edited June 2016
  • Reply 18 of 48
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member

    blastdoor said:
    watchOS 3 looks to be a major improvement, and a faster second generation model would be a good move (hopefully it'll be A7 derived). 
    People aren't playing Infinity blade or editing video on their watch, and they probably never will, so A7 would be massive overkill and a waste of die space and battery power. I'd rather have them spend that transistor budget on LTE. 

    At this point, a 32 bit processor in the performance range of the A4 would be *plenty* for the Watch. Also maybe a bit more RAM and/or 3d XPoint and/or faster flash to help with speed in launching/switching apps.



    The problem here is that it is a 64 bit world. Further going 64 bit doesn't add hugely to the transistor budget, most of Apple SoC only have a tiny amount of space dedicated to each CPU. As for die space I think I'd like to see them do one of two things for RAM. Either build it on the same die, to save a huge amount of power or go to stacked technology. The thing here is that Apple has two demands from customers to contend with. One is longer run times and the other is better performance. Of course people don't play Infinity Blade on Watch (at least not yet) but they do want better performance to run apps better. In any event Apple will gain hugely by going to a latest generation semiconductor process node, there is likely to be space for a lot of features.
  • Reply 19 of 48
    19831983 Posts: 1,225member
    blastdoor said:
    watchOS 3 looks to be a major improvement, and a faster second generation model would be a good move (hopefully it'll be A7 derived). 
    People aren't playing Infinity blade or editing video on their watch, and they probably never will, so A7 would be massive overkill and a waste of die space and battery power. I'd rather have them spend that transistor budget on LTE. 

    At this point, a 32 bit processor in the performance range of the A4 would be *plenty* for the Watch. Also maybe a bit more RAM and/or 3d XPoint and/or faster flash to help with speed in launching/switching apps.


    I believe when Apple introduced the Watch a while back it was considered that the S1 already had the equivalent performance of an A5!
    lolliver
  • Reply 20 of 48
    19831983 Posts: 1,225member
    blastdoor said:
    watchOS 3 looks to be a major improvement, and a faster second generation model would be a good move (hopefully it'll be A7 derived). 
    People aren't playing Infinity blade or editing video on their watch, and they probably never will, so A7 would be massive overkill and a waste of die space and battery power. I'd rather have them spend that transistor budget on LTE. 

    At this point, a 32 bit processor in the performance range of the A4 would be *plenty* for the Watch. Also maybe a bit more RAM and/or 3d XPoint and/or faster flash to help with speed in launching/switching apps.


    I believe when Apple introduced the Watch a while back it was considered that the S1 already had the equivalent performance of an A5!
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