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I’ve been saying it all along: to understand the Apple Watch, look to the iPod. The first three years of iPod sales were minuscule compared to the following ten

• jychang 9y ago
  This is not a good example. The reason the iPod sold so poorly the first few years was because you can only sync them with Macs. Very few people owned Macs, so iPod sales were poor. It took iTunes for Windows to come out before things changed.
  • abc_lisper 9y ago
    A parallel would be to have apple watches sync with 'droids..
    • JustSomeNobody 9y ago
      I don't think so. As was mentioned, a lot of people didn't have Macs so it took iTunes on Windows to increase sales. A lot of people have iPhones. Enough, that Apple doesn't have to care about 'droids.
    • mikeash 9y ago
      Except not really, because the installed base of Macs at the time was a few million, while the iPhone installed base is around a billion. Being Mac-only in the early 2000s was orders of magnitude more limiting to potential sales than being iPhone-only today.
      • chaolam 9y ago
        Except not really, because number of Apple Watches sold in first month was in the millions whereas number of iPods sold was less than 100,000! I think OP is talking about rate of growth being like iPod, not absolute numbers https://www.lifewire.com/number-of-ipods-sold-all-time-1999515 https://www.lifewire.com/number-of-ipods-sold-all-time-19995...
      • wongarsu 9y ago
        The iPhone install base is certainly not a billion, there have only been 1.2 billion ever sold. Estimates for the install base vary wildly, with the upper estimates at about 3/4 of a billion and more reasonable estimates at half a billion. In any case, iPhones have about 15%-25% of the global smartphone install base (with the US being the big outlier). I certainly count that as very limiting. Maybe not on quite the same magnitude as Macs were for early iPods, but Apple Watches so far also did a lot better than early iPods.
        • rimliu 9y ago
          > iPhones have about 15%-25% of the global smartphone > install base I would like to know how much of the remaining 75%-85% are used as smartphones and not just dumbphones with an smartphone OS on them. I am sure the many of the cheapest models are used this way.
          • aetherson 9y ago
            Why are you sure of that?
  • cr__ 9y ago
    You can only use the Apple Watch if you have an iPhone.
    • mandeepj 9y ago
      But there are billion iPhones sold so conditions are not the same
    • archvile 9y ago
      In the original days of iPhone, you could really only use it if you had a computer (to sync through iTunes, and to activate it if you didn't buy it in the store). iCloud got rid of all of that. I don't see why Apple wouldn't do similar with the Watch, especially since more of their services (Messages, Health) are being moved into iCloud services in iOS 11/watchOS 4.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • mortenjorck 9y ago
    A major reason, yes, but not the only reason. Apple’s infamous “hell freezes over” announcement of iTunes for Windows came in October 2003. As you can see on the graph, sales didn’t really take off until 2005. So while lack of Windows compatibility was certainly an obstacle to the iPod's popularity, gaining it was not the single catalyst to its success.
    • tw04 9y ago
      That's because in 2003 it still required firewire which basically 0 PCs had. Furthermore 2005 was when they released significantly lower-priced models like the nano and shuffle.
      • ghaff 9y ago
        And the 4th gen iPod with the click wheel came out in 2004 which is when the larger iPod models really hit their stride. The iPod was not an obvious world-beater out the gate.
  • bobbles 9y ago
    Well the watch only works with an iPhone right now...
  • puranjay 9y ago
    The comparison also fails for the simple fact that Apple circa 2004 is not the Apple circa 2017 In 2004, Apple was a rather small, formerly unhip (and on its way to becoming hip) manufacturer of computers. The Apple of 2017 is one of the world's most recognized brands with a history of mobile expertise. Apple Watch had the marketing of a $500B corporation behind it. The iPod did not.
  • m_st 9y ago
    The requirement was FireWire. Me and my brother both had iPods synchronizing with our Windows PC through a Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live sound card with FireWire using the MusicMatch software distributed by Apple with the iPod.
• Steko 9y ago
  The jobs the watch will do aren't as clear cut as it was for the iPod. The iPod let you listen to music and carried lots of (or all of) your music and had software that made it easy to convert and manage your digital music and buy more over the internet. Those were things basically everyone wanted and it did that better than competitors. The watch? Well yeah it tells time, but it's worse at that then most watches and everyone already carries a device that tells time which the watch can't replace. Yeah, it gives you slightly faster access to notifications but not everyone needs that. Yeah, it has some good health/tracking benefits but that's not a huge deal to most people. Imho the best use of the watch is for (mobile OS)-Pay/mobile ID but adoption is still weak (unless you're in Tokyo) and it can be delivered with a much smaller wearable.
  • archvile 9y ago
    Watch + AirPods = killer app. It just needs more storage, but that will come in time. 3-4 generations from now and you won't even need a phone anymore.
    • Steko 9y ago
      Mostly agree but I think smart ring + headset + big phone/small tablet is a better setup.
      • oe 9y ago
        Having the option to not take your phone with you when exercising is nice and it's already possible.
        • nradov 9y ago
          Except if you go out running without your phone you can't call 911 to report a car crash or someone needing medical attention. Has happened twice for me and I'm glad I had a cell phone. Maybe the next generation smart watches will include LTE voice call functionality.
    • Shivetya 9y ago
• icantdrive55 9y ago
  They are looking better. Or, maybe I'm giving into the design? That said, I see so many for sale on CL. The iPod was revolutionary because it took all that stolen music, and put it on a very slick device. I don't see the comparison. Plus, we were all sitting around with so much music on our hard drives. Being able to listen to music while outside was great. Hell--I even miss the original ITunes. I'm a big watch guy, and considered buying a broken iwatch. I would never walk into a Apple Store and buy new, but might but a broken one, or an older one, but for no more than a C note.
• frik 9y ago
  No. A better comparison is the iPad. iPad 1 got little traction, it was slow, had no camera, couldn't play HD mp4, etc. iPad skyrocket with iPad 2 which was so much better in every regard. The same with Watch, the Watch 1 (series 0) one had no GPS and was to limited. Watch 3 (series 2) has a dual-core processor, GPS, is water-proof and is a decent device. The question is do I want to carry a smartphone and a watch? I switched from a digital watch to a smartphone like a decade ago, I don't need a watch. I can imagine switching back to a watch as soon as phone functionality gets inbuilt in Apple Watch and no additional iPhone is required.
  • skgoa 9y ago
    It has been pretty much the same with pretty much every Apple product since Job's return. The initial version is a good implementation of the basic idea, but it always has a few drawbacks and is too expensive for the limited use cases it enables. Successive iterations then improve the product until it's amazing a few years later. iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, McBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac... They all went through this. There are of course products that they didn't manage to improve in this way, e.g. the Mac mini or the XServer. So I will reserve judgement on the Watch for a while yet.
• usrusr 9y ago
  The iPod happened during a perfect storm of young people suddenly accumulating fileshared boatloads of unsorted MP3s that they desperately wanted to take away from their computers (then mostly clunky desktop systems), all while carrying significantly less cash into record stores than before. I see nothing that could come even close to that for the watch. To people spending many of their waking hours pondering the cultural relevance of the different strains of pop music (back then: almost everybody under 25), the iPod, together with the underlying file-sharing boom was world-changing, much like having a car is world-changing. The analogy between iPod and watch might still hold of you look exclusively at buyers of the "minor iPods" at the time when the classic was still dominant (in other words: when the classic was still known as just the iPod). The distinction between people who wanted a portable music player and got the iPod (because it was the best), vs people who wanted an iPod and therefore got a portable music player (because that's what iPods were). The latter pattern could repeat itself with the watch just fine, but I don't know if that can happen with the former pattern happens before. The iPod started as a life changer (for a certain group/generation) that only later turned into a wealth indicator novelty. The watch is taking a bet to skip the first stage, because moving notifications from phone to wrist is a much smaller step than making the wondrously huge filesharing MP3 libraries of the day pocketable.
• Pxtl 9y ago
  Imho the Pebble style makes the most sense to me. Focus on notifications and directions to the wrist as the core feature. Everhthing else is heavy and I should only be implemnted as low-hanging fruit. Then watches are a fun little accessory like a Bluetooth headset but it's just not that big of a deal like the iWatch. Simple non-illuminated LCD screen and low power processor means it can run for a week and is smaller than the heavier competitors. It's a shame Pebble folded. I hope we'll see Garmin and FitBit provide successor devices.
• Kluny 9y ago
  Thanks for reminding me I can't get a full sized ipod classic anymore. It burns. :(
  • damontal 9y ago
    i still have one but have no idea what to use it for. google play on my phone + sonos satisfies all of my music needs.
    • Kluny 9y ago
      I had my old one sitting in a dock for years. I'd just hit shuffle when I needed some music. Like turning on the radio, but with only good music. It was stolen.
• stcredzero 9y ago
  So, what's the iPod shuffle equivalent? A FitBit that doesn't fall apart?
• tinus_hn 9y ago
  The original iPod only worked with a Mac, there was no Windows version of iTunes and it presented itself as a storage device with the HFS+ filesystem.