7 ms·

There is one massive different with usual watches. Expensive watches are often sold under the idea you will never have to buy another watch, and neither will y

There is one massive different with usual watches. Expensive watches are often sold under the idea you will never have to buy another watch, and neither will your children, or your children's children. I will reasonably surprised if any new Apple Watch hasn't been made forcibly obsolete by Apple within 5 years or so, and shocked if it is still functional in 10. Furthermore (and more worrying perhaps for people paying that much money), once a model of Apple Watch comes out with a better CPU, then your watch is no longer the latest-and-greatest, whereas older watches don't have the same degree of last year's begin inferior (of course, they can still go out of fashion).

nicpottier 12y ago
Yes, exactly, this seems so obvious that I don't understand why Gruber is ignoring it. The iWatch will be obsolete in 24 months at most (less if you are the type who values status and want a "$20,000" watch as the next model will probably come out 12-18 months later) Maybe there are enough uber-rich people that are ok buying $20,000 watches every year, but that seems like a really, really small market. Then again, maybe the bands will remain the same, so if the primary investment is in the band, then that could last a bit longer. Even then I'd expect that every 2-3 years they will have a form factor switch that will make all previous bands obsolete. We'll see.
- Yhippa 12y ago
  In Apple's models there has to be enough people willing to pay that much money for a watch that will likely be made obsolete. That is mind-boggling to me. I have enough friends who have consternations about buying a new phone every two years let alone buying a watch that can be just as expensive to go along with it. Based on my personal experience I bet they're relying on the 5%-ers to make this thing work.
- txu 12y ago
  Also the first thing came to my mind. Keeping the bands intact makes sense. Given the size of the watch there won't be much gold used in the watch head anyway. And this is purely fantasizing, maybe you can upgrade golden models by paying a comparatively small upgrade fee...return the old watch head and get a new one with upgraded electronic parts... :-D
- ghaff 12y ago
  I'm not sure Gruber is ignoring it as much as he's making a statement about the economics of precious metals. It's definitely a factor in the market for such things though. Apple could potentially offer some sort of trade-in for the metal I suppose but this does seem to be one of those cases (as in autos) where there's a mismatch between the lifecycle of electronics and the lifecycle of the thing the electronics are part of.
- jmsdnns 12y ago
  Phones were once something you bought once and rarely bought again, but that changed and now we all buy new phones once every 2'ish years.
  - Zikes 12y ago
    That's mostly because people now lease them on multi-year contracts from their service providers.
  - quotha 12y ago
    I recently switched back & bought an early 80's model western electric telephone. Hopefully it will last another 30 years!
  - soylentcola 12y ago
    Sure, but I pay ~$400 every couple of years for a phone. I also bought a Moto 360 for $175 (normal non-sale price $250). I may replace that in a year or two when the tech has improved enough to justify the update. Either way, these are still mostly luxuries (I could get a passable smart phone for under $100 and any old watch for $30-50 or just not wear one) but it wouldn't be the first time a company put out a range of products so people of different budgets can become customers while still offering some high-end model for status seekers to shell out for and mortals to drool over. I'm not interested in the Apple watches at the moment but it makes sense for them to sell a "mere mortal" version for $300-500 as they typically charge a bit more than competitors for their name and reputation for polish. If they sell a Rolex-grade version for rock stars and wealthy heirs then I guess it just adds to the status of the brand as a whole even if nobody normal would ever buy one.
- sneak 12y ago
  The Apple watch will tell time far better than a Rolex for decades to come. CPU and memory and Moore's Law can't change that.
  - aetherson 12y ago
    Well, sure. But it's also way uglier than a Rolex, and it needs to be charged nightly. I don't regard "OMG it needs to be charged nightly" as a big problem ordinarily, but if your point is that the smartwatch degrades gracefully into a normal watch, then it's relevant the ways that it's inferior to a normal watch. More to the point, presumably anyone who shells out for a smartwatch wants, you know, an actual smartwatch.
- moeedm 12y ago
  For starters, it's not called "iWatch".
radley 12y ago
The idea he presented previously is that you'd be able to go in to Apple and upgrade the tech innards of your fancy gold iWatch when new, faster, more awesome bits are released.
- puranjay 12y ago
  That's a bold bet on the form factor itself. What's the guarantee that Apple won't launch a round face watch in the 3rd iteration?
  - ghshephard 12y ago
    In the NewYorker Article, Jony made it clear that they considered a round face, but realized quite quickly that one of the principal functions of the watch was to deal with lists, which work much better on a rectangle.
    - aetherson 12y ago
      Yeah, and Steve Jobs dismissed tablets in 2003 ("people want keyboards") and dismissed smaller tablets in 2010 ("the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps") and dismissed putting a screen on an iPod in 2004 ("It's the music, stupid"), and dismissed larger-than 3.5" screened phones in 2010 ("Nobody's going to buy that.") Ive has to say that rectangles are clearly the superior form factor. It's his job. That doesn't mean that two years from now Apple won't have a round watch. It doesn't mean that they will, either. EDIT: Also, uh, what if someone comes up with a really good use for smart-watches that isn't lists-related? "Dealing with lists" is not selling me on the need to buy another multi-hundred dollar gadget.
      - ghshephard 12y ago
        It's funny - when I read the Ive comment, that was exactly what my first response was as well. I'm on the fence - there are probably some good reasons for a rectangle, given the jobs-to-be-done, but their is something timeless about the round-face of a watch. I guess we'll see over the next few years.
jljljl 12y ago
There is speculation in some circles that Apple will offer a servicing program, in which the S1 could be removed and replaced with the next generation SoC for the Apple watches. Also just me speculating here: For the high end watches, it might be reasonable for Apple to include some number of SoC upgrades as part of their package.
- Shivetya 12y ago
  which would be highly unlikely because when has Apple ever done that for its current consumer items? The iPod, iPad, and iPhone, have all been user pays the cost to replace when a new model drops. I think some people are just trying to justify an expensive purchase they have already decided to buy. If it was a wholly stand alone device I might under stand its pricing but as it stands now I do not. If the article prices are to be believe then this is pure pretentious pricing, going for the vain and honestly after owning Apple products for so long boy have I met some of the most vain people on Earth. (the number of gold colored phones that sold is amazing/depressing)
  - Steko 12y ago
    And none of those things comes in $10K+ enclosures. Things are different. People aren't going to throw away big chunks of gold... either Apple is going to do it or someone else is. Upthread idea that people will just be out $20K after 2-5 years is what's ridiculous here.
  - moeedm 12y ago
    Stop thinking of the Apple Watch as a technology product. It's not called iWatch for a reason. It's called Apple Watch and if you think you're going to take it to the Genius Bar to get it looked at, you're dead wrong.
- jljljl 12y ago
  @Shivetya: All other Apple products have been priced appropriately given the lack of upgrading or service available for the product. Additionally, Watches are an entirely different product category from consumer electronics, and they carry different expectations on pricing + product longevity. I have no plans to purchase an Edition, nor do I have any clue about how Apple plans to sell them. I'm just trying to provide insight into how Apple might make this work.
puranjay 12y ago
I'm absolutely amazed that Gruber and the smart folks who read him have missed this. My dad has a Rolex. It belonged to his dad. My eldest brother will likely inherit it one day. That Rolex is a family heirloom. It's style is timeless (sorry) and it isn't going to run out of RAM or processing power anytime soon.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- 7Z7 12y ago
  He hasn't missed this. On several episodes of his podcast he and his guests have pondered whether the watch may have some standardised internal bay with upgradable innards, to keep it up to date year-to-year. Or just trade it in for the newest model, as the gold will be the most valuable (and reusable) part.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- chipotle_coyote 12y ago
  Gruber's talked about that before on his podcast, so he hasn't missed it -- but I think you're right that it'd be good to address in print. I know I'd be hesitant to fork over even a "mere" $1000 for the stainless steel one if the expectation was that it'd be obsolete in a few years. I can't imagine, however, that this hasn't come up within Apple already; if you're really going to sell a $10K smartwatch, this will have been talked about in planning meetings. I can imagine ways to make it serviceable; my own guess is that there will be a trade-in program for the steel and gold watches.
  - unreal37 12y ago
    Has there been anything official from Apple that they plan to sell a $10K smartwatch other than as a novelty?
- Steko 12y ago
ssharp 12y ago
I was thinking about how long an Apple Watch could take to become obsolete, given how quickly electronics, and particularly mobile electronics, become obsolete. I kept coming back to the idea that these things could last quite some time, possibly a very long time. The watch shouldn't need to do substantial processing, only has a limited number of pixels to push and shouldn't rely on substantial processing like graphics, crunching data, decoding a/v, and other things we push our smartphones to do. It seems like if Apple launches with good enough hardware, that software updates can keep the watch hardware relevant for many times longer than software updates can keep phones relevant.
- hbosch 12y ago
  Sure, you may theoretically be able to keep an Apple Watch for 2 years, 5 years, or longer potentially... but Apple will be releasing a new one every year, too. And even though your watch is serviceable for 5 years, you'll be having FOMO after 1 or 2.
- jannotti 12y ago
  That all sounds reasonable. But I have to believe it's completely wrong. Because it's the same sort of "reasonable" that says every level of technology is pretty much all you need. That is finally (decades later) pretty much true of desktop computers (but not displays). And it's getting there for laptops (excepting their displays and batteries). It's still years away for phones. And to think that the very first generation of of Apple watch is somehow going to get everything right to last for even one decade? I think that's preposterous. The only way I can see them getting around this is by saying that for, say $500, we'll be able to take your watch in and swap out its guts entirely. It feels like that has to be true. (Yet, it also seems "chincy" to talk about popping things in and out. I guess we'll see.)
  - ssharp 12y ago
    I could just be completely off their target markets, but I just can't fathom why someone would spend $1,000 on a watch every two years. With phones, the case for upgrading every two or three years can be reasonably built. How much tech are they really going to add to a tag-along device that will require more hardware? If the technology is going to change that quickly, I think those speculating of some sort of update process have to be correct.
smackfu 12y ago
I feel like the general response is that, "this is aimed at rich people, they are not sensitive to price, so it doesn't matter."
moeedm 12y ago
You would take your watch to Apple and get it serviced. They'd buff it up, and swap out the S1 for an S2 and so on.
unreal37 12y ago
The other difference is that Rolex doesn't sell a $200 watch. I can't think of any legitimate luxury brand in the world that successfully sells to the common man and the uber rich. There's no $20,000 Rolls Royce. There's no $100 Prada bag. There's no $50,000 Ferrari. Any brand that dips too low into the mass market loses its cachet among the top tier of the market (i.e. BMW and Coach as two examples) Apple Watch will not sell for $10,000. Gruber is being Gruber.
- greedo 12y ago
  Mercedes has marketed and sold low end (in terms of price) cars without tarnishing its image. And if you don't think they're a legitimate luxury brand, then I don't understand your definition. B&W speakers are a luxury brand, yet they make affordable headphones. I'm sure others can chime in with similar examples. Prada also makes $200 handbags, so one of your examples is flawed.
sneak 12y ago
As long as a watch holds a charge and tells accurate time, it is not obsolete.

nicpottier 12y ago

Yes, exactly, this seems so obvious that I don't understand why Gruber is ignoring it. The iWatch will be obsolete in 24 months at most (less if you are the type who values status and want a "$20,000" watch as the next model will probably come out 12-18 months later) Maybe there are enough uber-rich people that are ok buying $20,000 watches every year, but that seems like a really, really small market. Then again, maybe the bands will remain the same, so if the primary investment is in the band, then that could last a bit longer. Even then I'd expect that every 2-3 years they will have a form factor switch that will make all previous bands obsolete. We'll see.

Yhippa 12y ago
In Apple's models there has to be enough people willing to pay that much money for a watch that will likely be made obsolete. That is mind-boggling to me. I have enough friends who have consternations about buying a new phone every two years let alone buying a watch that can be just as expensive to go along with it. Based on my personal experience I bet they're relying on the 5%-ers to make this thing work.
txu 12y ago
Also the first thing came to my mind. Keeping the bands intact makes sense. Given the size of the watch there won't be much gold used in the watch head anyway. And this is purely fantasizing, maybe you can upgrade golden models by paying a comparatively small upgrade fee...return the old watch head and get a new one with upgraded electronic parts... :-D
ghaff 12y ago
I'm not sure Gruber is ignoring it as much as he's making a statement about the economics of precious metals. It's definitely a factor in the market for such things though. Apple could potentially offer some sort of trade-in for the metal I suppose but this does seem to be one of those cases (as in autos) where there's a mismatch between the lifecycle of electronics and the lifecycle of the thing the electronics are part of.
jmsdnns 12y ago
Phones were once something you bought once and rarely bought again, but that changed and now we all buy new phones once every 2'ish years.
- Zikes 12y ago
  That's mostly because people now lease them on multi-year contracts from their service providers.
- quotha 12y ago
  I recently switched back & bought an early 80's model western electric telephone. Hopefully it will last another 30 years!
- soylentcola 12y ago
  Sure, but I pay ~$400 every couple of years for a phone. I also bought a Moto 360 for $175 (normal non-sale price $250). I may replace that in a year or two when the tech has improved enough to justify the update. Either way, these are still mostly luxuries (I could get a passable smart phone for under $100 and any old watch for $30-50 or just not wear one) but it wouldn't be the first time a company put out a range of products so people of different budgets can become customers while still offering some high-end model for status seekers to shell out for and mortals to drool over. I'm not interested in the Apple watches at the moment but it makes sense for them to sell a "mere mortal" version for $300-500 as they typically charge a bit more than competitors for their name and reputation for polish. If they sell a Rolex-grade version for rock stars and wealthy heirs then I guess it just adds to the status of the brand as a whole even if nobody normal would ever buy one.
sneak 12y ago
The Apple watch will tell time far better than a Rolex for decades to come. CPU and memory and Moore's Law can't change that.
- aetherson 12y ago
  Well, sure. But it's also way uglier than a Rolex, and it needs to be charged nightly. I don't regard "OMG it needs to be charged nightly" as a big problem ordinarily, but if your point is that the smartwatch degrades gracefully into a normal watch, then it's relevant the ways that it's inferior to a normal watch. More to the point, presumably anyone who shells out for a smartwatch wants, you know, an actual smartwatch.
moeedm 12y ago
For starters, it's not called "iWatch".

radley 12y ago

The idea he presented previously is that you'd be able to go in to Apple and upgrade the tech innards of your fancy gold iWatch when new, faster, more awesome bits are released.

puranjay 12y ago
That's a bold bet on the form factor itself. What's the guarantee that Apple won't launch a round face watch in the 3rd iteration?
- ghshephard 12y ago
  In the NewYorker Article, Jony made it clear that they considered a round face, but realized quite quickly that one of the principal functions of the watch was to deal with lists, which work much better on a rectangle.
  - aetherson 12y ago
    Yeah, and Steve Jobs dismissed tablets in 2003 ("people want keyboards") and dismissed smaller tablets in 2010 ("the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps") and dismissed putting a screen on an iPod in 2004 ("It's the music, stupid"), and dismissed larger-than 3.5" screened phones in 2010 ("Nobody's going to buy that.") Ive has to say that rectangles are clearly the superior form factor. It's his job. That doesn't mean that two years from now Apple won't have a round watch. It doesn't mean that they will, either. EDIT: Also, uh, what if someone comes up with a really good use for smart-watches that isn't lists-related? "Dealing with lists" is not selling me on the need to buy another multi-hundred dollar gadget.
    - ghshephard 12y ago
      It's funny - when I read the Ive comment, that was exactly what my first response was as well. I'm on the fence - there are probably some good reasons for a rectangle, given the jobs-to-be-done, but their is something timeless about the round-face of a watch. I guess we'll see over the next few years.

jljljl 12y ago

There is speculation in some circles that Apple will offer a servicing program, in which the S1 could be removed and replaced with the next generation SoC for the Apple watches. Also just me speculating here: For the high end watches, it might be reasonable for Apple to include some number of SoC upgrades as part of their package.

Shivetya 12y ago
which would be highly unlikely because when has Apple ever done that for its current consumer items? The iPod, iPad, and iPhone, have all been user pays the cost to replace when a new model drops. I think some people are just trying to justify an expensive purchase they have already decided to buy. If it was a wholly stand alone device I might under stand its pricing but as it stands now I do not. If the article prices are to be believe then this is pure pretentious pricing, going for the vain and honestly after owning Apple products for so long boy have I met some of the most vain people on Earth. (the number of gold colored phones that sold is amazing/depressing)
- Steko 12y ago
  And none of those things comes in $10K+ enclosures. Things are different. People aren't going to throw away big chunks of gold... either Apple is going to do it or someone else is. Upthread idea that people will just be out $20K after 2-5 years is what's ridiculous here.
- moeedm 12y ago
  Stop thinking of the Apple Watch as a technology product. It's not called iWatch for a reason. It's called Apple Watch and if you think you're going to take it to the Genius Bar to get it looked at, you're dead wrong.
jljljl 12y ago
@Shivetya: All other Apple products have been priced appropriately given the lack of upgrading or service available for the product. Additionally, Watches are an entirely different product category from consumer electronics, and they carry different expectations on pricing + product longevity. I have no plans to purchase an Edition, nor do I have any clue about how Apple plans to sell them. I'm just trying to provide insight into how Apple might make this work.

puranjay 12y ago

I'm absolutely amazed that Gruber and the smart folks who read him have missed this. My dad has a Rolex. It belonged to his dad. My eldest brother will likely inherit it one day. That Rolex is a family heirloom. It's style is timeless (sorry) and it isn't going to run out of RAM or processing power anytime soon.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
7Z7 12y ago
He hasn't missed this. On several episodes of his podcast he and his guests have pondered whether the watch may have some standardised internal bay with upgradable innards, to keep it up to date year-to-year. Or just trade it in for the newest model, as the gold will be the most valuable (and reusable) part.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
chipotle_coyote 12y ago
Gruber's talked about that before on his podcast, so he hasn't missed it -- but I think you're right that it'd be good to address in print. I know I'd be hesitant to fork over even a "mere" $1000 for the stainless steel one if the expectation was that it'd be obsolete in a few years. I can't imagine, however, that this hasn't come up within Apple already; if you're really going to sell a $10K smartwatch, this will have been talked about in planning meetings. I can imagine ways to make it serviceable; my own guess is that there will be a trade-in program for the steel and gold watches.
- unreal37 12y ago
  Has there been anything official from Apple that they plan to sell a $10K smartwatch other than as a novelty?
Steko 12y ago

ssharp 12y ago

I was thinking about how long an Apple Watch could take to become obsolete, given how quickly electronics, and particularly mobile electronics, become obsolete. I kept coming back to the idea that these things could last quite some time, possibly a very long time. The watch shouldn't need to do substantial processing, only has a limited number of pixels to push and shouldn't rely on substantial processing like graphics, crunching data, decoding a/v, and other things we push our smartphones to do. It seems like if Apple launches with good enough hardware, that software updates can keep the watch hardware relevant for many times longer than software updates can keep phones relevant.

hbosch 12y ago
Sure, you may theoretically be able to keep an Apple Watch for 2 years, 5 years, or longer potentially... but Apple will be releasing a new one every year, too. And even though your watch is serviceable for 5 years, you'll be having FOMO after 1 or 2.
jannotti 12y ago
That all sounds reasonable. But I have to believe it's completely wrong. Because it's the same sort of "reasonable" that says every level of technology is pretty much all you need. That is finally (decades later) pretty much true of desktop computers (but not displays). And it's getting there for laptops (excepting their displays and batteries). It's still years away for phones. And to think that the very first generation of of Apple watch is somehow going to get everything right to last for even one decade? I think that's preposterous. The only way I can see them getting around this is by saying that for, say $500, we'll be able to take your watch in and swap out its guts entirely. It feels like that has to be true. (Yet, it also seems "chincy" to talk about popping things in and out. I guess we'll see.)
- ssharp 12y ago
  I could just be completely off their target markets, but I just can't fathom why someone would spend $1,000 on a watch every two years. With phones, the case for upgrading every two or three years can be reasonably built. How much tech are they really going to add to a tag-along device that will require more hardware? If the technology is going to change that quickly, I think those speculating of some sort of update process have to be correct.

smackfu 12y ago

I feel like the general response is that, "this is aimed at rich people, they are not sensitive to price, so it doesn't matter."

moeedm 12y ago

You would take your watch to Apple and get it serviced. They'd buff it up, and swap out the S1 for an S2 and so on.

unreal37 12y ago

The other difference is that Rolex doesn't sell a $200 watch. I can't think of any legitimate luxury brand in the world that successfully sells to the common man and the uber rich. There's no $20,000 Rolls Royce. There's no $100 Prada bag. There's no $50,000 Ferrari. Any brand that dips too low into the mass market loses its cachet among the top tier of the market (i.e. BMW and Coach as two examples) Apple Watch will not sell for $10,000. Gruber is being Gruber.

greedo 12y ago
Mercedes has marketed and sold low end (in terms of price) cars without tarnishing its image. And if you don't think they're a legitimate luxury brand, then I don't understand your definition. B&W speakers are a luxury brand, yet they make affordable headphones. I'm sure others can chime in with similar examples. Prada also makes $200 handbags, so one of your examples is flawed.

sneak 12y ago

As long as a watch holds a charge and tells accurate time, it is not obsolete.