8 ms·

Who Cares about the Apple Watch Edition?

37 points by archagon 12y ago

joesb 12y ago
> "We loved our iPods and iPhones for their sleek design and smooth UI, even when people dismissed them as “expensive toys”. We knew our $2000 laptops were incredible for the price, even while people mocked us for not buying cheap, creaky Windows machines." > "An Apple that sells “bling” to billionaires is not a company that many of us could muster passion about. " I think the author already has the answer to his question.
yatoomy 12y ago
I still think Pebble is demonstrating more Apple qualities than Apple is atm. 1. Sleek design (Pebble Time Steel looks better) 2. Innovating new markets/ideas (the new bands are doing to open the flood gates for hardware devs) 3. Keeping it simple (Apple watch wants to put a smartphone on your wrist, Pebble focuses on what watches do best)
- joshuapants 12y ago
  I hate the way the Apple Watch looks, but it definitely looks far better than the Pebble Steel. I'll give you the other two, however.
Shivetya 12y ago
Shark, meet Apple. Apple, jump shark.
bluthru 12y ago
>But I was under the impression that we were Apple fans in the first place because they made best-in-breed products for everyone, not just the elite. Which is exactly why there is an expensive tier for the Apple Watch: to sell watches to everyone. Apple is taking this product category so seriously that they're going after the high-end heirloom watches while not leaving the teenage iPhone user market behind. Hate the game not the player. This doesn't look like existing tech markets because as of now it's not a tech market. If you want your apps to be prevalent on wrists, you should be thanking Apple for legitimizing smart watches to the gold-watch crowd. Crowd-funded wrist watches could never do that. I would rather everyone just had $350 watches and the rest of the capital went to... vaccination research or something, but Apple Watch Edition is how a 55 year old lawyer in the midwest gives up his Rolex.
- walterbell 12y ago
  >Apple Watch Edition is how a 55 year old lawyer in the midwest gives up his Rolex. Maybe. Or maybe said lawyer can afford a timeless Rolex due to lower mental susceptibility to shiny! new! improved! marketing of instantly obsolete widgets. Apple quality and marketing has made billions, but this can lead to commodization of those marketing techniques, as former employees diffuse those techniques into surrounding industry. Over time, the population develops immunity to this marketing and the cycle starts anew. Jobs spent many years developing his regenerative capacity for reality distortion. Can a corporation synthesize that capacity by hiring "fashion" executives? Fashion buyers were pre-inculcated with decades of cyclical norms, how many fashion executives have needed to execute Apple-scale reality distortion?
- mullingitover 12y ago
  > Apple Watch Edition is how a 55 year old lawyer in the midwest gives up his Rolex. I have a really hard time buying this argument, because a Rolex will appreciate in value, and that 55 year old lawyer in the midwest isn't stupid, s/he knows this. Nobody in their right mind expects a consumer electronic device to appreciate in value.
  - Wintamute 12y ago
    The Rolex goes in the bed side cabinet, the Apple Watch goes on the wrist.
    - lqdc13 12y ago
      And off the wrist in a year
      - jsprogrammer 12y ago
        Smart money is on less.
      - hexasquid 12y ago
        Every evening, if the battery needs a daily charge.
YuriNiyazov 12y ago
I care because I own AAPL and would like for them to double in value again.
hnprogfail 12y ago
There are hipsters here practically ready to throw away their mock 80s wrist watches and shave their wrist beards in readiness for an Apple watch. So they can all be unique, in their group like way. Just wait till the first time they go out for their artisan and it rains, and the watch goes wrong. Maybe they will be told "you were wearing it the wrong way".
white-flame 12y ago
In my opinion, Apple has been a fashion company ever since the iPod. Remember the white earbud commercials? They've positioned themselves as a luxury brand, where it is considered fashionable among the general population to visibly own their devices. Sure, Mac-owning techies have additional reasons, but I don't think they drive the brunt of Apple sales.
- minthd 12y ago
  True, but at that time it was a combination of fashion and design(especially true for the iPhone's early years). But today the design arena is much tougher, with Google becoming very capable in design, and a lot of good ux/ui designers around(due to the difficulty of designing good apps and the importance of that). So now Apple is differentiating with what they can, which is fashion, and their unique positioning in the market.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  No, they've placed themselves as a premium but accessible fashion brand within the popular consumer tech market. Now, they're trying to sell a tech product to the status symbol market - which is a completely different proposition. I cannot see any way this can work, because Apple's upgrade cycle-driven minimalism is the exact opposite of the busily pointless lasting-heirloom-wannabe bling you get from brands like Vertu, Rolex, Patek Philippe, and the rest. Wrapping a thick layer of gold around a Mk 1 product that everyone suspects is going to be updated in a year or two isn't going to fix that. So it's a dangerous strategy. If it fails it's going to dampen sales of the cheaper models. IMO they should have stayed out of the fashion market until they had a model that truly qualified for heritage status, and then sold it as a very limited special edition, in something insanely expensive like diamond-coated aerospace platinum. If this turns into a 'This is still mass produced, but we made it shiny, gold, and very expensive as a thing' pitch, I think it will be completely wrong for that market.
skywhopper 12y ago
The brilliant thing about the Apple Watch is that no matter which casing/strap you buy, you're getting the same gear. So if you don't care what the watch is made of or how it looks, you can just buy the Sport model. If you want the best durability, you get the steel/sapphire standard model. If you want the blingiest thing, you get the Edition. But no matter how much you spend, you get the same functionality. This isn't a matter of Apple selling an elites-only product. This is Apple bringing a mainstream product to the elite market.
supercoder 12y ago
The Apple Watch starts from $349. You'll be able to buy one if you want one.
serve_yay 12y ago
I don't even think it really makes sense to talk about Gruber as a "techie" blogger. He is interested in the way Apple designs and markets things, and the movements of those markets generally. He almost never covers actual technical topics. If you don't have any interest in the manner in which technological goods are sold to the public, that's certainly your prerogative. But some people do.
jeffehobbs 12y ago
Right on, great piece.
Animats 12y ago
This is the company which made having white wires hanging out of ears a fashion statement.
madeofpalk 12y ago
While yes, the Apple Watch does kind of throw out the notion that the worlds most elite and powerful are using the same (i)Phone as teenagers in school - the author of this article seemingly forgot that there are two other Apple Watches which will presumable be much cheaper - starting at $350.

37 points by archagon 12y ago

joesb 12y ago

> "We loved our iPods and iPhones for their sleek design and smooth UI, even when people dismissed them as “expensive toys”. We knew our $2000 laptops were incredible for the price, even while people mocked us for not buying cheap, creaky Windows machines." > "An Apple that sells “bling” to billionaires is not a company that many of us could muster passion about. " I think the author already has the answer to his question.

yatoomy 12y ago

I still think Pebble is demonstrating more Apple qualities than Apple is atm. 1. Sleek design (Pebble Time Steel looks better) 2. Innovating new markets/ideas (the new bands are doing to open the flood gates for hardware devs) 3. Keeping it simple (Apple watch wants to put a smartphone on your wrist, Pebble focuses on what watches do best)

joshuapants 12y ago
I hate the way the Apple Watch looks, but it definitely looks far better than the Pebble Steel. I'll give you the other two, however.

Shivetya 12y ago

Shark, meet Apple. Apple, jump shark.

bluthru 12y ago

>But I was under the impression that we were Apple fans in the first place because they made best-in-breed products for everyone, not just the elite. Which is exactly why there is an expensive tier for the Apple Watch: to sell watches to everyone. Apple is taking this product category so seriously that they're going after the high-end heirloom watches while not leaving the teenage iPhone user market behind. Hate the game not the player. This doesn't look like existing tech markets because as of now it's not a tech market. If you want your apps to be prevalent on wrists, you should be thanking Apple for legitimizing smart watches to the gold-watch crowd. Crowd-funded wrist watches could never do that. I would rather everyone just had $350 watches and the rest of the capital went to... vaccination research or something, but Apple Watch Edition is how a 55 year old lawyer in the midwest gives up his Rolex.

walterbell 12y ago
>Apple Watch Edition is how a 55 year old lawyer in the midwest gives up his Rolex. Maybe. Or maybe said lawyer can afford a timeless Rolex due to lower mental susceptibility to shiny! new! improved! marketing of instantly obsolete widgets. Apple quality and marketing has made billions, but this can lead to commodization of those marketing techniques, as former employees diffuse those techniques into surrounding industry. Over time, the population develops immunity to this marketing and the cycle starts anew. Jobs spent many years developing his regenerative capacity for reality distortion. Can a corporation synthesize that capacity by hiring "fashion" executives? Fashion buyers were pre-inculcated with decades of cyclical norms, how many fashion executives have needed to execute Apple-scale reality distortion?
mullingitover 12y ago
> Apple Watch Edition is how a 55 year old lawyer in the midwest gives up his Rolex. I have a really hard time buying this argument, because a Rolex will appreciate in value, and that 55 year old lawyer in the midwest isn't stupid, s/he knows this. Nobody in their right mind expects a consumer electronic device to appreciate in value.
- Wintamute 12y ago
  The Rolex goes in the bed side cabinet, the Apple Watch goes on the wrist.
  - lqdc13 12y ago
    And off the wrist in a year
    - jsprogrammer 12y ago
      Smart money is on less.
    - hexasquid 12y ago
      Every evening, if the battery needs a daily charge.

YuriNiyazov 12y ago

I care because I own AAPL and would like for them to double in value again.

hnprogfail 12y ago

There are hipsters here practically ready to throw away their mock 80s wrist watches and shave their wrist beards in readiness for an Apple watch. So they can all be unique, in their group like way. Just wait till the first time they go out for their artisan and it rains, and the watch goes wrong. Maybe they will be told "you were wearing it the wrong way".

white-flame 12y ago

In my opinion, Apple has been a fashion company ever since the iPod. Remember the white earbud commercials? They've positioned themselves as a luxury brand, where it is considered fashionable among the general population to visibly own their devices. Sure, Mac-owning techies have additional reasons, but I don't think they drive the brunt of Apple sales.

minthd 12y ago
True, but at that time it was a combination of fashion and design(especially true for the iPhone's early years). But today the design arena is much tougher, with Google becoming very capable in design, and a lot of good ux/ui designers around(due to the difficulty of designing good apps and the importance of that). So now Apple is differentiating with what they can, which is fashion, and their unique positioning in the market.
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
No, they've placed themselves as a premium but accessible fashion brand within the popular consumer tech market. Now, they're trying to sell a tech product to the status symbol market - which is a completely different proposition. I cannot see any way this can work, because Apple's upgrade cycle-driven minimalism is the exact opposite of the busily pointless lasting-heirloom-wannabe bling you get from brands like Vertu, Rolex, Patek Philippe, and the rest. Wrapping a thick layer of gold around a Mk 1 product that everyone suspects is going to be updated in a year or two isn't going to fix that. So it's a dangerous strategy. If it fails it's going to dampen sales of the cheaper models. IMO they should have stayed out of the fashion market until they had a model that truly qualified for heritage status, and then sold it as a very limited special edition, in something insanely expensive like diamond-coated aerospace platinum. If this turns into a 'This is still mass produced, but we made it shiny, gold, and very expensive as a thing' pitch, I think it will be completely wrong for that market.

skywhopper 12y ago

The brilliant thing about the Apple Watch is that no matter which casing/strap you buy, you're getting the same gear. So if you don't care what the watch is made of or how it looks, you can just buy the Sport model. If you want the best durability, you get the steel/sapphire standard model. If you want the blingiest thing, you get the Edition. But no matter how much you spend, you get the same functionality. This isn't a matter of Apple selling an elites-only product. This is Apple bringing a mainstream product to the elite market.

supercoder 12y ago

The Apple Watch starts from $349. You'll be able to buy one if you want one.

serve_yay 12y ago

I don't even think it really makes sense to talk about Gruber as a "techie" blogger. He is interested in the way Apple designs and markets things, and the movements of those markets generally. He almost never covers actual technical topics. If you don't have any interest in the manner in which technological goods are sold to the public, that's certainly your prerogative. But some people do.

jeffehobbs 12y ago

Right on, great piece.

Animats 12y ago

This is the company which made having white wires hanging out of ears a fashion statement.

madeofpalk 12y ago

While yes, the Apple Watch does kind of throw out the notion that the worlds most elite and powerful are using the same (i)Phone as teenagers in school - the author of this article seemingly forgot that there are two other Apple Watches which will presumable be much cheaper - starting at $350.