6 ms·

Why Apple is obsessed with gold: It's all about Asia

31 points by altern8 11y ago

higherpurpose 11y ago
If Apple is willing to make all of its product lines gold just to make China like it more, I wonder what else it's going to compromise on (thinking security/privacy here).
- dijit 11y ago
  Everyone always brings up privacy with Apple. Apple has a history of rejecting NSA blanket surveillance (until Jobs died- according to NSA leaks) At the very least Apple has a business model that /can/ support user privacy. Google is an advertising company- what you don't pay in currency, they make up for by selling you.
  - Caprinicus 11y ago
    Ultimately what privacy comes down to a lot of the time is how much information the companies have access to. Even if Google had the same stance towards privacy that Apple does, they would be inherently much much worse just because their entire business model relies on having tons of your data, which is the exact opposite of the way Apple operates.
- lindig 11y ago
  You are suggesting that marketing to people's aestehetic preferences might come with a technical, functional or security compromise. How so? Would you suspect Ford to compromise on safety if it started to make a car in a color that appeals to a certain demographic?
  - qq66 11y ago
    Your example is interesting, because car color and safety are related :) The effect isn't strong, but white cars seem to be involved in fewer injury incidents per mile driven. Standard disclaimer about correlation/causality...
- equoid 11y ago
  Come on, its not difficult. Apple makes products in gold because it makes those products more appealing to Chinese consumers. If you're going to try and be an Apple hater at least also try to be intelligent about it.
- madeofpalk 11y ago
  I'm not convinced Apple making a different coloured product is a compromise, let alone anywhere near the same level as security/private
- jrs99 11y ago
  it's a huge compromise, since no one outside of china would ever by a gold macbook. Instead of Silver, Slate, and Gold for macbook colors, Apple should have gone with Silver, Slate and Green.
  - altern8 11y ago
    A few women might get a gold MacBook, but I think it's the tackiest thing I've ever seen. It also sucks that they picked gold for the keynote and as the main image on the website :-/
- mcintyre1994 11y ago
  I do agree this is a conversation worth having - it's not hugely relevant to Western consumers (obviously there's no deal to give all data to China or something - they're still a US company), but it raises points about Apple's philosophy. They got the iPhone on China Mobile, the world's biggest carrier that is also owned by the Chinese state. They're allegedly set to make China their biggest market, and are making enormous profit there. It doesn't seem particularly unlikely that that deal did more good for Apple than for China Mobile or that there might be conditions attached to it. It'd be fascinating to hear what those could be. I have mentioned this before, and somebody mentioned there's a markup on iOS products from Hong Kong which could suggest there's something to the idea - and that people do know/suspect something too. You only have to look at the state of Android - specifically Google's version - in China to see something's up. Google have been locked out of China, Apple have been embraced. Of course Google have way more data to demand than Apple do - and perhaps the demands were so ridiculous Apple would have balked at the same - but it's an interesting comparison. It's also potentially the driving force that will mean Apple continue to take substantially all the industry's profit. Basically, it would be fascinating to have been in the room of Apple/China Mobile negotiations.
- melling 11y ago
  How is offering something gold, or the color gold, a compromise? What is the largest cellphone market in the world? China. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_o... Can you explain how you make the connection between colors and security? It sounds like a subtle troll.
dijit 11y ago
thought this was common knowledge when they unveiled the gold 5s in 2013. http://www.zdnet.com/article/gold-iphone-5s-the-only-spark-among-chinese-consumers/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/gold-iphone-5s-the-only-spark-a...
- leoc 11y ago
  I have wondered if the riot-of-colour 5Cs were partly intended to appeal to certain Asian markets too, even if they don't seem to have done the business in China.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    The riot of colour iPods were aimed at young people, so ot's plausible that the 5c was also aimed at younger people.
madeofpalk 11y ago
While I've ever been entirely comfortable with this 'theory' (as true as it might be), it's worth noting that Apple Watch doesn't necessarily fall into this one. IMO, the gold Apple Watch was created to position Apple Watch as a luxury good, and make the cheaper models more appealing and fashionable. Just the existence of the uber expensive Edition gave the Sport and 'regular' Watch more 'fashion cred' for those that would care about such a thing.
- vatys 11y ago
  Why not both? Making an absurdly expensive gold flavor elevates the whole Watch brand, positions it as a luxury good, and makes it more appealing in China. Win-win.
  - XJOKOLAT 11y ago
    I don't know. I've never thought of Apple as "luxury". I thought of them as "premium". Premium. As in pay premium for the best. Positioning Apple as a luxury product isn't what I want or need as con/pro-sumer. I'm not sure where Apple are heading with this. Profit I guess.
    - stephenr 11y ago
      You aren't the target market for a gold watch. The gold version has literally no benefit over the aluminium or steel versions other than being gold. If you discount the value of gold, it's actually worse because it's heavier. However, there are still people in the world who want to show off their financial status, and have the means to do so by wearing gold watches, jewellery, diamonds, pearls, etc. It is a fact that many asian cultures embrace these displays of personal wealth. It's common practice in Thailand for people to display their gold items when other relatives/close friends visit their house. As I said to a friend recently - I fully expect to see a lot more authentic gold apple watches in Thailand than authentic steel or aluminium ones.
      - XJOKOLAT 11y ago
XJOKOLAT 11y ago
It should be "all about Apple". I admire the Apple design ethos, especially recently. It felt like they were trying to make the best product possible, whether I liked it or not. If you're telling me they chose gold just for Asia, that's pretty lame. Personally I think the gold looks pretty tacky and a departure for Apple. I thought they made their own rules. Guess I was wrong. But what do I know, they'll still sell a quadrillion of everything. It's just a colour. Happy Sunday
- qq66 11y ago
  How can there be a "best product possible" without taking the prospective user into account? A phone that was so thin it sliced my finger, or so small that I couldn't see it, wouldn't be a very good phone at all. What Apple does really well is design products that very large numbers of people want to buy, and if there are a very large number of people who want to buy a gold watch, Apple will make it for them.
  - XJOKOLAT 11y ago
    That's a little bit like saying: "if there are a very large number of people who want to buy a grey-PC-looking-box running Windows, Apple will make it for them". Sorry, you're missing my point.
- deleted 11y ago
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- deleted 11y ago
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stephenr 11y ago
Short version: China !== Asia. Long version: I understand that China is a big market for Apple, but as the headline indicates, it's not just China where people are more inclined to buy (and show off) gold products - it's a phenomenon in many Asian countries.
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  Asia pretty much equals China + India + a bunch of other much smaller countries. So if they said "asia", do they mean Japan where this might not go over as well, or India where gold is reserved almost exclusively for jewelry? Focusing on china instead is much more precise, even if the gold watch might be attractive in Malaysia and Vietnam also.
statictype 11y ago
I figured it's all about Jonathan Ives. He likes gold and it's particular aesthetic, which is why all the new stuff has it. My completely uninformed opinion is that Steve Jobs probably hated it, which is why it never existed until post-Jobs Apple.
- leoc 11y ago
  It's possible. But Jobs was apparently a supporter of the stitched-leather UI panels, and he wasn't above liking a bombastic sort of bling http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980w/public/2012/12/22/steve_jobs_yacht2.jpg http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980w/public/2... (source: http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1110728/steve-jobs-yacht-impounded-payment-dispute http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1110728/steve-jobs-ya... ).
- marincounty 11y ago
  As someone who took up an interest in watch repair later in life, I now understand why the better watches are cased in gold. It doesn't corrode.(makes working on easy) It warms(thermal heat transfer) up to the skin quicker than, I believe any metal. Easy to polish. The negative, besides wasting money(unless the consumer feels the gold iwatch is an heirloom), is you can't wear it everywhere.(certain people look at my old gold sea master like they would chop off my wrist in certain areas.) That said, when I look at the current gold Iwatch--I just think about the melt value. I can't think of any gold watch manufacturer who didn't produce a watch thinking the consumer could theoretically keep that watch for life, with the proper care. Sorry, about rambling on--I have just thought about this watch too much. I don't have an exciting life.
  - Caprinicus 11y ago
    Melting the watch won't give you shit, even by jewelry standards, because the gold they use is very light meaning that it is technically of a certain karat while having much less actual gold content. It is great from a design perspective, it is light and strong and just as pretty, but not so good for material worth. I really hope that they work to offload as much computation to the users phone as possible as more features are added so that one watch can survive multiple iphones.
ghshephard 11y ago
Take it with a grain of salt, but Jony Ive was quite adamant about why they created a gold watch - They (presumably he, marc newsom, and the rest of the design team) - love the material. We know they are among the world's greatest experts in building personal electronics out of aluminium, (check), stainless steel is a classic watch material (check) - so why aren't they allowed to build a gold watch just because building things out of gold is awesome? I'm guessing the fact that gold is popular in China (Apple's soon to be largest market), and probably will yield a high gross margin, probably made it straightforward to get Tim to sign off on it - but I really do believe that the initial driver was the desire to work with the material. But, put it in a different perspective - pretend that you are in charge of the Apple Design team for their next generation product, which is meant to be worn, and you want it to be attractive to everyone in the world - what materials would you chose to make a watch out of? I don't know about you, but gold is pretty high up on my list.
- hedgew 11y ago
  One simple reason for not building gold watches is that we have much cheaper materials that are also superior in every way - except sex appeal. A treatment for schistosomiasis (a common tropical parasitic worm) costs $0.50 per year. So for each gold watch, which costs something like $10000 extra, you could have gotten 20,000 years of parasite-free life for humans. But rather than make this some annoying moralistic lecture, just ask the question: which is more awesome? Spending ten grand on a gold watch? Giving people 20,000 years of medical treatment?
  - madeofpalk 11y ago
    So how much medical treatment have you bought for others?
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Also, 20,000 years of medical treatment with 10 grand? Do you meant "free aspirins" when you said "medical treatment"? There's tooth surgery that costs more than 10 grand, for a single person...
zimbatm 11y ago
It seems absurd for consumers to store value with items that are very perishable. What do you do with your 10k watch in 5 years when Apple has stopped releasing security updates ? You're then left with an expensive shell and a rotten core.
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  If you are in the market for a $10k gold watch, you probably just hand it down or even throw it away...it is not the kind of money you think about (most high end watches are much much more than that...think 30k CHF for a simple one).
GabrielF00 11y ago
Apple used to position itself as a brand for rebels and bohemians. Remember the "Here's to the crazy ones" manifesto? An $18,000 gold watch is pretty far from that image. Of course, the rebel image worked because Apple had a tiny market share at the time. But it's still pretty striking to see a company that built lime green laptops build insanely expensive gold watches.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Apple used to position itself as a brand for rebels and bohemians. Remember the "Here's to the crazy ones" manifesto? An $18,000 gold watch is pretty far from that image. For one, that was one campaign, run at one time. Not some constant image of the company. They also made expensive laser printers, PDAs and high end laptops like the Powerbook -- do those tie well with "rebels" and "bohemians" in the original sense? Besides being just a project image, "rebels" wasn't meant in the guerilla activists sense, but in the "creative" sense in a western context, which can include having lots of money. John Lennon, one of the guys in the campaign was a billionaire with a Rols Royce. The greatest rebel shown was Ghandi, which was included mostly because people just know/focus on his "peaceful" and "spiritual" qualities. As for bohemians, these come into two groups. The actual historical ones, living in Paris, Lower East Side, etc, in decades past, usually poor, and the modern middle/upper class "bohemians" (bohos, etc) whose "bohemian" attitude includes consumerism. >But it's still pretty striking to see a company that built lime green laptops build insanely expensive gold watches. It's gold, it's supposed to be insanely expensive. Besides they also build a lot of insanely expensive laptops compared to cheap PC alternatives.
tomjen3 11y ago
So much speculation going on here. Amy Hoy actually researched it (https://unicornfree.com/2015/nobody-will-pay-10000-for-an-apple-watch-other-reasons-you-cant-sell-shit https://unicornfree.com/2015/nobody-will-pay-10000-for-an-ap...) and 10k isn't much for the kind of high-end fashion market that will buy this. In fact it is kinda low, as Amy points out the 10k will only get you the "basic bitch" version of the Berkin bag. Basically a) you are not the market and b) for those who are the market here 10k is not much. Side note I love Amy Hoys writing and suggest you all go read her site.
interstellar 11y ago
For the Apple watch edition, I doubt that Apple expects it to be a large revenue driver. It's an obvious marketing move to position the watch as a high end luxury item, to 'frame' the pricing discussion, and to generate buzz. This is a technique that companies (especially aspiration luxury brands) have used forever. Set the price of your A-level item unusually high and suddenly the price of your B-level item seems like a bargain. Where other e-watch makers are struggling at the $200-300 price point, Apple is selling its C-level watch at $350 and its (probable) volume seller B-level watch starting at $549 without any problem. I think they understand the human psychology of luxury purchase decisions pretty well. It's smart (and slightly evil), but I don't know how this will fit in long term with the rest of their products which are 'premium' but until now haven't pushed so far into 'luxury.' An iphone is slightly more expensive than an S6, but is perceived to be 'premium' in some way. Apple doesn't make diamond encrusted $10K phones even though their are luxury phone brands that do. This is new territory for Apple, not sure that I like it.
Steko 11y ago
I found the evidence in the article to be less than persuasive. The cited study found black to be the most luxurious color in those markets but obviously there is no black phone or black edition variant. I'll also note that Apple has quite often historically used black without being accused of pandering to Asian tastes. No equivalent study for the west is offered as a contrast, probably because gold and silver would also be high on the list. The western designer cited as not liking Apple's turn to gold wears ... a gold (colored) watch.
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  I think it is implied that black is a favourite color in the west as well. So black devices is just pandering to everyone, which is why the white iPod was kinda revolutionary colorwise. Everybody else was doing black or dark devices and here comes Apple with signature white earphones and device.
  - Steko 11y ago
    It's not a coherent argument to say 'Apple is moving away from black/white because Asians associate luxury with gold' when your own citation says that 'Asians actually associate luxury with black to a higher degree'. I also found strange the whole bit about 'white and funerals in Asia' which he promises more on later than later spends fewer actual words on the topic then he did on the promise to give more details lol.

31 points by altern8 11y ago

If Apple is willing to make all of its product lines gold just to make China like it more, I wonder what else it's going to compromise on (thinking security/privacy here).

dijit 11y ago
Everyone always brings up privacy with Apple. Apple has a history of rejecting NSA blanket surveillance (until Jobs died- according to NSA leaks) At the very least Apple has a business model that /can/ support user privacy. Google is an advertising company- what you don't pay in currency, they make up for by selling you.
- Caprinicus 11y ago
  Ultimately what privacy comes down to a lot of the time is how much information the companies have access to. Even if Google had the same stance towards privacy that Apple does, they would be inherently much much worse just because their entire business model relies on having tons of your data, which is the exact opposite of the way Apple operates.
lindig 11y ago
You are suggesting that marketing to people's aestehetic preferences might come with a technical, functional or security compromise. How so? Would you suspect Ford to compromise on safety if it started to make a car in a color that appeals to a certain demographic?
- qq66 11y ago
  Your example is interesting, because car color and safety are related :) The effect isn't strong, but white cars seem to be involved in fewer injury incidents per mile driven. Standard disclaimer about correlation/causality...
equoid 11y ago
Come on, its not difficult. Apple makes products in gold because it makes those products more appealing to Chinese consumers. If you're going to try and be an Apple hater at least also try to be intelligent about it.
madeofpalk 11y ago
I'm not convinced Apple making a different coloured product is a compromise, let alone anywhere near the same level as security/private
jrs99 11y ago
it's a huge compromise, since no one outside of china would ever by a gold macbook. Instead of Silver, Slate, and Gold for macbook colors, Apple should have gone with Silver, Slate and Green.
- altern8 11y ago
  A few women might get a gold MacBook, but I think it's the tackiest thing I've ever seen. It also sucks that they picked gold for the keynote and as the main image on the website :-/
mcintyre1994 11y ago
I do agree this is a conversation worth having - it's not hugely relevant to Western consumers (obviously there's no deal to give all data to China or something - they're still a US company), but it raises points about Apple's philosophy. They got the iPhone on China Mobile, the world's biggest carrier that is also owned by the Chinese state. They're allegedly set to make China their biggest market, and are making enormous profit there. It doesn't seem particularly unlikely that that deal did more good for Apple than for China Mobile or that there might be conditions attached to it. It'd be fascinating to hear what those could be. I have mentioned this before, and somebody mentioned there's a markup on iOS products from Hong Kong which could suggest there's something to the idea - and that people do know/suspect something too. You only have to look at the state of Android - specifically Google's version - in China to see something's up. Google have been locked out of China, Apple have been embraced. Of course Google have way more data to demand than Apple do - and perhaps the demands were so ridiculous Apple would have balked at the same - but it's an interesting comparison. It's also potentially the driving force that will mean Apple continue to take substantially all the industry's profit. Basically, it would be fascinating to have been in the room of Apple/China Mobile negotiations.
melling 11y ago
How is offering something gold, or the color gold, a compromise? What is the largest cellphone market in the world? China. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_o... Can you explain how you make the connection between colors and security? It sounds like a subtle troll.

dijit 11y ago

thought this was common knowledge when they unveiled the gold 5s in 2013. http://www.zdnet.com/article/gold-iphone-5s-the-only-spark-among-chinese-consumers/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/gold-iphone-5s-the-only-spark-a...

leoc 11y ago
I have wondered if the riot-of-colour 5Cs were partly intended to appeal to certain Asian markets too, even if they don't seem to have done the business in China.
- DanBC 11y ago
  The riot of colour iPods were aimed at young people, so ot's plausible that the 5c was also aimed at younger people.

madeofpalk 11y ago

While I've ever been entirely comfortable with this 'theory' (as true as it might be), it's worth noting that Apple Watch doesn't necessarily fall into this one. IMO, the gold Apple Watch was created to position Apple Watch as a luxury good, and make the cheaper models more appealing and fashionable. Just the existence of the uber expensive Edition gave the Sport and 'regular' Watch more 'fashion cred' for those that would care about such a thing.

vatys 11y ago
Why not both? Making an absurdly expensive gold flavor elevates the whole Watch brand, positions it as a luxury good, and makes it more appealing in China. Win-win.
- XJOKOLAT 11y ago
  I don't know. I've never thought of Apple as "luxury". I thought of them as "premium". Premium. As in pay premium for the best. Positioning Apple as a luxury product isn't what I want or need as con/pro-sumer. I'm not sure where Apple are heading with this. Profit I guess.
  - stephenr 11y ago
    You aren't the target market for a gold watch. The gold version has literally no benefit over the aluminium or steel versions other than being gold. If you discount the value of gold, it's actually worse because it's heavier. However, there are still people in the world who want to show off their financial status, and have the means to do so by wearing gold watches, jewellery, diamonds, pearls, etc. It is a fact that many asian cultures embrace these displays of personal wealth. It's common practice in Thailand for people to display their gold items when other relatives/close friends visit their house. As I said to a friend recently - I fully expect to see a lot more authentic gold apple watches in Thailand than authentic steel or aluminium ones.
    - XJOKOLAT 11y ago

XJOKOLAT 11y ago

It should be "all about Apple". I admire the Apple design ethos, especially recently. It felt like they were trying to make the best product possible, whether I liked it or not. If you're telling me they chose gold just for Asia, that's pretty lame. Personally I think the gold looks pretty tacky and a departure for Apple. I thought they made their own rules. Guess I was wrong. But what do I know, they'll still sell a quadrillion of everything. It's just a colour. Happy Sunday

qq66 11y ago
How can there be a "best product possible" without taking the prospective user into account? A phone that was so thin it sliced my finger, or so small that I couldn't see it, wouldn't be a very good phone at all. What Apple does really well is design products that very large numbers of people want to buy, and if there are a very large number of people who want to buy a gold watch, Apple will make it for them.
- XJOKOLAT 11y ago
  That's a little bit like saying: "if there are a very large number of people who want to buy a grey-PC-looking-box running Windows, Apple will make it for them". Sorry, you're missing my point.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

stephenr 11y ago

Short version: China !== Asia. Long version: I understand that China is a big market for Apple, but as the headline indicates, it's not just China where people are more inclined to buy (and show off) gold products - it's a phenomenon in many Asian countries.

seanmcdirmid 11y ago
Asia pretty much equals China + India + a bunch of other much smaller countries. So if they said "asia", do they mean Japan where this might not go over as well, or India where gold is reserved almost exclusively for jewelry? Focusing on china instead is much more precise, even if the gold watch might be attractive in Malaysia and Vietnam also.

statictype 11y ago

I figured it's all about Jonathan Ives. He likes gold and it's particular aesthetic, which is why all the new stuff has it. My completely uninformed opinion is that Steve Jobs probably hated it, which is why it never existed until post-Jobs Apple.

leoc 11y ago
It's possible. But Jobs was apparently a supporter of the stitched-leather UI panels, and he wasn't above liking a bombastic sort of bling http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980w/public/2012/12/22/steve_jobs_yacht2.jpg http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980w/public/2... (source: http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1110728/steve-jobs-yacht-impounded-payment-dispute http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1110728/steve-jobs-ya... ).
marincounty 11y ago
As someone who took up an interest in watch repair later in life, I now understand why the better watches are cased in gold. It doesn't corrode.(makes working on easy) It warms(thermal heat transfer) up to the skin quicker than, I believe any metal. Easy to polish. The negative, besides wasting money(unless the consumer feels the gold iwatch is an heirloom), is you can't wear it everywhere.(certain people look at my old gold sea master like they would chop off my wrist in certain areas.) That said, when I look at the current gold Iwatch--I just think about the melt value. I can't think of any gold watch manufacturer who didn't produce a watch thinking the consumer could theoretically keep that watch for life, with the proper care. Sorry, about rambling on--I have just thought about this watch too much. I don't have an exciting life.
- Caprinicus 11y ago
  Melting the watch won't give you shit, even by jewelry standards, because the gold they use is very light meaning that it is technically of a certain karat while having much less actual gold content. It is great from a design perspective, it is light and strong and just as pretty, but not so good for material worth. I really hope that they work to offload as much computation to the users phone as possible as more features are added so that one watch can survive multiple iphones.

ghshephard 11y ago

Take it with a grain of salt, but Jony Ive was quite adamant about why they created a gold watch - They (presumably he, marc newsom, and the rest of the design team) - love the material. We know they are among the world's greatest experts in building personal electronics out of aluminium, (check), stainless steel is a classic watch material (check) - so why aren't they allowed to build a gold watch just because building things out of gold is awesome? I'm guessing the fact that gold is popular in China (Apple's soon to be largest market), and probably will yield a high gross margin, probably made it straightforward to get Tim to sign off on it - but I really do believe that the initial driver was the desire to work with the material. But, put it in a different perspective - pretend that you are in charge of the Apple Design team for their next generation product, which is meant to be worn, and you want it to be attractive to everyone in the world - what materials would you chose to make a watch out of? I don't know about you, but gold is pretty high up on my list.

hedgew 11y ago
One simple reason for not building gold watches is that we have much cheaper materials that are also superior in every way - except sex appeal. A treatment for schistosomiasis (a common tropical parasitic worm) costs $0.50 per year. So for each gold watch, which costs something like $10000 extra, you could have gotten 20,000 years of parasite-free life for humans. But rather than make this some annoying moralistic lecture, just ask the question: which is more awesome? Spending ten grand on a gold watch? Giving people 20,000 years of medical treatment?
- madeofpalk 11y ago
  So how much medical treatment have you bought for others?
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Also, 20,000 years of medical treatment with 10 grand? Do you meant "free aspirins" when you said "medical treatment"? There's tooth surgery that costs more than 10 grand, for a single person...

zimbatm 11y ago

It seems absurd for consumers to store value with items that are very perishable. What do you do with your 10k watch in 5 years when Apple has stopped releasing security updates ? You're then left with an expensive shell and a rotten core.

seanmcdirmid 11y ago
If you are in the market for a $10k gold watch, you probably just hand it down or even throw it away...it is not the kind of money you think about (most high end watches are much much more than that...think 30k CHF for a simple one).

GabrielF00 11y ago

Apple used to position itself as a brand for rebels and bohemians. Remember the "Here's to the crazy ones" manifesto? An $18,000 gold watch is pretty far from that image. Of course, the rebel image worked because Apple had a tiny market share at the time. But it's still pretty striking to see a company that built lime green laptops build insanely expensive gold watches.

coldtea 11y ago
>Apple used to position itself as a brand for rebels and bohemians. Remember the "Here's to the crazy ones" manifesto? An $18,000 gold watch is pretty far from that image. For one, that was one campaign, run at one time. Not some constant image of the company. They also made expensive laser printers, PDAs and high end laptops like the Powerbook -- do those tie well with "rebels" and "bohemians" in the original sense? Besides being just a project image, "rebels" wasn't meant in the guerilla activists sense, but in the "creative" sense in a western context, which can include having lots of money. John Lennon, one of the guys in the campaign was a billionaire with a Rols Royce. The greatest rebel shown was Ghandi, which was included mostly because people just know/focus on his "peaceful" and "spiritual" qualities. As for bohemians, these come into two groups. The actual historical ones, living in Paris, Lower East Side, etc, in decades past, usually poor, and the modern middle/upper class "bohemians" (bohos, etc) whose "bohemian" attitude includes consumerism. >But it's still pretty striking to see a company that built lime green laptops build insanely expensive gold watches. It's gold, it's supposed to be insanely expensive. Besides they also build a lot of insanely expensive laptops compared to cheap PC alternatives.

tomjen3 11y ago

So much speculation going on here. Amy Hoy actually researched it (https://unicornfree.com/2015/nobody-will-pay-10000-for-an-apple-watch-other-reasons-you-cant-sell-shit https://unicornfree.com/2015/nobody-will-pay-10000-for-an-ap...) and 10k isn't much for the kind of high-end fashion market that will buy this. In fact it is kinda low, as Amy points out the 10k will only get you the "basic bitch" version of the Berkin bag. Basically a) you are not the market and b) for those who are the market here 10k is not much. Side note I love Amy Hoys writing and suggest you all go read her site.

interstellar 11y ago

For the Apple watch edition, I doubt that Apple expects it to be a large revenue driver. It's an obvious marketing move to position the watch as a high end luxury item, to 'frame' the pricing discussion, and to generate buzz. This is a technique that companies (especially aspiration luxury brands) have used forever. Set the price of your A-level item unusually high and suddenly the price of your B-level item seems like a bargain. Where other e-watch makers are struggling at the $200-300 price point, Apple is selling its C-level watch at $350 and its (probable) volume seller B-level watch starting at $549 without any problem. I think they understand the human psychology of luxury purchase decisions pretty well. It's smart (and slightly evil), but I don't know how this will fit in long term with the rest of their products which are 'premium' but until now haven't pushed so far into 'luxury.' An iphone is slightly more expensive than an S6, but is perceived to be 'premium' in some way. Apple doesn't make diamond encrusted $10K phones even though their are luxury phone brands that do. This is new territory for Apple, not sure that I like it.

Steko 11y ago

I found the evidence in the article to be less than persuasive. The cited study found black to be the most luxurious color in those markets but obviously there is no black phone or black edition variant. I'll also note that Apple has quite often historically used black without being accused of pandering to Asian tastes. No equivalent study for the west is offered as a contrast, probably because gold and silver would also be high on the list. The western designer cited as not liking Apple's turn to gold wears ... a gold (colored) watch.

wodenokoto 11y ago
I think it is implied that black is a favourite color in the west as well. So black devices is just pandering to everyone, which is why the white iPod was kinda revolutionary colorwise. Everybody else was doing black or dark devices and here comes Apple with signature white earphones and device.
- Steko 11y ago
  It's not a coherent argument to say 'Apple is moving away from black/white because Asians associate luxury with gold' when your own citation says that 'Asians actually associate luxury with black to a higher degree'. I also found strange the whole bit about 'white and funerals in Asia' which he promises more on later than later spends fewer actual words on the topic then he did on the promise to give more details lol.