The gold one IS the cheapest!

It pays to be rich...

Except it is unfortunately gold colored...

leenak said:

Except it is unfortunately gold colored...

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Source?

BvizioN said:

Source?

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I can't find a source that explains why gold things gold in color.

Tanegashima said:

As you can see, gold price inevitably goes up.

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Inevitably!

If the wall thickness of the case is 1mm, then the value of the 18ct gold will be around the $1200 ish mark.

Given that the cost of the Aluminium or Stainless steel is literally just a few dollars if that.

You SHOULD be able to take that price, tack on about $1200 and you SHOULD have the price of the Gold Watch.

(In theory)

Jewelry is made of investment bullion but investment bullion is not made of jewelry. Paying 5 to 10x the market value and expect a return on investment is ludicrous. It would be like paying $700 for a share AAPL today and saying it will make you money.

Piggie said:

If the wall thickness of the case is 1mm, then the value of the 18ct gold will be around the $1200 ish mark.

Given that the cost of the Aluminium or Stainless steel is literally just a few dollars if that.

You SHOULD be able to take that price, tack on about $1200 and you SHOULD have the price of the Gold Watch.

(In theory)

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Wait, isn't the aluminum watch $350? So add $1200 and we have $1550.

(In theory!)

The body of the cold one will cost 500€.

Night Spring said:

Wait, isn't the aluminum watch $350? So add $1200 and we have $1550.

(In theory!)

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Exactly

And Apple are making nice profit on the Aluminium one.

So, as you say, just change the raw material costs, and have the same amount of profit on each watch and you end up at $1500 ish.

It really all depends if Apple chooses to add on a "Fashion Tax" to these models.

I've said it a number of times, if Apple dared to simply slap on say $3000 - $3500 of clear, sheer profit, as some think they will, they will get slaughtered in the press for doing so.

Of course, this does all depend how accurate my 1mm wall thickness guesstimate is.

It could be an 18 carat gold (specially formulated by apple) alloy

you made my mind.

Probably im going to the gold version now.

Gav2k said:

It could be an 18 carat gold (specially formulated by apple) alloy

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It is. The back of the watch says "18 KARAT GOLD".



And it must be solid, since in the US, it would have to say it it was only plated:

Federal Law, Title 16, CFR 23.4:

§ 23.4 Misrepresentation as to gold content.

(3) Use of the word “Gold” or any abbreviation to describe all or part of an industry product that is not composed throughout of gold or a gold alloy, but is surface-plated or coated with gold alloy, unless the word “Gold” or its abbreviation is adequately qualified to indicate that the product or part is only surface-plated.

Piggie said:

Exactly

And Apple are making nice profit on the Aluminium one.

So, as you say, just change the raw material costs, and have the same amount of profit on each watch and you end up at $1500 ish.

It really all depends if Apple chooses to add on a "Fashion Tax" to these models.

I've said it a number of times, if Apple dared to simply slap on say $3000 - $3500 of clear, sheer profit, as some think they will, they will get slaughtered in the press for doing so.

Of course, this does all depend how accurate my 1mm wall thickness guesstimate is.

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Apple hasn't ever spent much time caring about what the press say in most circumstances, and the pricing for an Apple watch would be one. Making it more expensive would probably only broaden its appeal. As Apple has demonstrated many times, people are willing to pay a premium even with fairly equivalent, lower-cost options.

What does need to happen, however, if Apple offers the Watch at luxury pricing is a reorganization of the Apple Store. That will be very interesting to see.

fuchsdh said:

What does need to happen, however, if Apple offers the Watch at luxury pricing is a reorganization of the Apple Store. That will be very interesting to see.

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I wonder if the Watch has anything to do with Apple now reporting retail as part of regional results instead of stand alone?

Rose Gold looks so hot imo

fuchsdh said:

Apple hasn't ever spent much time caring about what the press say in most circumstances, and the pricing for an Apple watch would be one. Making it more expensive would probably only broaden its appeal. As Apple has demonstrated many times, people are willing to pay a premium even with fairly equivalent, lower-cost options.

What does need to happen, however, if Apple offers the Watch at luxury pricing is a reorganization of the Apple Store. That will be very interesting to see.

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There is Premium, and there is PREMIUM

I sometimes feel a few people forget Apple is all about Mass Consumer Sales.
They have never, been a lets sell just a few expensive items to a few people company.
They make things a bit better quality with a bit higher finish, and charge a bit more than others, then wrap it together with their software.

They are generally priced, just above competition, but well within the mass market price acceptance.

I know it's not going to be cheap, but I'd also be surprised if Apple covered the general Apple Watch website with photo's of Gold Watches to get millions of consumers excited, and then priced them so high, only 1 in 5000 Apple fans would be realistically able to buy one, and felt let down they could not have the model they had seen so much of.

You want happy customers, not unhappy ones that were unable to afford the product they had been looking forward to.

Hence, me saying it has, I would of thought, to be set at an expensive, as it's gold, but not out of reach expensive level for the mass market.

Having millions of people around the world, unhappy as they had to settle for the steel one does not sound a great tactic.

Piggie said:

There is Premium, and there is PREMIUM

I sometimes feel a few people forget Apple is all about Mass Consumer Sales.
They have never, been a lets sell just a few expensive items to a few people company.
They make things a bit better quality with a bit higher finish, and charge a bit more than others, then wrap it together with their software.

They are generally priced, just above competition, but well within the mass market price acceptance.

I know it's not going to be cheap, but I'd also be surprised if Apple covered the general Apple Watch website with photo's of Gold Watches to get millions of consumers excited, and then priced them so high, only 1 in 5000 Apple fans would be realistically able to buy one, and felt let down they could not have the model they had seen so much of.

You want happy customers, not unhappy ones that were unable to afford the product they had been looking forward to.

Hence, me saying it has, I would of thought, to be set at an expensive, as it's gold, but not out of reach expensive level for the mass market.

Having millions of people around the world, unhappy as they had to settle for the steel one does not sound a great tactic.

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I think the difference between what Apple has done and what Apple is doing is that when Apple came out with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, it was creating substantially new categories. The vast majority of people didn't have large-capacity MP3 players, touchscreen smartphones, or tablet devices; Apple came in, upset the apple cart (har har) of whoever was already there, and then set a lot of the trends for what came later.

The Apple Watch is superficially similar; there have been only a few smartwatches of the caliber or performance capability of the Apple Watch. Apple could entirely remake the market. But I think the difference is what you were discarding when you went to an iPod, an iPhone, an iPad, was probably a worse piece of tech. That Walkman was going to be obsolete. So was that candy-bar phone (though I bet the battery still holds up for two days!)

But Apple clearly has broader aspirations, and that means it's not competing with the Galaxy Gear, it's competing with watches in general—a market that has been corroding away into dinky $10 watches at Target, $5000+ timepieces for status symbols, or, ever-increasingly, just using a smartphone. The typical rules Apple has played against don't apply. If Apple wants someone to dispense with that $5000 or $10,000 or whatever watch, cause they're only going to wear one thing on their wrist… it's got to offer something comparable. And at least to me, the Apple Watch actually looks a hell of a lot better than some of the massive chunky options for men out there; your mileage may vary.

The problem is Apple's opposition is now equally stylish and far more permanent than a gadget that will be obsolete in four years, and even rich people might balk at tossing something like that. Not to mention that so much of the luxury is the experience—I get the "black" credit card offers all the time that focus on concierge services as part of their appeal. The personal touch in an age of automation matters—to Apple, certainly, but even more so to these buyers. So how do you get people to feel like they're the most valued customer in an Apple Store?

The Store problem and The Upgrade problem are the biggest obstacles to Apple with positioning the higher-end Watches, to me, not the price. There's a great chapter in Super Freakonomics where an escort realized that she only got more business the higher she jacked her rates—some things really don't fall into the "you could sell 5X as many if it were half the cost" dichotomy, and if it does… that's where the sport and stainless steel editions come into play.

I know a certain person on these forums hates me saying this.

But like MANY other watchmakers, and good quality watchmakers.

There is no reason why Apple could not also offer a high quality Gold plated option as well as an actual Gold bodied watch.

People have been making and enjoying gold plated watches and other items for years, and it does not have to be really thin plating.

They could easily, let's say offer a gold plated one that thousands, tens of thousands more could enjoy, as well as offer the actual gold version.

Or course. This is only really valid depending on Apple's markup.

If the gold one was around the $1500 mark, a little higher with the top end bands, then perhaps not.

If the gold one was around the $3000 to $5000 mark some crazy people think it will be

Then there would be much more of an argument for a Gold Plated model, around the $1000 mark for those who could never justify/afford the very high figures.

Piggie said:

If the wall thickness of the case is 1mm, then the value of the 18ct gold will be around the $1200 ish mark.

Given that the cost of the Aluminium or Stainless steel is literally just a few dollars if that.

You SHOULD be able to take that price, tack on about $1200 and you SHOULD have the price of the Gold Watch.

(In theory)

Click to expand...

You really think 1mm? Also consider there is no gold on front or back as those are glass and ceramic. Seems like there will be much less gold than people are expecting.

In response to another post, wolfram alpha puts value of 14 grams of 18k gold at $147. I'm too lazy to look up elsewhere.

Piggie said:

I know a certain person on these forums hates me saying this.

But like MANY other watchmakers, and good quality watchmakers.

There is no reason why Apple could not also offer a high quality Gold plated option as well as an actual Gold bodied watch.

People have been making and enjoying gold plated watches and other items for years, and it does not have to be really thin plating.

They could easily, let's say offer a gold plated one that thousands, tens of thousands more could enjoy, as well as offer the actual gold version.

Or course. This is only really valid depending on Apple's markup.

If the gold one was around the $1500 mark, a little higher with the top end bands, then perhaps not.

If the gold one was around the $3000 to $5000 mark some crazy people think it will be

Then there would be much more of an argument for a Gold Plated model, around the $1000 mark for those who could never justify/afford the very high figures.

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Apple (or any other manufacturers for that matter) cannot legally sell gold-plated marketed as "18-Karat Gold" so that throws your prediction out of the window.

JayLenochiniMac said:

Apple (or any other manufacturers for that matter) cannot legally sell gold-plated marketed as "18-Karat Gold" so that throws your prediction out of the window.

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He wasn't suggesting that Apple sell gold plated watches as 18karat gold. He was suggesting that they should sell a gold plated version in addition to a 18k gold version. The gold plated version will of course be cheaper than the solid gold version.