Profit is what keeps the lights on in a company and ensures that they continue to make the products you like and update them on a regular basis.
Talking about profits isn't sexy, but it's still an important aspect of what makes a product viable. Apple is able to enjoy the success it does today precisely because it the best business model in the worldhen it comes to generating cash. Pretty much every product they make is easily the most profitable in their respective markets, and they are able to generate the profits they do because they make great products which people are willing to pay a premium for.
I don't think Apple are in any danger at all of the lights going out. They are more than capable of entering markets where the margins are likely to be less that their customary 40%, in fact given the resources they have at their disposal now would be the best time for them to experiment, they just care too much about what Wall Street would think to bother.
Pebble is perhaps the best example. Many people liked their products, but evidently not enough did to allow them to keep going. Ultimately, Pebble had to be acquired by Fitbit for a pittance, and Fitbit themselves isn't doing so well. The market for dedicated fitness trackers seems to be imploding, Fitbit reportedly only has enough cash on hand to keep going for another year or so, and their rumoured smartwatch is going up against a LTE-enabled Apple Watch with watchOS 4 functionality. It's going to be a touch quarter for Fitbit.
There is just no comparison at all to be made between Apple and start ups like Pebble.
The fact that Apple has enough resources for the Apple Watch to still be around after the likes of Pebble have run out of cash shouldn't be taken as an indication that the Apple Watch is a superior product, only that it is benefitting from the halo effect (mainly from the iPhone) and has will likely have enormous resources thrown at it (again mainly from the iPhone).
It is analogous to the situation with music streaming. The general consensus seems to be that Spotify is superior to Apple Music, but Apple has deep enough pockets to continually lose money on AM whereas it remains to be seen how long Spotify lasts without turning a profit.
Meanwhile, I am able to do cool stuff with my Apple Watch like use Apple Pay, store and play music on it, even unlock my Mac. In addition to being an excellent piece of hardware itself. All this is possible only because Apple has the resources to engage in the massive R&D necessary to make such a feat of engineering possible, maintain their own ecosystem, and properly market and support such a product in the market. I get native apps made for my Apple Watch precisely because the Apple ecosystem has shown to be profitable enough for developers to bother creating watch apps.
Thats nice but much of that kind of thing, NFC payments, bluetooth audio etc is already available on some Android Wear devices some of which already support LTE connectivity. Nothing is new there at all.
The unlock your Mac with your watch feature is nice, although last time I tried it it was very flaky, but that is purely a benefit of the ecosystem and obviously only works if you buy a Mac aswell, a new Mac at that, doesn't support anything prior to 2013.
Honestly biometric authentication features on the Mac (or the Mac generally) are a terrible example of innovation from Apple.
The Mac is playing catch up to Windows on multiple fronts. Sierra brought Siri to the Mac nearly two years after Cortana arrived on Windows. The 2016 MacBook Pro brought Touch ID to the Mac, finger print scanning has been available on Windows for years, I'm fairly sure it was supported in Windows 7! Many higher end PCs now support Windows Hello for facial recognition, doesn't look like that is coming to the Mac anytime soon.
But no, people would rather Apple make discount-bin step trackers that sell for $15 the same way Xiaomi does in order to pad their sales numbers.
Are they serious?
Actually I think people would like them to focus a little bit
less on sales numbers and a bit more on releasing something new and innovative, I'm sorry but the Apple Watch and pretty much anything that has happened on the Mac is not
it. Its just "me too" stuff.
You've obviously bought into the ecosystem in a big way and thats fine, I'm sure most of us on the forum use Apple devices heavily but you do seem to overly credit Apple for being on the cutting edge whilst ignoring what is going on elsewhere.
I think its likely that the the next "big thing" in computing/ consumers electronics is going to come from that elsewhere too. Just like it did in 2007.
