Apple Watch Demand Slides Significantly in June as Launch Momentum Wanes

[teslo]

That's precisely what they should do, as they did with netbooks.

Wearables is not a category worth pursuing for them.

i think apple knows wearables is indeed the future. eventually we'll see 'computers' in our bloodstream, so wearables is an unavoidable 'between stage'.. whether they've bumbled their first attempt or not has yet to be seen once the dust has settled (i still haven't used or even seen an AW in the wild). but i still think its smart for them to have entered the field.

 

[BuzzMega]

I've never gotten an answer to this: You buy a gold Apple Watch Version 1.0. What happens when Version 2.0 comes out? Recycle your gold or just chalk it off to a $10,000 watch that is seriously obsolete?

Quick: Name five $10,000 watches that go obsolete in a year.

 

[prowlmedia]

What a flop.

iphone 1 sold 1.4 million in year 1... This is 2.9 in less than 3 months. Or about 5x all the other smart watches together in 2014

Your math is very bad.

Will improve with age. Love mine just needs more app integration which is coming in September.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

i think apple knows wearables is indeed the future. eventually we'll see 'computers' in our bloodstream, so wearables is an unavoidable 'between stage'.. whether they've bumbled their first attempt or not has yet to be seen once the dust has settled (i still haven't used or even seen an AW in the wild). but i still think its smart for them to have entered the field.

no one wants a flava flav watch around their necks that plays youtube videos. wearibles are a gimmick man.

The funny thing is, I think there is a sense that there is a lull, and the next big thing won't come along for five or maybe ten years. Apple Car, perhaps? Or a holographic phone?

But I wonder whether tech is not going to drastically change for twenty or thirty years. It seems to me that the form of an iPhone, iPad, laptop or desktop covers pretty much the ideal form factors for a computer. What could change that? For as long as we read, type, watch or listen, we will need a screen, speakers or headphones.

I think the self driving & EV car are the next big steps for technology.

But I don't think TC has the vision to make either a reality. Furthermore they have wasted 3 years of R&D on the AW and are lagging far behind the competition. Google is much closer to working self-driving car and Tesla already has EVs.

 

[prowlmedia]

I've never gotten an answer to this: You buy a gold Apple Watch Version 1.0. What happens when Version 2.0 comes out? Recycle your gold or just chalk it off to a $10,000 watch that is seriously obsolete?

Quick: Name five $10,000 watches that go obsolete in a year.

Well technically every non smart watch is now obsolete as all it does is tell time. I reckon they will have an upgrade programme for the gold versions. Thus making the ones that are not chopped in very valuable.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

I must disagree with that baseless assertion. Perhaps you were being hyperbolic, but the watch industry is very lucrative for established players as well as newcomer Apple. The watch industry is a multibillion dollar industry.

I'd feel undressed and out of sorts without a watch on my wrist.

Lucrative is one way to put it.

The average price of a watch is $3.

 

[teslo]

no one wants a flava flav watch around their necks that plays youtube videos. wearibles are a gimmick man.

ok, random 1 person on the internet who bases his opinions on his immediate surroundings. got it.

 

[BaldiMac]

The problem is, Tim Cook is encouraging the bad rumours, and effectively confirming them, by withholding firm sales figures.

Hah! Again, Apple isn't reporting information on Apple Watch sales to avoid giving the competition valuable information about their product mix.

In the absence of numbers from Apple, we can only go by these firms who try to estimate. They become the voice of authority, and, so far, they haven't been challenged by apple.

Nature abhors a vacuum. The market abhors the lack of firm data, and interprets it negatively, as it should.

Did you even consider any counter examples? The obvious example of Samsung not reporting smartphone sales and have it interpreted positively for years should come to mind pretty quick.

Sales numbers aren't an indicator of success to me for this product in its first incarnation. The question is whether or not they can sell outside the faithful Apple and wearables fanboy markets. Time will tell.

That's awful convenient.

Sales are dropping off rapidly if this bit of data is to be believed.

Are they? Or does this data (if we take it literally) which includes only 7 weeks of sales show that initial preorders channel fill took a month and a half to ship out completely. And now sales will settle into an equilibrium.

And of course we have the potentially significant issue with this firm's reliance on email receipts as the Apple Watch became available in stores.

Not a good sign. Your projections are optimistic. You assume they're going to level out at 10,000 - 20,0000 per day? I think they'll be under 10,000 in relatively short time, if they aren't there already.

I think you are forgetting the "US Only" tag on this data.

I don't see this getting a holiday bump either. If the word on the street was favorable, maybe. But no one outside of a fanboy segment is particularly excited about the product. Do you sense any excitement around this product among the general public? I don't.

What are your metrics for the general public's excitement? Your group of acquaintances? Your favorite blogs?

 

[AFDoc]

Why am I not surprised that people do not want a device that needs a phone to work and connects via bluetooth?

Sales numbers say people do want a device that.... well never mind it's hard to argue with some.

 

[FedUpFanBoy]

iphone 1 sold 1.4 million in year 1... This is 2.9 in less than 3 months. Or about 5x all the other smart watches together in 2014

Your math is very bad.

Will improve with age. Love mine just needs more app integration which is coming in September.

I'm an iOS developer and I can say the dev stuff coming with iOS 9, along with watchOS 2.0 should enable a lot more awesomeness from the watch and the platform in general.

 

[prowlmedia]

no one wants a flava flav watch around their necks that plays youtube videos. wearibles are a gimmick man.


I think the self driving & EV car are the next big steps for technology.

But I don't think TC has the vision to make either a reality. Furthermore they have wasted 3 years of R&D on the AW and are lagging far behind the competition. Google is much closer to working self-driving car and Tesla already has EVs.

you know how much money and people and skills apple have right? They just don't do things publicly like Google. But tesla have already stated how many good people have been spirited away to apple.

Why wasted r&d? All r&d is good. The apple watch is very good... If you have need of it.. I find it great for remote stuff and it's only going to get better. Agree that it needs to be independent of the phone and that is coming soon.

 

[Agent-J]

My less than two cents...

I think different people want different things from watch-type wearables. Apple may be producing a compromised product by trying to combine too many functions, like fashion, apps, fitness, etc in a device that's really quite expensive even at low end. Maybe Apple needs a couple different watches, with different feature sets.

Me, I only want notifications (text messages, appointments, and caller ID) and timekeeping. I was going to insta-buy the Razer Nabu, but that never made it to wide distribution. I'd get the Garmin Vivosmart if it was below $100. No way am I paying $300+ for an Apple Watch, it's just not worth it to me. Of course, YMMV.

 

[FedUpFanBoy]

Sales numbers say people do want a device that.... well never mind it's hard to argue with some.

I think availability is still an issue. None wants to pay for something and then wait weeks or months for it to arrive.
Once stores have plenty of stock, and watchOS 2 drops they will pick up.

I love min 42mm sport. No one feature is a killer app per se, but the sum total of conveniences add up to something I already don't want to give up.

I also think a lot of people are put off by the supposed poor battery life. I was worried, but I've had no issues with it dying when I needed it.

 

[prowlmedia]

Why am I not surprised that people do not want a device that needs a phone to work and connects via bluetooth?

As opposed to connecting with a bit of string? Tech not there for a properly independent watch yet. And what's wrong with Bluetooth?

 

[FedUpFanBoy]

I'd add that surprisingly, dictation and iMessages work without the phone.

 

[KPOM]

It stalled, but mostly because the lifespan of the product is much longer than the iPhone. It sold literally tens of millions of devices over multiple generations before reaching the saturation point.

Moreover, it because a 'must have' consumer device that was successful across all consumer groups - young people, old people, geeks and people who didn't like technology. It was successful in both personal use and business use. Right now wearables show little legs beyond a small niche group....

I think it's safe to say that wearables are not yet a "must have" device. That doesn't mean Apple Watch was a mistake. Not every product Apple makes needs to be a "must have" device. I think Apple has the potential to grow the market beyond a niche, but it won't happen overnight. I never previously used wearable tech or fitness devices, but use an Apple Watch. And even if it winds up not being successful, that doesn't mean that Tim Cook is incompetent. Apple didn't oust Steve Jobs after the Cube, or the ROKR.

 

[KPOM]

I've never gotten an answer to this: You buy a gold Apple Watch Version 1.0. What happens when Version 2.0 comes out? Recycle your gold or just chalk it off to a $10,000 watch that is seriously obsolete?

Quick: Name five $10,000 watches that go obsolete in a year.

If you buy a $30,000 car, in 5 years, it's probably worth about $5,000. If you buy a $75,000 car, in 5 years, it's probably worth about $20,000. Why would anybody buy a $75,000 car?

Jewelry and clothing purchases aren't rational. Women spend thousands on a wedding dress that they'll wear once. The high end mechanical watches you describe START around $15,000 and require expensive maintenance every few years.

 

[KPOM]

no one wants a flava flav watch around their necks that plays youtube videos. wearibles are a gimmick man.


I think the self driving & EV car are the next big steps for technology.

But I don't think TC has the vision to make either a reality. Furthermore they have wasted 3 years of R&D on the AW and are lagging far behind the competition. Google is much closer to working self-driving car and Tesla already has EVs.

By that standard Google "wasted" lots of time and money on Android Wear R&D and Google Glass. Tesla can be acquired, and there is likely decades of regulatory red tape to overcome before self-driving cars become commercially viable, by which time the patents will have expired.

I also disagree that wearables are a gimmick. The technology isn't there yet, and the products have yet to achieve critical mass, but there could be lots of potential in wearables. We may or may not have self-driving cars all over the place in 20 years, but it's safe to say we'll still be buying clothes and the latest fashion. Bracelets, watches, perhaps eyeglasses, and necklaces all could be logical places for technology. Google didn't necessarily have a bad concept with Glass, but should have kept it industrial for now until the technology caught up (it could be extremely useful in the medical field or in manufacturing).

 

[Shivetya]

Figure it this way, if Apple ain't bragging they aren't happy

 

[nia820]

I think if Apple watch didn't require you to need a smartphone to work it would be a lot more successful. The same goes for the other smartphones on the market.

 

[NotSafeForWork]

Wishful thinking isn't a synonym for imagination.

2007 iPhone: 3.5" in screen w/ 1400 mAh battery
2014 iPhone 6: 4.7" screen w/ 1810 mAh battery
2015 Apple watch: 1.5" screen / 205 mAh battery

Your first 3 bullet points require a MASSIVE increase in battery technology. Battery capacity would need to increase by close to 800% for the AW to match the iPhone.

And by the way, if that did happen, the iPhone would have a 1 week battery life which means even less people would want a smart watch.

You are aware that the Samsung Gear S watch from 2014 has always-on display, 3G phone capability and *2-day battery life*? Where do you think the technology will be in 5 years?

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phone-accessories/samsung-gear-s-1263307/review/5

 

[kdarling]

iphone 1 sold 1.4 million in year 1... This is 2.9 in less than 3 months. Or about 5x all the other smart watches together in 2014

Not sure where you got that latter number.

Even anti-everyone-except-Apple fansite AI quoted 6.8 million smartwatches sold in 2014.

 

[KPOM]

My less than two cents...

I think different people want different things from watch-type wearables. Apple may be producing a compromised product by trying to combine too many functions, like fashion, apps, fitness, etc in a device that's really quite expensive even at low end. Maybe Apple needs a couple different watches, with different feature sets.

Me, I only want notifications (text messages, appointments, and caller ID) and timekeeping. I was going to insta-buy the Razer Nabu, but that never made it to wide distribution. I'd get the Garmin Vivosmart if it was below $100. No way am I paying $300+ for an Apple Watch, it's just not worth it to me. Of course, YMMV.

We may get there, but I think the idea was to come up with a single product that would achieve critical mass. Ford introduced the Model T, available in any color, so long as it was black. As cars became more popular, they became more differentiated. If Ford had introduced Models A-Z, ranging from a luxury SUV all the way down to a subcompact in 1908 he'd have burned through his capital in no time.

 

[KPOM]

You are aware that the Samsung Gear S watch from 2014 has always-on display, 3G phone capability and *2-day battery life*? Where do you think the technology will be in 5 years?

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phone-accessories/samsung-gear-s-1263307/review/5

But it's also huge and is still not fully independent (it needs to pair with a Galaxy phone for certain tasks).

 

[iZac]

...Accessories shouldn't cost this much; were the watch closer to $150 you'd see them selling like crazy... you just can't impulse buy a $350+ device.

I'm totally with you here. I was absolutely certain it would run a similar price to the old 6th gen iPod nano - since it must be where its life started. That's impulse buy territory. But someone got greedy and wanted to expand it to an entire bloated product category that doesn't really do much.

I thought they would amaze people like the pricing reveal for the iPad. when competitors were pricing their tablets at $700 and up - expecting Apple to launch it at $1000, Apple undercut the entire market and everyone scrambled for years.

Perhaps it's just that Apple realises there isn't the same consumer interest in wearable notifications as there was with tablets. So instead they're trying to mould the market to their own desire. Either way, it's a hard sell.