You need to consider manufacturing cost of Apple's meticulousness, plus the markup they plan for this elite hardware.
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Final Price Predictions
- Thread starter TheDeviceUser
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Watch Sport - i don't care;
Watch - depends on what band you choose, a steel band watch will be >1000. Around 650-750 for a cheap band;
Watch Edition - at least 5k.
I really hope the gold edition will be more (10k at least), as i like a little bit of exclusivity when in comes to watches.
Watch - depends on what band you choose, a steel band watch will be >1000. Around 650-750 for a cheap band;
Watch Edition - at least 5k.
I really hope the gold edition will be more (10k at least), as i like a little bit of exclusivity when in comes to watches.
I would love the Stainless Steel Apple Watch with Sport Band to start at $499
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Sport will definitely be low-end
Watch Sport - i don't care;
Watch - depends on what band you choose, a steel band watch will be >1000. Around 650-750 for a cheap band;
Watch Edition - at least 5k.
I really hope the gold edition will be more (10k at least), as i like a little bit of exclusivity when in comes to watches.
I'm all for exclusivity, but I'm not sure I'm prepared to spend $10,000 or more. I'm hoping it's closer to $5,000. I can see spending up to $7,500 for it.
My guesstimation:
I have never really guessed on the gold ones before, because honestly I really don't care about those. I'm going to get either the Sport or the Stainless model. Definitely 42mm and if the $549 (SS, 42mm) includes the option for the leather band at no additional cost, I'll buy that. If the band costs an additional $50 I'll be a bit pressed (with tax its already at $600 which is about $100 over budget).
If the Stainless model costs more then I predict I'll just get the Sport model. There is no way I'm going to pay more then $549 for 42mm stainless, especially if it doesn't even come with the band I want included in the price.
I have never really guessed on the gold ones before, because honestly I really don't care about those. I'm going to get either the Sport or the Stainless model. Definitely 42mm and if the $549 (SS, 42mm) includes the option for the leather band at no additional cost, I'll buy that. If the band costs an additional $50 I'll be a bit pressed (with tax its already at $600 which is about $100 over budget).
If the Stainless model costs more then I predict I'll just get the Sport model. There is no way I'm going to pay more then $549 for 42mm stainless, especially if it doesn't even come with the band I want included in the price.
I think Apple is going to sell only the combinations displayed on their website, no BTO options. I'll list my predictions for the base (cheapest) models (with Sport Band) and my predictions for the individual band prices.
WATCH Sport 38mm - $349
WATCH Sport 42mm - $399
WATCH 38mm - $499
WATCH 42mm - $549
WATCH Edition 38mm - $3999
WATCH Edition 42mm - $4999
Sport Band - $49
Classic Buckle - $99
Modern Buckle - $129
Leather Loop - $149
Milanese Loop -$199
Link Bracelet - $249
Space Black Link Bracelet - $299
When you choose a model that doesn't have the Sport Band included, I think they'll add on the new band's cost minus 49 dollars to the final price.
Can't wait to find out!
WATCH Sport 38mm - $349 WATCH Sport 42mm - $399 WATCH 38mm - $499 WATCH 42mm - $549 WATCH Edition 38mm - $3999 WATCH Edition 42mm - $4999Sport Band - $49
Classic Buckle - $99
Modern Buckle - $129
Leather Loop - $149
Milanese Loop -$199
Link Bracelet - $249
Space Black Link Bracelet - $299
When you choose a model that doesn't have the Sport Band included, I think they'll add on the new band's cost minus 49 dollars to the final price.
Can't wait to find out!
At least $499 for these two. The link bracelet takes 9 hours to make, milanese loop is made on specialized Italian machines.
If they charge $500 for watch bracelets, they'll struggle to sell them. It's a small subset of people that have that kind of money, paired with the desire to spend it on tech.
Plenty of cheaper straps to choose from. Apple will do just fine selling millions of the lower trims while reserving the more expensive trims for the selected few.
The gold watches I get, but if the steel link and the Milanese loop are $500, it prices too many people out of the market. There's a difference between premium pricing and lunacy. $500 for those two straps seems like the latter to me.
If they charge too little for those bands they would probably struggle to make them...
Nine hours of machining just to cut (possibly including polish, assembly, more polishing) one steel link band for example. That's quite the bottleneck during manufacturing. It'd be ridiculously expensive to have hundreds of CNC machines and lots of manpower to degrade and polish all these little bits of metal all dedicated just to this one single item.
The logical thing (for Apple) would be to make it an exclusive luxury item at a high(er) price point. Perhaps as a way to bridge the stainless steel Watch and the Edition Watch. *shrug* Or maybe I'm wrong, and the steel link band will cost as much as the classic leather buckle, what do I know.
We'll see for sure, come march 9th.
Well, the Milanese Loop and the Link Bracelet represent only two out of the six available straps so there'll be plenty of cheaper options even for the SS models.
I really feel I again need to point out something important here that can often be VERY misleading with Official Statements like the Nine Hour one.
Whilst I have no idea without seeing the machine and the factory, you really need to understand something very important in the use of words here.
Indeed, it probably does, if that's what they are saying take 9 hours for one fine loop metal strap to be made. However that does not mean they are making one every 9 hours.
Let me put it another way, Say I'm making tinned corn, the corn comes in at 6am, gets washed in the auto washers, it goes thru a long steamer, then thru the circular cutter than strips the corn from the cob, then onto more sorting for bad bits, then perhaps another steam, then the kernals get a spray of something, then it's off to the packaging dept, the tins are prepped and the corn gets put into the tins with some brine water, then they are cleaned, new labels applied, a inkjet prints on the best before date, then are then packaged, and all finished and ready for sending to the shops by 3pm that same day.
Official statement:
"It takes 9 hours from start to finish to create this completed tin of corn ready for your table."
Well, yes, that is totally true.
However, there were tins of corn coming off the production line constantly at the rate of one every 5 seconds as they move thru the factory!
Whilst I know we are not talking about tins of corn, I hope you understand what I'm saying here, and how these statements are misleading.
It does not mean, fire up the machine, put in some metal, and 9 hours later 1 watch strap is all done.
They could be making 100 a day ,and they still take 9 hours from start to finish.
I didn't SAY they only made one every nine hours!
However, the longer it takes to make something, the more manufacturing resources you need to dedicate to its manufacture. I've been in a plastics moulding plant, those machines back in the day could spit out a finished glass fiber reinforced polymer chainsaw casing maybe once every thirty seconds or so, the machine operator wasn't exactly hurrying so it may have been a bit more than that.
The sports band would be roughly in this order. You'd need either a robot or an underpaid chinese sweatshop minion to put in the metal pins for a batch of complete bands into the mould first, and then the machine closes the mold with big friggin hydraulic rams and goes "WHRRRRRRRRRR!" for a bit, and CLUNK out comes a bunch of sports bands, perhaps all stuck together with little bits of synthetic rubber like a plastic model kit.
Not really comparable to the serious amount of CNC machining and surface treatment needed to make a link bracelet. So yeah, they're serializing the manufacture, this is said to have been pioneered by good ole Henry Ford himself (evil bastard Henry Ford more like it really) quite a while ago now. I don't know if it's really true, but the technique is not new.
When making modern microprocessors such as found in our iPads and Macbooks and whatnot, would it surprise you to know that it takes on the order of a month and a half to complete a high-end processor from start to finish? Of course, they don't make them one at a time, but many (like a hundred to many hundreds depending on their size/complexity) chips are photoexposed onto a single "wafer" disc of silicon simultaneously, and etched and doped and ion bombarded and so on all at once, and there are many machines that process in stages something on the order of 100,000 of these wafers per month in one single silicon "fab".
And these fabs typically cost well over a billion dollars to build, so yeah, mass-producing nine-hour stainless steel bands would be quite expensive, even if Apple's subcontractor can cut and degrade and assemble and polish bands in various stages all at once.
Maybe this isn't "tech". Maybe it's an unusual mixture of fashion and "tech".
Check out these prices...
http://www.authenticwatches.com/breitling-steel-bracelets-24-20.html
Not saying people wouldn't pay it for a watch, but a Rolex, etc will last you a lifetime. The Apple Watch will last people a couple years, unless it's entirely upgradable. If that's the case, then maybe we're talking.
I think it will be.
Watch Sport 38mm - $349
Watch Sport 42mm - $399
Watch 38mm - $899
Watch 42mm - $999
Watch Edition 38mm - $2499
Watch Edition 42mm - $2799
Watch Edition rosé gold 38mm - $2799
Watch edition rosé gold 42mm - $2999
(Because watch Edition is 18k gold, so 75% gold and 25% steel, rosé gold is 75% gold and 25% copper, copper is more expensive than Steel so it makes à slightly higher selling price)
Bands Will be like this.
Watch Sport/rubber band $39
Watch leather loop $99
Watch leather buckle $129
Watch steel bands $199
Watch gold bands $399
Watch Sport 38mm - $349
Watch Sport 42mm - $399
Watch 38mm - $899
Watch 42mm - $999
Watch Edition 38mm - $2499
Watch Edition 42mm - $2799
Watch Edition rosé gold 38mm - $2799
Watch edition rosé gold 42mm - $2999
(Because watch Edition is 18k gold, so 75% gold and 25% steel, rosé gold is 75% gold and 25% copper, copper is more expensive than Steel so it makes à slightly higher selling price)
Bands Will be like this.
Watch Sport/rubber band $39
Watch leather loop $99
Watch leather buckle $129
Watch steel bands $199
Watch gold bands $399
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Pay through the nose
Watch 38mm - $549
Watch 42mm - $549
Watch Sport 38mm - $349
Watch Sport 42mm - $349
Watch Edition 38mm - $4999
Watch Edition 42mm - $4999
Reasoning:
Pricing kept the same for different sizes (similar to fashion).
I expect Watch to start at $549, but pricing on the bands to range from $99 up to $399.
With all that being said, I'll be surprised to see the black Watch going for less than $999, but wouldn't be surprised to see it go for at most $1299.
Let's translate apple's market spiel here for a second; "Diamond like carbon" means "pay through the nose".
Watch Edition will cost about $1600 for material, parts, and labor. Given apple's margin on hardware, I expect we'll see Watch Edition going for a max of $4999.
Watch 38mm - $549
Watch 42mm - $549
Watch Sport 38mm - $349
Watch Sport 42mm - $349
Watch Edition 38mm - $4999
Watch Edition 42mm - $4999
Reasoning:
Pricing kept the same for different sizes (similar to fashion).
I expect Watch to start at $549, but pricing on the bands to range from $99 up to $399.
With all that being said, I'll be surprised to see the black Watch going for less than $999, but wouldn't be surprised to see it go for at most $1299.
Let's translate apple's market spiel here for a second; "Diamond like carbon" means "pay through the nose".
Watch Edition will cost about $1600 for material, parts, and labor. Given apple's margin on hardware, I expect we'll see Watch Edition going for a max of $4999.
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I would love the Stainless Steel Apple Watch with Sport Band to start at $499
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Sport will definitely be low-end
And you know this for sure how? They said Apple Watch starts at 349 so why can't I assume that that means Apple Watch and not Apple Watch sport?
Because they use Apple Watch as a generic term to cover all models. So for instance, when they say "Apple Watch is first and foremost an incredibly accurate timepiece," that means that all models of Apple Watch is accurate. They certainly don't mean that only the regular Watch is accurate and the Sport and Edition aren't. So when they said Apple Watch starts at $349, it has to mean that that is the lowest price across all three models.