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High-End 18-Karat Gold Apple Watch Could Cost Up to $1,200

nope7308 said:
I have a manual wind mechanical watch with a power reserve complication and that is only 6.6mm thick.

The Apple Watch is so thick you can't fit it under a cuff. That's a pretty horrendous oversight for any watch collector.
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Granted I don't own one, but a watch collector site listed the heights of Rolex watches to be from 11.4 to 14.65mm.
 
THEFT! THEFT!

Do we think that the 'Next big thing" will be a rash watch thefts? I'm thinking hat a Gold Apple Watch do not take much time to sell on Craigslist.

Hard to sell a Rolex but the Watch is the next tech gadget. Also you could melt down the watch and have something of value.
 
Well, at least this will sort out the guys and gals with real style and sense of quality from the cheapskates that can not afford the best.

(Yes, I am alluding to the weird school of thought that people who prefer something else than iPhone only buy something else because they simply can not afford the iPhone...)
 
SHNXX said:
That's good for you.
The only sport watches with mechanical movements which are thinner would be the Royal Oak 15202 and the Nautilus 5711.

You would be hard pressed to find any mechanical sport watches with thinner cases than 12.5mm.

AP ROO diver is 13.75mm thick.
Panerai 111 is supposedly 15mm despite housing a manual wind movement.
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My Omega Seamaster Pro is 11.6 mm thick
 
Yeah....

Haute Horlogerie costs much more than $1200. There is also nothing haute horlogerie about a piece of electronic equipment.
 
McCool71 said:
Well, at least this will sort out the guys and gals with real style and sense of quality from the cheapskates that can not afford the best.

(Yes, I am alluding to the weird school of thought that people who prefer something else than iPhone only buy something else because they simply can not afford the iPhone...)
Click to expand...
Wow...just wow...
 
This just isn't any old gold. It's new Apple Gold! Revolutionary new gold! Twice as yellow, twice as shiny! Special Apple Gold took years of research by metallurgists to get the formula just right before releasing it to the public at the outrageous low price of $1200.
 
Since I'm not interested in gold, I'm all for this. Let the buyers of this subsidize the "low" end, and development of newer, hopefully slimmer, Apple Watches.
 
kdarling said:
There's no such thing as "standard 18tk gold".

  • 24kt is ~100% gold.
  • 18kt is 75% gold, 25% other metals.

The mixture determines the color and hardness.

For example, to get rose gold at about twice the hardness of pure gold, it'd be mixed with mostly copper (for the pink) and a bit of silver.

Other mixtures might allow the 18kt to be four or more times as hard, but perhaps not as pretty.
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Tell Apple not me about "standard" gold. We're just using Apple's wording.

Ok, to make it as plain as I can, they must mean twice as hard as the 18k gold alloys typically used for watches. Because really, that's all that's relevant. No one makes 24k gold watches.
 
JRoDDz said:
This just isn't any old gold. It's new Apple Gold! Revolutionary new gold! Twice as yellow, twice as shiny! Special Apple Gold took years of research by metallurgists to get the formula just right before releasing it to the public at the outrageous low price of $1200.
Click to expand...

I think you are joking, but from Apple's Watch Edition page:

Each has a watch case crafted from 18-karat gold that our metallurgists have developed to be up to twice as hard as standard gold.
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:)
 
Lazy said:
First of all if the gold one isn't solid gold there will be righteous indignation at that not having been mentioned/made clear during the announcement. So assuming solid gold...

The stainless steel models

$349 gets you aluminum and a non-sapphire crystal. Going to SS and sapphire will be at least $100, probably $150. And that's with the equivalent lowest cost sport band. No self respecting high end watch maker would sell a nice leather band like Apple showed for less than $50 and mostly more, so either $50 or even $100 for the leather bands. Steel bracelets $100 more than leather (which would be inexpensive by some standards, and these are very nice bracelets).

Therefore

SS with sport band: $499
SS with leather band: $599
SS with steel band: $699

The gold models

Gold watches are really expensive. Way more expensive than the same watch in SS than just the additional cost of the gold would warrant. And obviously Apple has no problem with that kind of pricing (see Apple's flash and memory prices).

Gold with gold band: $1999 absolute minimum but more likely $2499. Logic being only crazy rich people are going to spend $2k (or even much over $1k as people here are commenting) for a soon to be obsolete electronic device. Most who would spend $2k will spend $2.5k, so why not, make it have more prestige and value.
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After thinking about it some more I think the SS prices above leave too big a gap between the aluminum model. And with Apple's volume on these likely to be orders of magnitude larger than most high end watches they can afford lower deltas. Say $100 more for SS and only $50 for a leather band. Revised prediction:

SS with sport band: $449
SS with leather band: $499
SS with steel band: $599

I'm sticking with $2499 for the gold though.
 
To be honest. I believe Apple will price it elevated enough where the masses can purchase it but not over the top....
I'm thinking :$649-$849. My reasoning is because Apple does not want to over price to the point there becomes allot of nay Sayers for a first gen, when everyone knows the watch will be updated in a year or two. Reminiscent of the Original MBA.
Im like others : await for the official announcement.
 
Wow, taking a cut of millions of credit card purchases AND dealing in gold watches. Apple is straight pimpin'...
 
GSParker said:
In the images of the watch on Apple's website, it says on the back of the watch "18-KARAT GOLD". There is no modifier like "10 micron", "plated", "filled", etc. that would suggest any gold-on-base metal. The 18K might be relatively thin, and be supported by some other material, but it is likely solid gold, and is going to be pricey.
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Very good point. I think that that wording would be illegal if it weren't solid gold.
 
Lapidus said:
You don't want to buy an $1.2K Apple watch to discover 14months later there is a new round model with more sensors.
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The high end watch business has been steadily growing over the last few years. Many customers have been buying new watches for a few thousand for each "season" out there.

If Apple can have a price range a broad from $350 to $2000, they are doing it right.
 
The range of watches isn't about taking market away from high end watch makers, although it might impact a little bit there. That will take a few iterations of the Apple watch.

No. Cook learnt the lesson Jobs failed to do about market differentiation. Jobs insisted on the one perfect screen size. He did it with the original imac, and he did it with the iPhone too. Why he didn't with the iPod I do not know. Maybe someone fooled him by pointing in another direction entirely and making Jobs think the different iPods were different products rather than about properly segmenting the market.

So one size iPhone and iPad left screen size gaps for android phone manufacturers to exploit and built critical mass for the platform. Cook, from the start, is looking to leaving other smartwatch manufacturers' only choice be to dwell in the profit-less bargain basement.
 
Way too low

I'm thinking more like $5000 for the gold watches. You can't stamp a watch with 18K unless it's solid gold, and the clasps are solid gold, too.
 
iMacoo7 said:
To be honest. I believe Apple will price it elevated enough where the masses can purchase it but not over the top....
I'm thinking :$649-$849. My reasoning is because Apple does not want to over price to the point there becomes allot of nay Sayers for a first gen, when everyone knows the watch will be updated in a year or two. Reminiscent of the Original MBA.
Im like others : await for the official announcement.
Click to expand...

It starts at $350 and the bulk of it will be priced close to that so it doesn't really matter what the most expensive (gold) version goes for.
 
Even at $350, I'd want something with decent battery life. At $1200, I'd want something with amazing battery life.

At the end of the day, if I'm going to wear a watch, I want it to work without a phone, just in case my phone dies, or loses battery power, or has no coverage. I want to be able to tell the time, even if I'm sitting at the Eurostar departures area of Gare du Nord and have been unable to charge it for the last three days.

For me, a watch, primarily has to succeed as a watch. Everything else is puff. If they can't get it to succeed as a watch, then I'm just not interested.
 
Those who are buying the 18k version are most likely using it primarily as a classy time piece. In that respect, it won't become obsolete.
 
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