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Jony Ive On iWatch: Switzerland is in Trouble
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Haha true. But that didn't exactly replace Ferrari lol.
True, but I thought it was only me who did that - because I'm an uber cheapskate!
Last time they quoted several hundred for a simple cleaning and seal replacement. No thanks. So what if it loses a minute or two every month: I just manually adjust. No biggie.
There is a huge debate about the intervals for a full service. Most agree on 5-7 years. But if the watch is keeping good time...some go much longer.
What is MORE important, is a yearly pressure test which most AD's will perform for free. If you wear the watch near water, this is absolutely necessary.
The WATCH is about to become something that gets replaced every year. Once technology gets into it - the game changes. Watch will get more features every year, faster, thinner and what once was a family heirloom, becomes a commodity item that is upgraded yearly.
Just as Apple re-defined what EVERYONE thinks of as a phone, they're attempting to do the same to 'watch'.
Apple's signalled they're going to make 'nice' ones for those that like bling, but the game has changed and Swatch for example, still doesn't see it's now irrelevant. The companies that sell $10,000+ mod iPhones will do the same to Watch and Rolex will disappear just as fast as Nokia.
The other thing I noticed about the demo - it's aimed at young buyers, who don't even know what a watch is. Sketch, Walkie Talkie, Tap and Heartbeat are all aimed at an audience that's never had a watch!
And just like that Switzerland has been moved politely to the side of the conversation, now an historical curiosity. Remember when watches used to only tell the time? If watch makers didn't wake up when the 'phone' made them superfluous, and start making smart phones, Apple just found a use for that empty wrist and what little market Switzerland had left just went away.
Personally, I bought a nice big Citizen Eco in July and filled the wrist space, because I don't see anything I want in Watch, but I'm sure the time will come that Apple adds a feature I want, and the Citizen will go in the draw with all the other perfectly fine, but unwanted watches. I wasn't interested in smart phones until they got an iPod & knowing Apple, they'll get me in the end. Just not this year.
Apple is playing a game so far above everyone else. Again. It's like Federer at tennis. Thanks for showing up, I needed the exercise.
Just as Apple re-defined what EVERYONE thinks of as a phone, they're attempting to do the same to 'watch'.
Apple's signalled they're going to make 'nice' ones for those that like bling, but the game has changed and Swatch for example, still doesn't see it's now irrelevant. The companies that sell $10,000+ mod iPhones will do the same to Watch and Rolex will disappear just as fast as Nokia.
The other thing I noticed about the demo - it's aimed at young buyers, who don't even know what a watch is. Sketch, Walkie Talkie, Tap and Heartbeat are all aimed at an audience that's never had a watch!
And just like that Switzerland has been moved politely to the side of the conversation, now an historical curiosity. Remember when watches used to only tell the time? If watch makers didn't wake up when the 'phone' made them superfluous, and start making smart phones, Apple just found a use for that empty wrist and what little market Switzerland had left just went away.
Personally, I bought a nice big Citizen Eco in July and filled the wrist space, because I don't see anything I want in Watch, but I'm sure the time will come that Apple adds a feature I want, and the Citizen will go in the draw with all the other perfectly fine, but unwanted watches. I wasn't interested in smart phones until they got an iPod & knowing Apple, they'll get me in the end. Just not this year.
Apple is playing a game so far above everyone else. Again. It's like Federer at tennis. Thanks for showing up, I needed the exercise.
I'm no watch guy...I do love a beautiful watch and can appreciate them...its seems so clear, one item is a work of art that is timeless and the other ( no matter which brand) is simply an electronic gizmo with no lasting value of any kind..everything electronic quickly becomes obsolete, that's just the nature of tech.
I fully understand that apple has the ability to make an incredible product that no doubt will be the best at what it does. The fact still remains that after a year or 2 or 3 it will be worth nothing because it will be slower than the new model..Fine watches are more than just a time piece they are artwork that will increase in value, a smart watch will not, no matter what the functions are.
Just slapping an expensive band on them doesn't make them anymore valuable beyond what the band is worth.
Just try and sell your 2 year old iphone for more than you paid for it.. Its going to be a great device but its no where near or will ever be at the level of a fine mechanical watch.
I fully understand that apple has the ability to make an incredible product that no doubt will be the best at what it does. The fact still remains that after a year or 2 or 3 it will be worth nothing because it will be slower than the new model..Fine watches are more than just a time piece they are artwork that will increase in value, a smart watch will not, no matter what the functions are.
Just slapping an expensive band on them doesn't make them anymore valuable beyond what the band is worth.
Just try and sell your 2 year old iphone for more than you paid for it.. Its going to be a great device but its no where near or will ever be at the level of a fine mechanical watch.
You are still basing your argumentation on feature comparisons and that is wrong.
What you need to look at is WHY customers buy the products they do. As has been said before luxury watch customers buy expensive watches for totally different reasons than digital functionality. That will be the defining factor that needs to change if any smart watch wants to seriously impact the luxury watch segment.
So explain to me then - what is the smart phone alternative of a luxury watch? A Feld and Volk cell phone? Is that going to be the future of the watch business in Switzerland? If so, then they are in trouble - which is what I've been saying all along.
Luxury companies cannot duplicate the feature/benefit set of a cell phone for the luxury market. So they just slap a luxury skin on it - gold, wood, art, etc.
When the feature/benefit set of a smart watch exceeds the need to have a unique time piece on your wrist people will stop wearing time pieces.
They will buy Apple watches instead because that represents the highest end of these devices - the great unwashed can buy from LG or Sony or Samsung.
When people stop wearing time pieces they will stop (or seriously slow down) buying new time pieces. The swiss market will shrink.
I never said disappear - just shrink.
I really want to have the imagination you have.
It has been told many times why your analogies are wrong and you still repeat the same things.
A ****ing smartwatch can't replace a high end watch because they have different targets, uses and meanings.
And very funny how you classify people, "great unwashed"?
By the way, the high end smartphone alternative to a watch is a Vertu.
- Great unwashed is a sarcastic comment - not derogatory
- Check out http://feldvolk.com/en/ - luxury segment is their target market.
- Switzerland would hope their future is not like Vertu.
- I have a very good imagination. It helps my creative mind.
Like Oletros says your analogies are wrong. You continue to compare the product without taking into account why people buy products. There is no valid comparison to the smartphone market, because there is no mechanical high value equivalent of a smartphone.
A slightly better comparison would be Harley Davidson. A company that is absolutely thriving BECAUSE it insists on old values, proven technology and emotional value. All efforts by HD to enter into any of the fields that Ducati, BMW, Honda etc have done, has been met by HD's customers by rejection.
But the best example is the watch industry itself, and particularly the segment between 50-200 dollars. By your examples a digital watch maker that produces feature rich watches should totally obliterate the "analogue" competition and dominate that segment. As it happens only Casio is a player in that segment and only a small one. The vast majority of watches sold in that segment (Swatch, Fossil, Tissot, Festina) are watches that are either reverting to mechanical technology (e.g. Sistem51 by Swatch) or are copies of luxury watches (e.g. Festina closely mimics Breitling, while Fossil and Armani mimics Cartier in certain respects). By all accounts it seems customers actually favour watches that are closely related to their luxury counterparts.
I guess you don't have any experience or education in strategic planning or strategic marketing, but in these fields there are several things to take into account beyond the nature of the product alone. Most important in strategic marketing is to know what the customer wants and what their buying behaviour is.
Of course not. I agree, and that is why Vertu in my opinion is a dead company walking. The phones are too high priced in relation to their technological lifetime. Only insanely rich people that don't care about the actual lifetime value of these watches will buy them -> rich middle-east people. I was in a Vertu store last week and I was the only European / westerner, even though the store was moderately filled.
That's why it wouldn't make sense to slather an iWatch in diamonds and even more gold because art some point the value of the materials is too much for the value of the actual device. Who would invest 5000 dollars in a watch that will function not longer than 5 years? That is one of the most significant hurdles that any smart watch manufacturer needs to scale if they are looking to compete in luxury watch territory.
Again, you are wrong. The smart watch development currently going on will likely grow the market as a whole. The reason is that there are now vastly more reasons to buy a watch than before with the new functionalities that are introduced. It will attract people that have never worn or rarely wear a watch. Sure an Apple Watch will compete on the wrist with any other watch possible, including luxury watches. No-one here will deny that.
But you underestimate the importance of the luxury watch segment and the reasons why people buy these products. Again: it is not about features. I recommend you to read post 621 again. This is not my opinion but generally accepted fact. I recommend you to ask anyone in a luxury watch forum if you do not believe that post.
There are two groups to consider here:
- Current luxury watch owners - I'm one of these and I'm too very interested in the Apple Watch. It will however be just a small addition to my collection and I would wear it regularly. Still it will not deter me from buying future watches. For all the reasons that I stated before, current luxury watch owners will continue to buy these watches, undeterred by an Apple Watch. For the amount of money they will likely buy it as a low-end addition to the collection for fun, which I will do too. But it will never replace the value of my existing watches.
- Future (luxury) watch buyers - this is the most interesting group. What will young people do that buy an Apple Watch now, and will at some point accumulate enough wealth? Will they buy a gold Apple Watch or will they invest in a luxury watch for a few thousand dollars more? This will be difficult to tell, as we are only at the beginning of the development.
However the fundamental reasons to buy luxury watches still hold, and Apple's or anyone else's smartwatch fails to address any of these criteria. In the future people will still want to invest in expensive watches because of (again) the reasons I told you before: investment, emotional value, mechanical complexity etc. It might be that the lower end of luxury watches (Rolex, Breitling etc) will be slightly impacted (I don't think it will though), but the higher end of anything upwards of $10,000 will be absolutely fine. I'm absolutely willing to bet that e.g. Rolex in 10 years will still be valued at the same or higher value as it currently is. Look at the share price of luxury brands and you will see that people are buying more luxury articles than ever.
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I do take into account the 'why'. It's like a scale - on one side are the reasons why someone buys a classic mechanical time piece. On the other are the reasons why someone would buy a smart watch. When the smart watch side gets enough weight it tips the scale. In this case it needs A LOT of weight to do it because of all the reasons people buy mechanical watches. I think we're at the point or almost at that point with the new Apple Watch. Version 2 or 3 will definitely be there.
If a new watch increased your IQ by 30 points and told you the time accurately and looked 'apple-ey' nice - no one would wear old watches. The value place on the new device would far exceed the value you place on the high end luxury device.
Collectors would still buy watches for their own reasons - just not as many.
No smart watch to date comes close to the value watch wearers put on their current watch.
Not a good comparison - they all make motorcycles. Just slightly different from each other.
I think a good example is turntables. An old fashioned record player produces better, more natural sound than CD's or iTunes. They still make them and they cost crazy amounts of money. BUT the quantity of turntables made today pales in comparison to 30 years ago. The low end is obliterated. The high end is reduced. if one country specialized in turntables they would have experienced great pain over the last 30 years.
Casio's feature set is horrible compared to what Apple just introduced. Back to my scale - Casio didn't present nearly enough weight to tip the scale.
I do and I have considered buying behaviour. As has been said many times - ask the customer at the turn of the century (last century) what he wants and he would say a faster/better horse. As Steve Jobs said himself - the customer often doesn't know what he wants.
Agreed! It does little to tip the scales by just adding precious gem
Agreed. What will the impact be of this competition? I have said it will have a big impact on this market. Like turntables - the highest end products will continue to be made and continue to be in business. I've never suggested otherwise. There will be a serious shakeout felt mostly at the bottom and middle of the market - but the high end will also feel it.
This is a good point. One other option for young people is to buy something else of value because their wrist currently has something on it that they can't live without. Who knows what it is - but I don't think it will a luxury watch that they'll never wear.
I go to Europe frequently and I love the Netherlands (truthfully, I love Sweden the most but maybe that's because I'm Canadian). If you're right and the watch market is unaffected by this in 2-3 years I'll buy you Apple's latest watch. If however I'm right, you can buy me one.
Not one of those Edition versions though - you'd have to be crazy to buy one of those! (that was a joke)
Deal?
You still don't get it and you still repeat the same wrong arguments.
The reasons are orthogonal.
And if you think that the weight is almost the same is because you don't know nothing
Oh - before others make all sorts of assumptions about me - I drove a nice Ferrari F12 two weeks ago - all 740 HP of it! It was owned by a business acquaintance of mine.
I appreciated the HELL out of that thing and I understand perfectly why he bought it. I'd buy one too if I had enough disposal income - although I might opt for a McLaren.
I'll be buying a Tesla in a few months. Why? It has the performance of a sports car, it's far more friendly to the planet, I can charge it each night and not worry about oil spills. That package of features/benefits really appeal to me.
I appreciated the HELL out of that thing and I understand perfectly why he bought it. I'd buy one too if I had enough disposal income - although I might opt for a McLaren.
I'll be buying a Tesla in a few months. Why? It has the performance of a sports car, it's far more friendly to the planet, I can charge it each night and not worry about oil spills. That package of features/benefits really appeal to me.
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Many people on this board keep making arguments such as this one. All based on the fact that Apple has succeeded before in disrupting several other markets.
The problems that I see with this line of argumentation are the following:
- You cannot judge the success of a new product in a new market based on a successful strategy of another product in an adjacent market. Markets are always more complicated.
- No-one up till now has been able to provide any really solid argumentation what a real disruptive product or Apple Watch should do in order to fundamentally change the luxury watch market. No-one (including you - no personal attack intended) has been able to provide anything beyond "Apple will find a way" or "Apple has done it before" or "Apple has the resources to do this". Others resort to insults.
The same holds true for a disruption of the whole watch market. An Apple Watch needs more, lots more to do that. And it's not only additional digital features and sensors that are needed to be able to do that. An Apple Watch needs to change the way customers view the value and experience of a luxury watch in order to seriously impact that market:
I repeat the (likely not complete) criteria for buying a luxury watch:
- Investment
- Longevity
- Mechanical complexity
- Emotional value
- Scarcity and exclusivity
We all have our opinions. I can present mine - you can present yours. Variety is the spice of life as they say.
It's Friday. Kick back... have some wine or a beer. Hug the kids. Go see a good show. It's all good!!
This a good post... and why I end up posting here. I take no offence that I haven't been able to create enough evidence for you that Apple will succeed in this market as they have in others.
I can only offer this in addition to what I've said already. It's not scientific but it's indicative of past success.
When they first introduced the
Watch I was in a grump grumpy mood. The video feed was a disaster and I had been looking forward to the Keynote for a while. That was not a good start.My first impressions were:
- The watch looked OK to me. A bit too thick or chunky to be honest.
- The bands looked amazing. With the right combination it could compensate for the thickness of the watch. Some combinations really caught my eye.
- The face is what I found hard to get used to. Seeing apps instead of a watch face is jarring.
- The things it could do were neat - not OH MY GOD I GOTTA HAVE IT. Just neat.
Now I'm thinking about all the times I have my phone in my pocket and I'd rather just be able to look at my wrist to see notifications. I'm wondering how developers will be able to take the combinations of sensors, screen, touch, crown, button and do wonderful things with them. I'm thinking about communicating with others through Messages - recording a short voice message through the watch and hearing their response a minute later. I'm thinking about the times I sit at my desk for too long and about looking at my pulse over the course of a day and see if there are any issues.
So - now I want it. And it's been four days. What will the anticipation be like in four months? What about when app developers come out with something really sweet between now and then?
I own a couple watches. Not the $10,000 variety but still nice and still Swiss. I believe that when I get used to the
Watch on my wrist I'll never put another thing that is just a time piece on my wrist again. That is the key issue. The real estate will be spoken for.The reasons you give for buying a nice Swiss watch are all very valid. But I'm basing my argument on this simple fact - if there is something that people want on their wrist much more than a Swiss watch will that hurt their market? I think yes. Not kill it but hurt it.
That's my experience with this announcement so far. If I'm alone in this it won't be success, the Swiss have nothing to fear, Apple will have launched a dud and the questions about Tim Cook's leadership vs. Steve Job's will get very very loud. If I'm not it could spell some trouble for our Swiss friends.
What on earth does the Watch have to do with luxury watches? The egomaniacs who buy them will continue to and the heirloom thing is a bit tedious and a poor justification for conspicuous consumption like high end cars and other bling. While they may be high quality devices, they're hardly unique like a Monet or Da Vinci (now there's an heirloom). It's a tiny, irrelevant market and I'm more than a little concerned that apple has seen fit to present us with the "edition" version. The sport and stainless ones should have been more than sufficient, just like the iphones. It plays right into the hands of the Scamsung marketers and boosters (who no doubt are drooling at the opportunity to actually crack the too much money and no taste market) regarding their perceived luxury positioning of apple products.
Personally, I couldn't wait for the iPhone and pad and got them as soon as they were available in my country, having made do with a 1610, 1310 and razr till then, but have had little interest in any smart watch, even now, especially with the likely pricing. I suspect I'll be sticking with my iPhone, pad and citizen Eco watch for the foreseeable future (since repairs to my 30 year old Swiss watch became too expensive to justify).
Personally, I couldn't wait for the iPhone and pad and got them as soon as they were available in my country, having made do with a 1610, 1310 and razr till then, but have had little interest in any smart watch, even now, especially with the likely pricing. I suspect I'll be sticking with my iPhone, pad and citizen Eco watch for the foreseeable future (since repairs to my 30 year old Swiss watch became too expensive to justify).
It has nothing to do with the luxury market. Simple, people keep on harping how Apple will kill Rolex like they did with Blackberry. It is the absurdity of this comment that is sparking the debate. There is no doubt the Apple watch will effect the $200-$1000 Mall watch category. It is absurd when comparing to luxury markets is like comparing a Prius to a McClaren.
Here's some interesting 2013 Swiss Watch Stats. The Swiss Franc (CHF) and the US Dollar are pretty close in value (1:1.07) so I'm not going to do a conversion:
Little wonder that Apple wants to go upstream. I'd say if they can't capture some of the higher end of the market - this whole venture may not have been worth it. No wonder that they spent the time and energy on the crazy attention to detail they did.
- Total watches shipped - 28.1 million
- Total Revenue - 20.6 billion CHF
Little wonder that Apple wants to go upstream. I'd say if they can't capture some of the higher end of the market - this whole venture may not have been worth it. No wonder that they spent the time and energy on the crazy attention to detail they did.
Ultimately, a lot of luxury watch owners can buy the apple watch just for the novelty factor.
It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive.
I live and work in a super rich area. The super rich people buy things to show off that are the most expensive IN THEIR CATEGORY. Everyone drives teslas because they are best electriic car. They also own bentleys or ferraris. They own pateks but will buy edition watches to show off because why not? They can. And the thing is to show how technically savvy, environmentally friendly, and cool you are. Of course, the way to tell who is rich at a meeting here is to see who is dressed most sloppily. silicon valley is fun that way.