Swatch Prepares to Go Head-to-Head With Apple Watch

[Bane-Thunder]

Why would anyone try to enter the smartwatch market at this time? Unless you are already in the game, you really missed your chance. Android wear, applewatch, pebble, and the Gear watches are it.

There is going to be so much attention given to the applewatch in the next few months that even the other "players" are in trouble. By the end of the year you will see a massive amount of people wearing applewatches. I really believe the applewatch will revolutionize the smartwatch market. Not by creating anything completely new, but by the massive amount of people it will attract simply b.c it is apple branded.

It will even be good for people who have android phones. Android wear sales will probably increase once the applewatch is released.

Well its not just the Apple Brand... The problem is also that beautiful smatwatches like the Moto 360 is not compatible with the iPhone which is a huge deal breaker for alot of people.

I currently dont use a watch, but if i was to get one, then obviously i'd choose the Apple watch cause of its functionality and its capability to pair to my phone.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

This article needs some clarification. Swatch owns these brands:

Breguet, Harry Winston, Blancpain, Glashütte Original, Jaquet Droz, Léon Hatot, Omega, Longines, Rado, Union Glashütte, Tissot, Balmain, Certina, Mido, Hamilton, Calvin Klein, Swatch, and Flik Flak.

Which brand will push out their first smartwatch? That's important because I could see a market for a mid-market Rado and maybe a low end Hamilton. I don't see a SwatchWatch smart watch going anywhere because of that brands "kiddie" image. Breguet, HW, Blanpain, Omega, Longines, are too high end to have any impact in the market, and the other brands are not universally known or distributed. Calvin Klein, well that would be one funny joke.

One other question: can WatchKit be used on non Apple Watches? That's important to the success of any 3rd party brand IMHO.

 

[unplugme71]

All of these non-tech watch companies are going to be in for a huge shock when they try to make smart watches. It took Apple billions of dollars and several years to build the Apple Watch, yet Swatch is going to build one equally as good in 3 months? Riiiiiiiight. Apple Watch will embarrass smart watch competitors for the next 2 years before they finally start to catch up.

You do realize you can design things fairly cheap, right? Its when you have multiple large departments of 50+ people in marketing, sales, legal, finance, etc that things get expensive and time consuming. But if you are a team of 2 to 3 people, you can design something really quick.

I'm not defending Swatch - and they will probably fail miserably or they may not. The point is, Apple has to spend the time/money because of how big they are.

Example: It takes 3-5 weeks, at minimum, to get a NDA printed out to give to a vendor before we can discuss doing business with them. Then 5-7 weeks of meetings, demos, etc before we can do a POC for 3-6 months. By time we accept, get approval from finance, build the infrastructure around the vendor, etc.. It's past 18-20 months already. Just to deploy software that tells us what each server has in terms of specs.

Whereas, It takes me 60-90 minutes to find software, test it out for a few minutes, purchase and deploy it to my small 1 rack "data center".

 

[mr_matalino]

"We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."

Ed Colligan, Palm CEO - 16 Nov 2006

 

[Stella]

And where was the Swatch smart watch before Apple announced the AppleWatch? I'm so sick of these companies that sit on their A$$ making jack crap but once they see Apple making a product that looks to be a big success then they get up off their lazy butts and create something to compete with Apple. There were other smart watches before the AppleWatch but Swatch wouldn't budge until Apple spoke up. Typical.

Its called "competition". Did you complain when Apple released the iPod to compete with other existing devices, or when Apple released the iPad to compete with other tablets?

I'm sure that Swatch has been watching the smart watch market for a while now. Any company needs to keep up with market trends in order to stay alive. Even Apple do - they both lead and follow other companies. Otherwise they'll become another Polaroid.


Any smart watch that has a better battery life than one day and has good smartphone connectivity ( notifications etc ), ability to load apps, is very welcome, IMO.

 

[rei101]

All of these non-tech watch companies are going to be in for a huge shock when they try to make smart watches. It took Apple billions of dollars and several years to build the Apple Watch, yet Swatch is going to build one equally as good in 3 months? Riiiiiiiight. Apple Watch will embarrass smart watch competitors for the next 2 years before they finally start to catch up.

Well... Swatch has been in the business innovating way before Apple and they came up with their own stores back in the 80's and they still around.

Then, Apple have had their failures in design many times like the rounded mouse, titanium powerbook (paint coming off), the G4 Cube (nice design but useless) and so on... No one is thrilled about the Apple Watch, if it doesn't come out people will just forget about it, the design is ugly to start with.

It is not like when Apple came out with the iPhone, back then I was working with Sony Ericsson and Motorola and I told them: you are doomed. But with the Apple Watch??? more attractive is to but a 4K TV that still has no content for it.

 

[MH01]

Why bother, they are not going to beat Apple, due to the ecosystem apple has, and there is a very good chance that wearables will go the way of other fads.

In my opinion the Swatch watch (current) will outlive the wearable fad. Swatch should focus on just making watches.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

All of these non-tech watch companies are going to be in for a huge shock when they try to make smart watches. It took Apple billions of dollars and several years to build the Apple Watch, yet Swatch is going to build one equally as good in 3 months? Riiiiiiiight. Apple Watch will embarrass smart watch competitors for the next 2 years before they finally start to catch up.

It took Apple three years ( now four ) to make the Apple Watch. And yet, they're still not getting the battery life down pat.

What's wrong with the picture? Let me say it again. It took them THREE years and battery problems have not been perfected. This is why I think they pushed the date back to April because of that among other factors. A good smart watch should last you at least two days or a week like Pebble, not less than 19 hours worth of charging.

The battery issue should've been tackled in the first place and I think Apple Watch is a case of feature creep or overkill. Some of the features are impractical except for other things like notifications, health pedometers, messages and so on.

As for FaceTime on the watch, just hell no. You have to constantly point the watch to your face without moving around too much in order to communicate while pronating your elbow out and it would also drain more battery life. The phone, tablet or desktop are the proper mediums for making video calls.

And you are required to have the iPhone with it. It's not independent from it.

But lastly, good luck trying to read the watch in direct sunlight on a bright day outdoors. It's one thing that Amazon and Pebble got right with screen clarity for this reason.

 

[HenryDJP]

Its called "competition". Did you complain when Apple released the iPod to compete with other existing devices, or when Apple released the iPad to compete with other tablets?

I'm sure that Swatch has been watching the smart watch market for a while now. Any company needs to keep up with market trends in order to stay alive. Even Apple do - they both lead and follow other companies. Otherwise they'll become another Polaroid.


Any smart watch that has a better battery life than one day and has good smartphone connectivity ( notifications etc ), ability to load apps, is very welcome, IMO.

Reading and comprehension would help you greatly. When did I say Swatch should not compete? In fact I said that Swatch never spoke up against the other swatches on the market, but you're too busy with your anti Apple thoughts to comprehend that.

 

[xgman]

To me it feels like "smart watches" are eventually headed for gum ball machines and party favors. I will be very surprised if kids and teens buy any of this stuff after the novelty wears off.

 

[jkrarup]

Regardless if these companies are tech based or not they will definitely be able to ride the wave of wearables. I'm sure they all will get some piece of the pie and help to add FUD to the other vendor's offering.

They may even sell a few but Apple will be the only one making a profit.

 

[Glideslope]

Good, the more competition will allow the consumer to choose a watch that suit their needs. It will also drive development up and hopefully prices down.

That's not the way it works any longer.

 

[coolfactor]

Why would anyone try to enter the smartwatch market at this time? Unless you are already in the game, you really missed your chance. Android wear, applewatch, pebble, and the Gear watches are it.

There is going to be so much attention given to the applewatch in the next few months that even the other "players" are in trouble. By the end of the year you will see a massive amount of people wearing applewatches. I really believe the applewatch will revolutionize the smartwatch market. Not by creating anything completely new, but by the massive amount of people it will attract simply b.c it is apple branded.

It will even be good for people who have android phones. Android wear sales will probably increase once the applewatch is released.

I agree that Apple's presence in the market will make a significant difference and uptake, but I disagree that the market is over-saturated. There will always be room for someone new to come along and do it significantly better, although that is rare.

 

[apolloa]

It's cute how this articles title states Swatch are taking on the Apple Watch exclusively and thus ignoring every other smart watch on the market.

 

[thekeyring]

What's wrong with the picture? Let me say it again. It took them THREE years and battery problems have not been perfected. This is why I think they pushed the date back to April because of that among other factors. A good smart watch should last you at least two days or a week like Pebble, not less than 19 hours worth of charging.

An iPad gets 10 hours. You want a device the fraction of size of it to get 48 hours?

Apple realise right now this is impossible, so they do things like shifting the processing to the iPhone, writing a custom OS that ensures maximum possible battery life, and building custom chips.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn, when someone tears down the watch, that it's basically a battery on your wrist, and the other parts are tiny.

 

[Silencio]

"Hayek has always said they have relevant technology for a smartwatch -- sensors, display, battery -- and seems to be set to make the most [of] it."

No word at all from Hayek about software: the area where so many companies get it absolutely wrong.

A lot of companies can make good, or at least competent, hardware. Software expertise is far, far harder to come by.

 

[cmChimera]

Any watch will look better than the Apple Watch. It looks as ridiculous as the Google Glass.

And then, you get bigger iPhones because the regular ones are too tiny but now you want to put people to tab on such minimal screen? Not even with a stylus.

I like Swatch, I have two and they are ok with their judgement.

Wow, this comment.

The point is, Apple has to spend the time/money because of how big they are.

It takes them a lot of time/money because they want to make the best product, and not just throw things out on to shelves.

Well... Swatch has been in the business innovating way before Apple and they came up with their own stores back in the 80's and they still around.

Then, Apple have had their failures in design many times like the rounded mouse, titanium powerbook (paint coming off), the G4 Cube (nice design but useless) and so on... No one is thrilled about the Apple Watch, if it doesn't come out people will just forget about it, the design is ugly to start with.

It is not like when Apple came out with the iPhone, back then I was working with Sony Ericsson and Motorola and I told them: you are doomed. But with the Apple Watch??? more attractive is to but a 4K TV that still has no content for it.

Wow, this comment.

 

[Glideslope]

To me it feels like "smart watches" are eventually headed for gum ball machines and party favors. I will be very surprised if kids and teens buy any of this stuff after the novelty wears off.

True, however, I don't believe "kids and teens" are remotely in Apple's Demographic for the Apple Watch. This device is for the "Millenniums to Boomers."

 

[LegacyMacUser]

Swatch compete with the Apple Watch? They'll never do it. Never.

 

[cmichaelb]

I think you very much misunderstood this and it is in no way a shot at Apple's battery life lol.

I believe what they are saying is, you can connect to a 3G network without paying. Similar to what the Amazon 3g e-readers do?

I read it as built in wifi, but I see what you mean. That would be interesting.

 

[seisend]

Sigma4Life pointed it out perfectly.

I am swiss myself and I live in the middle of the cheese. But if I hear that crap about swatch, that's just hilarious. They will fail.

 

[MH01]

And where was the Swatch smart watch before Apple announced the AppleWatch? I'm so sick of these companies that sit on their A$$ making jack crap but once they see Apple making a product that looks to be a big success then they get up off their lazy butts and create something to compete with Apple. There were other smart watches before the AppleWatch but Swatch wouldn't budge until Apple spoke up. Typical.

So other companies are not allowed to enter a market, to add competition? Or compete with apple? And if they do, they are pathetic and copying apple?

You might want to check, who is invading whos industry here!

Apple does not need you to stick up for them in everypost, and bash other companies, as one poster has already replied to you, its about competition! This years iphone 6 was a great device, cause the competition produced some excellent devices, the Apple watch is already a better device, cause the moto 360 raised the bar! The apple products your are defending with blind faith, are awesome, due to the competition bar being raised!

If you have any clue about the tech industry, look what happened when AMD stopped competing against INTEL, the knock on effect was stagnation of Apple computers..... think it through!

 

[igorsky]

Any watch will look better than the Apple Watch. It looks as ridiculous as the Google Glass.

I'm going to take a guess that you wear super-thick glasses.

 

[nando87]

Well its not just the Apple Brand... The problem is also that beautiful smatwatches like the Moto 360 is not compatible with the iPhone which is a huge deal breaker for alot of people.

I currently dont use a watch, but if i was to get one, then obviously i'd choose the Apple watch cause of its functionality and its capability to pair to my phone.

 

[freddiecable]

my thought exactly! it does not make him look smart.

LOL...some CEOs should learn to keep their mouth shut when they have nothing better to say.