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TAG Heuer Sales Director Patrick Pruniaux Joins Apple in Run-Up to iWatch Launch [Updated]
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If you can't afford an Apple product you don't have to buy it.
I mean the cheapest product is the ipod shuffle and the priciest is the mac pro
i think Apple can make an iwatch for the people who can afford an ipod touch/iphone category(range 400-800$) and another one for those who can afford a mac(range 1000-2000$)
It would be possible to have some high-end watches that sell for considerably more than $1,000. They wouldn't sell many, and the profit would be negligible or even zero, but it would improve how everyone looks at the whole product range.
Exactly. Five years down the road such a thing has lost the last fragment of its appeal, and after another five it will appear as ancient as the HP-01 does to us today. And some people think it is in competition with the kind of watch that you can wear the rest of your life, followed by your grandchild wearing it the rest of his life?
Hiring this late in the game makes me think that this thing isn't coming out for quite some time.
Yeah. If the watch is coming as soon as some claim, why aren't we seeing any leaks yet like with the iPhone?
Apple are not often wrong about how well products will sell, and when they are, they learn quickly. They underestimated demand for the 'gold' iPhone, and overestimated demand for the 'unashamedly plastic' iPhone, and I expect the lesson to have been learned in time for the iWatch.
Why would apple just pick 1 market segment? I'm expecting a range of iWatches, functionally identical, but made from cheap through to expensive materials, with prices to match.
Plastic with a gorilla glass screen competing with Swatch, through space grey aluminium with a sapphire coated screen, right up to platinum with a solid sapphire screen competing with LVMH.
Why would apple just pick 1 market segment? I'm expecting a range of iWatches, functionally identical, but made from cheap through to expensive materials, with prices to match.
Plastic with a gorilla glass screen competing with Swatch, through space grey aluminium with a sapphire coated screen, right up to platinum with a solid sapphire screen competing with LVMH.
LOL they didn't just update the iPod touch they just made the storage more affordable. They did the same thing with the OG iPhone half way through its life. Also you don't understand apple's update schedule, they are going to update the new iPod touch because people who do buy them need a new one to warrant buying one. Also R&D is spread over years. The iPhone cost around the same when it released, the iPad cost the same when it released ect ect. So your R&D arguments is moot as well.
Despite the snarking on this forum, that seems to be true nearly across the board. No one had seen the Mac Pro before release, there were virtually no leaks of the software Apple recently released at WWDC, and -- with only limited and partial exceptions -- the iPhone speculation has been based on mockups created by case manufacturers rather than actual leaks. When you add in the iWatch as well, this is a crazily successful track record on secrecy for a company of Apple's size.
Your analogy doesn't really hold up. The majority of tasks that people did on netbooks turned out to be tasks iPad could do reasonably well, all in a more attractive package. That was the case that Jobs made in January 2010 when it was unveiled. Was there room between a notebook and a smartphone? There turned out to be room. iPad was an obvious move for Apple. Wearables are something else entirely.
From my experience people wear watches to tell the time, for purposes of fashion, for sentimental reasons (really high end mechanical watches given as gifts). A watch that Apple makes could do #1 reasonably well, but I remain deeply skeptical about #2, and #3 is a market Apple will never enter.
Questions/Comment I have:
1. What is it supposed to do? Being a better 'watch' is not sufficient.
1a. Sensors to track health?
1b. Receive notifications, so people have a fourth device receiving push notifications?
1c. Serve as an identity tool?
2. What is it going to look like and designed from?
2a. Presumably it will be stylish because Jony Ive wears watches and he would have a final say in what it looks like, but how broad an appeal?
2b. If it goes after high end timepieces, are you still going to want to wear it everywhere?
2c. If it's not worn everywhere, does it lose the value added tech proposition in tracking?
3. What is the cost and upgrade cycle?
3a. $1000+ watches rarely get upgraded, $400+ watches might get upgraded a couple times a decade, $100 watches might get upgraded annually.
3b. Presumably sensors are going to get better quickly, so Apple will want people to upgrade regularly, after all, regular upgrades are part of Apple's business model.
3c. How much money can Apple attempt to get out of consumers every 4 years? Does an expensive iWatch do damage to iPhone and iPad upgrade cycles?
4. Who is going to buy it and why?
4a. It's got to do some things that iPhone can't do and some things that iPhone can do, but better.
4b. I don't think it's going to convince people who don't already wear a watch to wear one.
4c. I don't think it's going to supplant the majority of watches that people already wear.
Final Thoughts
Apple has been great at making tech fashionable. This is their first foray in making fashion out of tech.
Whatever Apple's wearable is, it has to be always on you, under $200, and will be a secondary band on your wrist. No display, no Android Gear style push notifications, very thin, very elegant.
So is the iwatch really imminent? It seems like all of their aquisitions of the people who would be working on it have been very recent.
You really don't get it but okay, I give up. When the iWatch comes out and costs more than an iPod touch and when there is no iPod touch refresh this fall maybe you will realize you don't know as much as you think you do.
Nom it doesnt there are lots of things Apple is involved in Im sure where they havent trounced anybody. That might be their intention but isnt always the result.
Agreed. While reasonably affordable options no doubt will exist, it would not surprise me to see high-end versions costing well above $1000. That assumes, of course, that Apple is actually capable of competing with high-style traditional watches, but they at least have a (considerably) better chance of that than any other tech company.
Ill make sure to reply to this msg when the 6th gen iPod touch comes out and if there is an iWatch show you it will cost around the iPod touch.
Why are they still hiring even at this late stage.. By this time everything should have been finalised.. Looks like Apple is not so confident..
If they're still hiring, especially big hires like this, can they actually be close to releasing the iWatch yet? It just doesn't seem like it to me.
Well, I guess no one can now say the iWatch is still a rumour haha. It will be even MORE interesting to see what Apple make now! Hopefully they will make a fitness band too?
Yup. Now that devices are becoming so similar to one another, Apple is going to have to fall back on that marketing/brand magic. More or less, products are "good enough" for the today's consumers, so Apple has to be able to market to the general audience/youngsters as well as the high-end/luxury audience (which they've done so well in the past).
Beats has done so well in appealing to that young/lifestyle audience. You can go anywhere and see people of all ages and cultures wearing Beats. They're so prevalent in the music and sport space. Samsung did a great job leveraging influencers and tastemakers to boost their branding...it worked.
And then the all-star roster of luxury brand executives will be needed to be able to create that kind of demand for a lifestyle product like an iWatch, and actually be able to sell it.
Utility. Nike had done pretty well with the Fuelband, and now that FitBit and all these fitness trackers are gaining in popularity, there is a shift from a gimmick to actual functional utility. That hire from Nike makes sense.
And lastly the hardware/software piece. Being an Apple Fan, I have no question Apple will build something great.
If you think about it, you have a "need" for a phone....you have a "need" for a tablet/computer. However, it's going to take convincing to have a "need" for a "watch". It's a given that Apple will develop a very quality product...but as well all know building something, doesn't mean people will want it (*cough* Google Glasses).
I think Apple is doing an amazing job of putting the pieces together to make it happen.
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Anything over $250 and I won't be "watching" it. $2k for a computer. $550 for a phone, and I'm going to pay how much for a device that at most will act as an extension of my phone and let me do some simple things? Not more than $250.