Don't get me wrong: the unadorned design makes it look fantastic and Ive follows a fairly simple design mantra... I believe he does accomplish what he sets out to. Yet this is a watch and not a piece of technology, which I believe Apple understood very well but did not take full advantage of as they should have. Not that this is a negative, but having recently considered purchasing a higher-end watch I find myself coming back to using my Apple Watch daily since it looks great, and transcends what a watch is capable of. Frankly I really do not need to have a high-end watch alongside it: with a new band I really feel that the Apple Watch compares very well in the mid-level watch category. It really is the future of the watch. Yet, does the future of the watch have to be so aesthetically simple?
I believe the greatest comparison for this is an Edition vs a Rolex. In my mind it was a mistake to not craft a brand new design from the ground up for the $10,000-$17,000 luxury centerpiece of the Apple Watch lineup. The Edition blatantly looks like the $599 Apple Watch with a touch of gold. If I was apart of Apple's design team, and say what you will about this perhaps being a reason why I am not, the Sport, Watch, and Edition would have more distinctive differences (that are at the least subtle) than solely the materials. I do completely understand the desire to streamline, but I believe Rolex pulls off having a full watch lineup that embodies a myriad of design traits beautifully with their Oyster Collection in both the efficient and aesthetic sense of the word. To get excited about a $10,000+ Watch I need more design emphasis than taking the same design of the $349+ Watch and making it gold.
Perhaps the Watch Edition is not designed to be a Rolex competitor, but rather yet another watch to be apart of the collection of a high-end watch user... or a person of means who has been swayed by the smart watch to begin wearing one. For me personally though, I would not care nearly as much about owning an Edition as I would another brand in that price range. Until that changes, I believe the Edition is an oversight. The Apple Watch's biggest fans should have a desire to own the company's most expensive product. Do I have a desire to own a Rolex when and if it makes financial sense? Very much so over the Edition at this point.
This is not me stating that the Apple Watch is ugly; far from it. I very much like the design of the Sport and think it does look like a high-end timepiece that I would swoon over even if it was not a smart watch. The lineup itself however is too similar across too broad of a price range to compare favorably against traditional timepieces.
I believe the greatest comparison for this is an Edition vs a Rolex. In my mind it was a mistake to not craft a brand new design from the ground up for the $10,000-$17,000 luxury centerpiece of the Apple Watch lineup. The Edition blatantly looks like the $599 Apple Watch with a touch of gold. If I was apart of Apple's design team, and say what you will about this perhaps being a reason why I am not, the Sport, Watch, and Edition would have more distinctive differences (that are at the least subtle) than solely the materials. I do completely understand the desire to streamline, but I believe Rolex pulls off having a full watch lineup that embodies a myriad of design traits beautifully with their Oyster Collection in both the efficient and aesthetic sense of the word. To get excited about a $10,000+ Watch I need more design emphasis than taking the same design of the $349+ Watch and making it gold.
Perhaps the Watch Edition is not designed to be a Rolex competitor, but rather yet another watch to be apart of the collection of a high-end watch user... or a person of means who has been swayed by the smart watch to begin wearing one. For me personally though, I would not care nearly as much about owning an Edition as I would another brand in that price range. Until that changes, I believe the Edition is an oversight. The Apple Watch's biggest fans should have a desire to own the company's most expensive product. Do I have a desire to own a Rolex when and if it makes financial sense? Very much so over the Edition at this point.
This is not me stating that the Apple Watch is ugly; far from it. I very much like the design of the Sport and think it does look like a high-end timepiece that I would swoon over even if it was not a smart watch. The lineup itself however is too similar across too broad of a price range to compare favorably against traditional timepieces.
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