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Third-Party Apple Watch Bands May Be Coming Soon Following Launch of New Guidelines
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That means nothing unless a similar non Apple case in the same condition would have survived unscathed. Maybe its the environment you put it in that made it peel.
Apple's bands are overpriced based on what? What's the comparison? Just because something might cost more than I'm willing to pay doesn't mean it's overpriced.
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I think people are living in fantasy land if they think there's going to be this flood of high quality bands for cheap. I'm sure there will be lots of bands of varying quality and some good enough that are cheaper than Apple's offerings but really nice bands will be expensive, especially if there is a licensing fee involved.
True enough!
That's why I ruin the elegant design (sorry Ivy) of my iPhone by putting it in an Otterbox.I'm going to wait for the second gen, but I'll be looking very closely at online reviews before buying a third party strap.
Price gouging is in Apple's corporate DNA; this is part of Steve Jobs legacy and is being ably continued by the Apple Management team. I personally think it's a mistake from a public perception perspective, and can lead them to make poor technical decisions (think iPhone 6's 1GB RAM). I think the Apple Watch is overpriced, but I still wear one. You can tell Tim Cook could see the results of the tear down/pricing coming and tried to pro-actively deal with it.
Apple is also *notorious* for ridiculous markups on accessories. The $49 tag on a sports band is ludicrous compared to its likely cost, as is $19 for a lightening cable, but you can get away with this when you own this particular ecosystem. Proof of the ridiculous pricing of the lightening cable is that they have to resort to chipping it, in a similar way printer companies deliberately limit ink cartridge compatibility - but then, inkjet printers are well known to be sold at cost or at a loss, making up for that with ink sales. What's Apple's excuse, apart from increased profits?
In the end, no one is putting a gun to your head to buy an Apple product, but they know what they are: the best damn technology company out there. They need to get someone on board with some sensibility to the pricing issue, because to many people (no not you, Apple fan boys) it occasionally makes them look kind of Huckster-like.
No, but I have tried one in an Apple Store and I was not really impressed by the leather aspect and feeling - it feels like it was overprocessed. Which is a pity, because otherwise the band is really good, the magnetic systems works great and you can adjust it exactly how you want unlike the sport band.
One just needs to look at Apple's extraordinary quarterly financial reports to know that they're doing everything right. Similarly, look at Samsung's declining financials to understand that they're not.
Wouldn't change a thing. The public votes by opening their wallet, or not...
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I've never tried one on but I've heard elsewhere that it's stiff at first but softens up over time.
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What's the basis for saying the band costs ten cents? That was my question.
quality accessories for 
are usually not that much cheaper than the official stuff ... yes - you can get a $2 cheapo lightning cable but it will stop working after just a week. The same will hold true for watch bands...
a quality-made $25 sport band? maybe. but I'd stay away from the $5 cheapo bands which surely will show up. Not to mention stainless steel bands for $30 ... say hi to nickle and rust...
For what it's worth the sport band feels very nice and holds up well and fits securely. If the original band should break and the watch falls off and gets damaged - I'm sure will replace both. Good luck trying that with your $5 knock-off band...
are usually not that much cheaper than the official stuff ... yes - you can get a $2 cheapo lightning cable but it will stop working after just a week. The same will hold true for watch bands...a quality-made $25 sport band? maybe. but I'd stay away from the $5 cheapo bands which surely will show up. Not to mention stainless steel bands for $30 ... say hi to nickle and rust...
For what it's worth the sport band feels very nice and holds up well and fits securely. If the original band should break and the watch falls off and gets damaged - I'm sure
will replace both. Good luck trying that with your $5 knock-off band...Yeah, I doubt it's 10c, my guess is the OP was using the value figuratively not literally.
yeah its funny the way these kids think 150 for a high-quality leather band is expensive. better hope they never set foot in a high-end men's store...
no, he didnt say deal with it, he said those guesstimators werent accurate. remember?
as for apple being "too expensive", it's time for a reality check.
- iphone: $0
- ipod: $50
- ipad: $329
- mac: $499
- mabook: $899
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of course it will, but im not sure why you fear that. im not afraid of all the crappy iphone cases sitting in bins at my local hardware store. why should i be? i only get quality stuff for my gear.
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that they come from china doesnt make them the same. Lowe's has bins of crummy iphone cases when you walk in. they come from china like my high quality cases do. but mine are made to better tolerances and have better features. different.
Judging by a lot of comments on here who are complaining about the price of Apple's bands not realizing how cheap they are compared to comparable bands from reputable watch manufacturers, you're probably right.
im sorry, did apple release a statement somewhere stating their costs? no, they didnt. so that number is just BS (like the 83-cent battery it cites).
on the contrary, Cooks had to warn investors on the earnings call that the margin on the watch will be lower than the phone, because its a new product and new products are expensive to spin up.
i trust Cook's report to his investors more than some doofus w/ a tear-down site.
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nope, neither is true.
heres how it works -- if a product offers enough value to you to justify the opportunity cost, then it's a good purchase. note that this will be entirely a personal decision...to one person the leather & steel can hold more value than another. to one person the 150 bucks is a fortune, to another it's an hour of their time. etc..
We are not talking about features...we are talking about a case. I'm saying that in the same factory that makes Belkin, there is another order for Spigen cases. All they do is change the name on the piece. It's the same thing for clothing. You think your Guess shirt is special but the Nordstrom brand shirt is the same one, just with Nordstrom on it. Just because it's not a brand name and it's cheaper does not make it cheap. They just aren't profiting off of their Name
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Very True,
I'm buying the leather band because I think it looks cool and it's very functional with the magnets. I don't think there are going to be others like it.
I've never been much of a watch band swapperdespite wearing a watch since 2nd or 3rd grade. I typically wear link bracelet designs which aren't swappable. This time I've gone with the Milanese Loop, but I'm excited to try out different third party bands. Being able to easily swap out different band styles is a new experience for me, so I'm looking forward to starting a small collection that I can wear in different settings.
In the future I hope that Apple puts out an official SDK for the secret port. It would be neat to have a band that measures glucose or additional health parameters, or a band that has GPS and feeds that data to your watch while you bike or run so you don't have to carry an iPhone to track that information, or the much talked about battery bracelet.
In the future I hope that Apple puts out an official SDK for the secret port. It would be neat to have a band that measures glucose or additional health parameters, or a band that has GPS and feeds that data to your watch while you bike or run so you don't have to carry an iPhone to track that information, or the much talked about battery bracelet.
The Apple margin on the sport band only (49$) is probably higher than Samsung margin on their Samsung Gear watch but nevermind...
I think Apple pricing of their bands is unreasonably high. A band alone can cost you as much as one Mac mini or five Apple TVs. Thats insane. Ill buy the cheapest option when the watch becomes available in my country and look for a thrid party band that suits me best.
I also feel dissapoint in the Edition pricing. With an entry 10.000$ price tag up to 17.000$ Apple made this watch not exclusive, but super exclusive, almost unaffordable and indiserable for 99,95% of the customers. If it was priced below 5.000$, Apple may have sold 4x more Edition watches and generating double the cash from this particular model. I still way to see an unboxing of edition model on youtube from a normal customer.
I think Apple pricing of their bands is unreasonably high. A band alone can cost you as much as one Mac mini or five Apple TVs. Thats insane. Ill buy the cheapest option when the watch becomes available in my country and look for a thrid party band that suits me best.
I also feel dissapoint in the Edition pricing. With an entry 10.000$ price tag up to 17.000$ Apple made this watch not exclusive, but super exclusive, almost unaffordable and indiserable for 99,95% of the customers. If it was priced below 5.000$, Apple may have sold 4x more Edition watches and generating double the cash from this particular model. I still way to see an unboxing of edition model on youtube from a normal customer.
On the optimistic side, I would hope that any band, no matter how rubbish, would start looking bad so you take it off, before it actually breaks. But then that's just me being optimistic.
You can't compare the Watch band to an Apple TV or Mac Mini. That's comparing apple's and oranges. A nice steel bracelet from a traditional watch maker will most likely be more expensive than what Apple is charging for their link bracelet. As far as the Editiion goes I don't think Apple is expecting to sell many of them. I don't think that was ever their goal. Also, go do a Google shopping search on 18-karat gold (not gold plated) watches and you'll be hard pressed to see any under $5K.
Sold it in the end for about £20. Not bad considering its condition, but not buying another leather iPhone case again.
The iPad one isn't too bad as it's not going in and out of pockets all the time, I was just really disappointed with how the iPhone one looked after just a couple of weeks.
Yes. Would be fascinating to see the reaction of folks on this board to the MSRP of a nice strap (any material) from Breitling or Blancpain. The Breitling crocodile strap/deployant is, in my view, the greatest sports watch strap out there. Of course, it's probably $1K+ alone; forget the watch.
I would just like to get the sport band I ordered to go with my 42mm SS Milanese Loop watch.
Has anyone received additional bands yet?
Has anyone received additional bands yet?