So what's the competition that should have Apple worried? What is going to just kill I sales because Apple does not release gen 2? Nothing there is nothing that has come close to the success of the AW.
There doesn't have to be direct competition on a specific product for Apple's competition to make use of a weak Apple event.
How is the software taxing the hardware that much? My AW runs just fine. Sure the apps can be slow to open, but is that down to the hardware? It could be software, and app developers just now getting watch apps. I don't see this huge need for new hardware on the Apple Watch. Nothing is running curls around it right now. What are they going to upgrade to? What's out there that is going to make the AW so much better?
I'm not going to debate with you your own anecdotal experience. There are plenty of complaints about the speed of the Watch. It could be anything, regardless internal speed bumps are not out of the question to make the experience better. You've also seemingly made up your mind. If you can't imagine ANYTHING that could make the watch better, then I'm not going to start debating it with you now.
The expectations of the AW were way off as Apple and Wall Street are finding out. Smart watches are never going to be as big as people think they will. This is a much more niche market then a tablet or smartphone. Gen 2 is not going to change that. What is gen 2 going to offer that is going to bring watch users to it?
When aren't they off? Doesn't change anything, and doesn't mean Apple should just do nothing. New is always better in tech and fashion. Again, you seem to have made up your mind about this, so I'm not going to debate all the potential improvements that might draw future customers, as they have been debated endlessly throughout this forum, especially since better battery performance alone is pretty much the only counter-argument I need to present here.
This is were I think you are completely wrong. Apple is going after high end fashion watches. They are selling watches that are $350 plus. This is not your $50-$200 seasonal watch. People that spend $350-$1500 on a watch are not buying a new watch ever season. Plus is the Apple Watch seasonal? No it's going to pretty much look the same. The fashion is in the band. That is what Apple is going to release seasonally.
Well you're entitled to your opinion. However, Apple likely sold a majority of their watches over the holidays in sales that regularly discounted Sport models by $100. Moreover, I'm not suggesting all of Apple's customers would be upgrading their watch for fashion reasons alone. But offering new watch bands is pretty foolish as the competition is improving hardware performance every year.
I don't think you understand the watch market. Sure android wear can release new watches every year because most of them are cheaper then the cheapest AW. Apple is trying to sell a high end watch. They can't do that and upgrade it every year. They are going to completely miss it if they do. People that spend $600 on a watch are not looking to upgrade on a yearly bases. I know I am not.
Traditional watch makers offer new watches every season that sell for much more than the Watch. And you can't base how Apple treats the market based on what you personally would do. Apple may have pretty much sold as many Watches as they are going to for the current crowd of interested customers, and many of those at deep holiday sales discounts. So for starters, just because you don't personally plan on buying another $600 watch anytime soon, doesn't mean your wealthier neighbor isn't. Where is the incentive to buy another Watch if they don't offer something new? What if the Gen 2 watch comes with GPS? There's a whole category of people who will suddenly be interested in the watch who weren't. And what about the guy who bought the gen 1 watch, but would have liked GPS, who now has a reason to upgrade? Then there are those people who do buy multiple watches to alternate, but don't see the need to buy multiple 1 Gen watches, but would see the benefit of upgrading to a 2nd gen watch.
Now back to Apple's current sales ... once a product plateaus, they can continue to trickle out sales, but the reality may be all the people who were interested have bough the watch as it is, and everyone else has evaluated it and moved on. So the only way to get those people to come back and re-consider the watch is to introduce improvements. I suppose you could argue that a snappy new band is enough to do it, but I have my doubts. New partnerships with the likes of Hermes may spark some renewed interest, but that's all lipstick on a pig which does nothing to update the look of a product that's been in the public eye for over 18 months. There are substantial critics of the look of the watch, and in the fashion world, that's enough for Apple to come up with something else before this one gets too long in the tooth. If all Apple offers is minor cosmetic improvements with nothing new under the hood, that's more than enough of an opening for the competition to launch something seriously competitive in the space.
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Because I don't feel like editing a small quote from such a huge post…
About the "Watch wasn't ready for a planned Sep 2014 release" nonsense --
Wasn't the AW required to receive FCC approval? And, just like with the original iPhone, the submission of specifications to the FCC would put its information in the public realm?
And, again, if any news of the AW had leaked prior to the reveal, copycat manufacturers would have rapidly spawned their own ripoffs of the AW, right?
These "delay" rumors about Apple products are, in the most polite terms, utterly bogus. Point me to the Apple engineer who violated his or her NDA.
Apple introduced the Apple Watch with three watch faces that did not appear in the production model. Those watch faces didn't show up until a year after they were unveiled to the pubic -- and they were customizable faces that customers were clamoring for to boot. How else do you explain that other than the watch was released prematurely?
Moreover, How does April make more sense than a Fall release? If Apple needed FCC approval, and I don't know that they did, 3 months is all they needed at the most, which means they could have started selling the watches in November, just in time for Christmas. Now that makes a whole lot more sense for such a watch, than April.
But this is all my opinion, since I obviously don't have any facts to back it up. But I"m eager to read your factual information that the Watch was planned for an April release all along, and just needed 8 months to go through the FCC hurtles for approval.
[edit: note, the apple store staff didn't seem to care either what i was doing or that it didn't work before that]
