This headline is one of those questions that answers itself. “The Apple Watch: Is it a gadget or a fashion statement?” I’m fond of pointing out that the correlation between the mobility of an Apple product and its popularity. The great innovation of the iPod was not the technology. It was the marketing. Having an iPod made you hip, youthful and edgy. Don Imus spent a year asking every guest what they had on their iPod as part of his act. The iPod quickly became a fashion statement.
Apple CEO Tim Cook summed up the problem during a conversation with sales staff at a London Apple Store: “We’ve never sold anything as a company that people could try on before.”
With the expected launch next month of the Apple Watch, the company’s first new product in five years, Apple will be stepping into new territory.
To conquer the marketplace, the watch will have to appeal not only as a gadget but as a fashion statement, a fact tacitly acknowledged by Apple’s decision to launch its advertising campaign with a 12-page insert in the March issue of Vogue.
The company isn’t talking about plans for marketing the Apple Watch in advance of it’s much-touted “Spring Forward” event on Monday, but it clearly intends to keep a tight grip on initial sales and distribution, leaving many retailers guessing about when — or if — they’ll be able to sell it.
Sources with direct knowledge of the matter said that Best Buy Co Inc, one of the largest sellers of Apple products, may not get the watch at launch time, though the company wouldn’t comment on the situation.
Other large retailers, including Macy’s, Saks 5th Avenue, Bloomingdales and Barney’s said they had no immediate plans to carry the watch. Target and Nordstrom,along with all the major phone carriers, declined to comment on their plans, though a source with knowledge of the situation said Nordstrom has engaged in discussions with Apple.
“Apple is being cautious. There are too many unknowns around how this product will perform,” said Van Baker, research vice-president, technology research firm Gartner Inc.
Another one of my themes is the fact that the big returns from the communications revolution have been realized. What’s left is marginal stuff like making the phone smaller or giving it a snazzier exterior. Turning it into a watch is another example. This is a device with no practical application so it has to be a fashion item. Apple is about to become ironic.
The reports I’ve read suggest the response may not be as expected. Even diehard Apple users have to be wondering why they need a smart watch. Most probably gave up wearing a watch a long time ago. Putting their current apps on a watch makes little sense. Apple has been humping this thing as a fitness tool, but that space is pretty crowded. A bunch of these things that sync with cloud apps to track anything you want to track already exist and are popular. All of which is a waste of time, by the way. Unless you’re an elite professional athlete, you have no need for these things, but for $100 they are fine toys.
That leaves fashion statement.
The smartwatch feels awesome, the only problem will be the price of the watch bands
Fashion is the end point, or last gasp, of most consumer goods. Remember back in the 70s when car companies were introducing the Pierre Cardin Edition? Etc. Even AMC got into the act with a Levi branded denim Gremlin.
Remember when eye glasses were sold based on price and appearance? Not designer.
All that said, Apple has been pretty successful at merging form and function. I’m not sure how successful the watch will be. It seems to me, and I wear a watch every day, an idea in search of a problem to solve.
But then, I’ve been waiting for my Dick Tracy wrist radio since 1963.
Will there ever be an Apple Magnetic Sky Car?
There is a piece of the Apple Watch puzzle I’m missing. From what I read the big utility is the fitness apps. That’s what Apple is pushing. The trouble is you can get a product that does all those things for $100. There are tons of them on the market. They are water resistant and durable, two things the Apple Watch is not. Since most Apple people look rather nonathletic to me, I’m thinking maybe by “health apps” they mean something else. Even so, the thing only works in conjunction with the iPhone. Otherwise, it is just a watch.
I’m thinking that Apple is out of ideas for consumer electronics so they are just hoping to sell accessory items for a while to buy time. They will sell a bunch of these to their fan boys. The entertainment rackets will go in for the diamond encrusted models as a statement piece. It’s incremental revenue for Apple. Meanwhile, they scan the horizon for an idea to pilfer and turn into their next big thing.
From iconic to ironic.
I admit Apple gear is the best out there – especially their software ecosystem – but I too am wondering why I should start wearing a watch again …
It would have to be the HealthKit apps and the body sensors. I think the home control stuff will work at least as well, probably better on the phone.
God knows I don’t need to be any more accessible.
I certainly don’t want spending my money to be any easier.
Apparently I’m just not young enough to need more eye sparkles.
The thing that makes the Apple Watch even nuttier is it only works with an iphone. If you have your phone, what do you need the watch for?
Off topic, could you please add your unz comment feed to the blogroll on the right, maybe even above “A-List Fans”, i mean this:
http://www.unz.com/comments/commenter/The+Z+Blog/
It makes for good additional reading, but not everyone knows about it.
You also mentioned there that you listen to a few podcasts, care to share which?
My personal favorites are the Adam Carolla show, radio Derb & Age of Treason (because you got to spice it up every so often).
Worth remembering that just about everything we have and rely on was invented or made useful between about 1850 and 1950. In that era we got radio, TV, the phone, the internal combustion engine and a whole lot more, including nuclear energy.
All we have done since, more or less, is to refine it all. Wi-Fi is merely radio, the latest must-have fast car is just a car in a different shape shell, and so on.
Oh, I know there are a few things, such as fibre optics that weren’t invented in the 100 year window I am talking about, but essentially most of them were known or being worked on back then. In this case then, all companies like Apple are doing is marketing their ideas to hold a decent share of the money available for what we already know.
A personal time piece attached to the body? Sounds like a new idea to me…