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Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#181

Post by rimliu »

wongarsu wrote: post #94
mikeash wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except not really, because the installed base of Macs at the time was a few million, while the iPhone installed base is around a billion. Being Mac-only in the early 2000s was orders of magnitude more limiting to potential sales than being iPhone-only today.

The iPhone install base is certainly not a billion, there have only been 1.2 billion ever sold. Estimates for the install base vary wildly, with the upper estimates at about 3/4 of a billion and more reasonable estimates at half a billion. In any case, iPhones have about 15%-25% of the global smartphone install base (with the US being the big outlier). I certainly count that as very limiting. Maybe not on quite the s…

  > iPhones have about 15%-25% of the global smartphone
  > install base
I would like to know how much of the remaining 75%-85% are used as smartphones and not just dumbphones with an smartphone OS on them. I am sure the many of the cheapest models are used this way.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#182

Post by mirsadm »

dsacco wrote: post #145
Steko wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jobs the watch will do aren't as clear cut as it was for the iPod. The iPod let you listen to music and carried lots of (or all of) your music and had software that made it easy to convert and manage your digital music and buy more over the internet. Those were things basically everyone wanted and it did that better than competitors. The watch? Well yeah it tells time, but it's worse at that then most watches and…

I have a few points for you in response: 1. I'm what you'd call a "watch guy." In the time I have had the Apple Watch Series 2, I have barely used my mechanicals (including a Lange & Sohne and a Nomos Glashutte). The Apple Watch comes with me on all but the most formal/elegant occasions, and I now hate changing straps on my mechanical watches in comparison. The Apple Watch may not be as beautiful, but it is far more…

I think in a couple more iterations the Apple Watch will be the best fitness tracker out there. At the moment the poor battery life doesn't lend itself well to things like sleep tracking or longer activities.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#183

Post by GeekyBear »

epa wrote: post #130
Steko wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jobs the watch will do aren't as clear cut as it was for the iPod. The iPod let you listen to music and carried lots of (or all of) your music and had software that made it easy to convert and manage your digital music and buy more over the internet. Those were things basically everyone wanted and it did that better than competitors. The watch? Well yeah it tells time, but it's worse at that then most watches and…

The one thing most people dont realize about why the iPod was popular was because it was actually the fastest device to transfer music to. At the time, music devices were using serial connections if you can believe that, and FireWire was the fastest thing on the market, only available with iPods. This, combined with having the most space (10gb vs 256 mb), combined with windows support on the third version, made the i…

The original iPod was 5 Gigs, which you filled over a 400Mbps Firewire connection. USB was limited to only 12Mbps at that time, so it only managed 3% of Firewire's transfer speed.

Filling the iPod's drive took a couple of minutes over Firewire, but a similarly sized device would take more than an hour using USB.

It was a significant technical advantage until the 480Mbps version of USB came along.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#184

Post by skgoa »

frik wrote: post #149
mortenjorck wrote: post #28

I’ve been saying it all along: to understand the Apple Watch, look to the iPod. The first three years of iPod sales were minuscule compared to the following ten: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_qua... The two products occupy a very similar space of affordable luxury; they are not world-changing like the Mac or iPhone, but category-defining. Through gradual iteration and segmentation, Apple sl…

No. A better comparison is the iPad. iPad 1 got little traction, it was slow, had no camera, couldn't play HD mp4, etc. iPad skyrocket with iPad 2 which was so much better in every regard. The same with Watch, the Watch 1 (series 0) one had no GPS and was to limited. Watch 3 (series 2) has a dual-core processor, GPS, is water-proof and is a decent device. The question is do I want to carry a smartphone and a watch? I…

It has been pretty much the same with pretty much every Apple product since Job's return. The initial version is a good implementation of the basic idea, but it always has a few drawbacks and is too expensive for the limited use cases it enables. Successive iterations then improve the product until it's amazing a few years later. iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, McBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac... They all went through this.

There are of course products that they didn't manage to improve in this way, e.g. the Mac mini or the XServer. So I will reserve judgement on the Watch for a while yet.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#185

Post by puranjay »

jychang wrote: post #38
mortenjorck wrote: post #28

I’ve been saying it all along: to understand the Apple Watch, look to the iPod. The first three years of iPod sales were minuscule compared to the following ten: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_qua... The two products occupy a very similar space of affordable luxury; they are not world-changing like the Mac or iPhone, but category-defining. Through gradual iteration and segmentation, Apple sl…

This is not a good example. The reason the iPod sold so poorly the first few years was because you can only sync them with Macs. Very few people owned Macs, so iPod sales were poor. It took iTunes for Windows to come out before things changed.

The comparison also fails for the simple fact that Apple circa 2004 is not the Apple circa 2017

In 2004, Apple was a rather small, formerly unhip (and on its way to becoming hip) manufacturer of computers.

The Apple of 2017 is one of the world's most recognized brands with a history of mobile expertise.

Apple Watch had the marketing of a $500B corporation behind it. The iPod did not.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#186

Post by mrcarrot »

coldtea wrote: post #173
epa wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing most people dont realize about why the iPod was popular was because it was actually the fastest device to transfer music to. At the time, music devices were using serial connections if you can believe that, and FireWire was the fastest thing on the market, only available with iPods. This, combined with having the most space (10gb vs 256 mb), combined with windows support on the third version, made the i…

Nope, most had USB. The iPod was popular because it had a sane interface, and didn't resemble a 1990s CD-player or VCR.

Exactly, the average person didn't care how they were connecting their MP3 player to their computer, as long as they could connect it and the player itself was convenient size and looked nice.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#187

Post by InclinedPlane »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #47
vermontdevil wrote: post #18

I have the Series 2 and it's been great for me. 1) Vibrating alarm. Perfect as I hate these big vibrating discs for the deaf. They break frequently. 2) Message/Email notification. It vibrates when I get a text message so I can look and see if it's worth my time to reply or wait till later. Same with email. 3) Fitness - great for running and can even leave the phone at home (Strava especially).

It's really sad to me how terrible many accessibility devices are. I get that it's a small market, but it's almost like no one even cares enough to make a really excellent product for people with disabilities. Because there is a smaller selection and because people rely on this gear in ways able-bodied persons don't need to, it's even more important to get it right and make it affordable but high-quality. It saddens…

The economy is weird right now in a lot of ways, especially due to excess consolidation. You see a lot of big companies who make tons of money almost too easily, which serves to drive them away from point in the effort to pursue other corners of the market. It's like the RadioShack problem writ large. Why bother selling electronics components when cell phone plans have such a huge markup?

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#188

Post by samastur »

simonklitj wrote: post #161
nichochar wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "watch guy" is someone who likes real watches. You're just a "gadget guy"

Well, a Lange & Söhne watch (which is a real watch) goes for 10-200k. I'd say having such a watch qualifies you as a "watch guy".

No, it qualifies you as Lange & Söhne watch owner. We don't know if he bought it himself or why he did it. Not every Porsche owner is a petrolhead either.

Having said this, I am not disputing that he is a watch guy. I believe he is because he says so. As far as I am concerned this is enough.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#189

Post by kalleboo »

0xbear wrote: post #163

It's been years and people still don't understand what Watch is. Meanwhile, it says what it is directly in the name. It's a watch first, and everything else distant second. By the standards of wristwatches $300 is not that much money.

For a piece of jewelry, $300 is not that much money.

For a watch, $12 will do fine https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GAWSDG/

The Apple Watch is neither a piece of jewelry, nor something that will just show you the time (something people stopped caring about wearing nearing 2 decades ago). Is that something worth it or not? Is that something a mass-market item? That's the question to ask.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#190

Post by Shivetya »

archvile wrote: post #86
Steko wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jobs the watch will do aren't as clear cut as it was for the iPod. The iPod let you listen to music and carried lots of (or all of) your music and had software that made it easy to convert and manage your digital music and buy more over the internet. Those were things basically everyone wanted and it did that better than competitors. The watch? Well yeah it tells time, but it's worse at that then most watches and…

Watch + AirPods = killer app. It just needs more storage, but that will come in time. 3-4 generations from now and you won't even need a phone anymore.

and on that day I would buy one. I don't need an accessory for my phone, something that merely extends its screen from my pocket to my wrist and that is all I see the watch as.

I have seen three reasons repeated over and over why people like them and it seems so minimal of reasons. like someone mentioned, no one seems to justify wanting one until they have it but then I just figure they have to justify it.

Airpods are very nice and those I can find every day usage for, exercising and the like. far more than having a watch on my wrist as I tend to sweat a lot while exercising and don't need that.

so when it does not require my phone because it is a phone, I might sign up. but by the time phones get to that size I would just slap it on my shirt like Star Trek

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