imac iwatch Apple Going To Have A Better
At some point in the next few months (“Early 2015″ can’t
push much past March, can it?), Apple will release its Watch, likely defining
the high end of the wearable category.
The Iwatch is, in hindsight, exactly what Apple would make
when entering a new category: a general purpose computer trimmed down to the
essentials needed for its particular form factor. It shares its industrial
design with its bigger cousins in your pocket, likely shares the same
underlying UNIX operating system, and starting this year will even have its own
native apps.
Analysts think that it’s going to sell somewhere in the
range of 30 million units in its first 12 months — nowhere close to the range
of the iPhone or iPad today but still incredibly impressive for the wearable
category overall.
Analyst predictions of Apple sales can always be taken with
a grain of salt, but especially so in the wearables category, where no one
really knows anything yet anyway.
We only bother looking at analyst predictions because they
are a reflection of broader expectations for how the Iwatch will do. Despite
launching well after Android Wear and Samsung’s very early attempts at making
smart watches, consumers and Wall Street alike seem to be looking at the Iwatch
to set the tone for the wearables market in the same way that the iPhone and
iPad did for smartphones and tablets, respectively.
Why the expected success, in the face of competition whose
devices offer roughly the same functions?
If you take a look through the Watch Kit Apple released to
developers back in November, the apps iOS developers can make for the Watch
today are not far off from what’s available on the Android side of things. At
launch, there’s going to be a lot of actionable notifications and functions
that work in unison with apps on your phone.
So why does everyone think the Iwatch is going to do so well
compared to the current slate of smart watches available on the market?
First, there is a matter of momentum. Apple has spent a lot
of time capturing a market, teaching them the benefits of their ecosystem and
locking them in. A certain segment of those people will buy the Iwatch
regardless of what it may or may not do for them.
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Millions of people will buy the Iwatch because just owning
it will seem cool.
Independent analyst Neil Cybart captures that rather well in
this blog post. Basically, people will project their own reasons to be
interested in the Iwatch:
Over the past few months, I’ve learned to change the way I
explain Iwatch to friends and family. Instead of starting out with a list of
reasons why they may enjoy an Iwatch, I now begin with a pretty simply
explanation: Apple is making a watch with customizable faces and bands. I then
let that person respond, and depending on their answer, I mention how Iwatch
can serve as a communication device, a health and fitness tracker, or a mobile
payment facilitator. As a result, I now
get a much more open response from people that want to see and learn more about
Iwatch. That is how Apple will sell Iwatch.
Going beyond that simple assumption, Apple is the best in
the business at creating narratives around the products they sell. Of course,
Google did a fine job of bringing in developers to come up with use cases for
Android Wear when it debuted at Google I/O: “Too drunk to order a Lyft from
your phone? Yell at your wrist instead!”
In fact, there was quite a bit of overlap in functionality
between what Google showed off with partners on that day and the apps Apple
presented on stage last September.
But Apple has proven with every “new” product category
introduction that it knows which features a lot of people will need to justify
a purchase. With the iPhone, it was a phone, iPod, and internet device. With
the iPad, it had made a powerful computer that could handle productivity
software but also provided a better book-reading/movie-watching experience than
any single-user device before it.
Even though several Android manufacturers beat Apple to
market with tablets between the iPhone and iPad launches, Apple thrashed (and
continues to dominate) the category in profitability. That ownership
(regardless of its long-term future) started with filling basic needs that
would make their devices compelling.
The Iwatch opens up Apple Pay to those without the latest
iPhones.
There’s reason to believe that Apple will do the same when
it officially launches its Watch. TechCrunch has heard from several sources
that Apple has brought in developers of apps that “obviously” need to be on the
platform.
Companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are being
courted in order to make sure their apps are up to snuff for launch. We’ve also
heard that Apple has been reaching out to smaller developers it likes,
requesting video demos of apps running in the Iwatch simulator. Some of these
will likely end up as key part’s of Apple’s narrative just as Pixelmator was
featured so prominently in the debut of the new iPad Air 2, setting the tone
for Apple’s new ads.
All of that is to say Apple will have a reason ready for
consumers to buy their fancy new watches as soon as they’re made: a decent
suite of launch apps.
From there, its success is essentially limited by whether or
not it’s cool enough to significantly expand the size of the smart watch
market. As Creative Strategies analyst Ben Bajarin wrote last week, there are
two obvious outcomes for the Iwatch: it either completely owns the space like
its spiritual successor, the iPod, or it dominates the high-end of the market
while bringing in a rather small portion of market share, losing out to cheaper
Android Wear devices and fitness trackers going for much less.
Why isn’t there a third option, where the Iwatch is a total
dud? Well, that’s still a possibility if the wearable category as a whole is
something that every company thinks is a good idea but really no one wants. I
don’t think that’s the case.
In addition to the advantages above, Apple also has the fact
that it will probably be the only viable truly premium option in town. It’s
going to have a solid-freaking-gold option, for goodness’ sake.
As blogger Matt Richman wrote last week, there’s no way
Apple will open up the functionality that will make the Iwatch so attractive
(the connection to the iPhone at the operating system level) to anything but
its own Watch. Actual luxury-watch makers will have to rely on Android Wear if
they want to compete, which will only work with Android phones… which wealthy
people, as a category, don’t buy. If there’s even a bit of a smart watch
market, Apple will assuredly take the high end of it.
imac iwatch Apple Going To Have A Better At some point in the next few months (“Early 2015″ can’t push much past March, can it?), Appl...
