Petr Škuta Today, Apple Watch is synonymous with fitness wearables. With their focus on health, they have clearly distinguished themselves and occupy a significant position on the market. This was not the case in the past, and especially the Apple Watch Edition was a big mistake.
The idea to make a watch was born in the head of Jony Ive. However, management was not at all in favor of smart watches. Arguments against revolved around the lack of a "killer app", i.e. an application that would sell the watch by itself. But Tim Cook liked the product and gave it the green light in 2013. Overseeing the project throughout was Jeff Williams, who is now, among other things, the head of the design team.
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David Hanak Right from the start, the Apple Watch had a rectangular shape. Apple hired Marc Newson to polish the look and feel of the user interface itself. He was one of Ive's friends and in the past he had already designed several watches with a rectangular design. He then met Jony's team daily and worked on the smart watch.
What will the Apple Watch be for?
While the design was taking shape, the marketing direction ran into two different perspectives. Jony Ive saw the Apple Watch as a fashion accessory. The management of the company, on the other hand, wanted to turn the watch into an extended hand of the iPhone. In the end, both camps agreed, and thanks to the compromise, several variants were released to cover the entire spectrum of users.
The Apple Watch was available from the "regular" aluminum version, through steel, to the special Watch Edition, which was made in 18 carat gold. Together with the Hermès belt, it cost almost an incredible 400 thousand crowns. No wonder she had a hard time finding customers.
Estimates by Apple's internal analysts spoke of sales of up to 40 million watches. But to the surprise of the management itself, four times less was sold and sales barely reached 10 million. However, the biggest disappointment was the Watch Edition version.
Apple Watch Edition as a flop
Tens of thousands of gold watches were sold, and after a fortnight interest in them died down completely. All sales were like that part of the initial wave of enthusiasm, followed by a drop to the bottom.
Today, Apple no longer offers this edition. It rang right away with the following Series 2, where it was replaced by a more affordable ceramic version. Nevertheless, Apple managed to bite off a respectable 5% of the then occupied market. We are talking about a segment that has so far been occupied by premium brands such as Rolex, Tag Heuer or Omega.
Apparently, not even the wealthiest customers had the need to spend a significant amount on a piece of technology that will become obsolete very quickly and has a questionable battery life. Incidentally, the last supported operating system for the Watch Edition is watchOS 4.
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Now, on the other hand, Apple Watch occupies over 35% of the market and is one of the most popular smart watches ever. Sales increase with each release and the trend probably won't stop even with the coming fifth generation.
Source: PhoneArena
It's gold, but still cheap crackers. Consumer electronics. I can't imagine that someone really rich would embarrass himself by coming to the company with a "digital camera". That would be a decent bizarre? Is that like going to the Fabia Ball at the opera house?