Philip Houska Apple Watch Edition. It was this model line of smart watches from the workshops of the Californian company in 2015 that showed the public the possibility of spending less than half a million crowns on a wearable device. The watch, whose body was studded with 18-karat gold, cost up to 515 crowns and was intended for the segment of the most demanding users with a sense of luxury and exclusivity. But that's over after two years. Apple got a taste of what it means to figure in the luxury watch market, and it failed.
However, the most expensive edition of the Apple Watch continues, only significantly cheaper and dressed in ceramic instead of gold. It is ceramics that may play an important role in future Apple products.
Last week, Apple showed not only the new iPhone generation, but also new Watch Series 2. The focus on sports use (as evidenced by the model in collaboration with Nike) was so pronounced that it overtook the luxury and fashion segment as well. Apple only briefly mentioned the news from Hermès and did not comment at all on the fact that it removed the gold Watch Edition from the offer. Luxury gold has been replaced by white ceramic, which is considerably cheaper.
Apple wanted to offer something more than just an "ordinary" smartwatch with the gold Edition series. With the stamp of exclusivity, he wanted to appeal to a completely different clientele, which is based on luxury, but he did not succeed. Even though the Apple Watch's body was made of 18-carat gold, it didn't attract too many watch lovers from the Swiss giants, as promised, mainly because most people with the appetite to invest in high-end watches want classic mechanically powered movements, not technological conveniences that quickly becomes obsolete.
Top Swiss watches did not and will not earn their name by offering a faster processor or the latest operating system. Not even a chip to measure physical activities. In short, they don't need any innovation. All they need is rich tradition, originality, manual processing and a mechanical dial. Here, Apple simply could not break through with a smart watch, at least not now.
Technology companies can't compete with century-old watchmakers. Modern technology has the disadvantage that something new and better always comes along with time. This is completely against the workings of the classic watch industry. It is not for nothing that they say that watches are passed down from generation to generation.
Despite the failure described above, however, the Watch Edition series does not end. Gold, unavailable to most users, was replaced by a somewhat unconventional material – white ceramic. This now represents the most expensive variant of the Watch Series 2 (except for the fashionable Hermès models). Still, they are about ten times cheaper than the gold Watch. Ceramic ones cost around 40 crowns and thus they are suddenly much more competitive.
However, the use of ceramics in the second generation Apple Watch is not only designed to impress. This material, called zirconia ceramics in professional terminology, contains important elements that could define the future of other apple products. About them in detail he broke it down Brian Roemmele in server discussion Quora. There can be little doubt that behind the use of the new material is Apple's chief designer, Jony Ive, who is known for experimenting with new materials.
First of all, it is about the overall structure. Compared to other materials, zirconia ceramics are very light, strong and extremely load-bearing. For example, the space company NASA also uses it, not only in terms of strength, but also because of the dispersion and conduction of heat, which is supposed to be the best compared to other materials.
Also key is that zirconia ceramic is radio-transparent, which is important for mobile devices to transmit radio waves, scratch-resistant, and probably not that expensive to manufacture. It is speculated that it could even cost less to produce than the aluminum that iPhones are now made of. On the other hand, there are also concerns that ceramics could be much more fragile.
In any case, considering the aforementioned dispositions, it is possible that the aluminum bodies of the iPhones could actually be replaced by ceramics, although there is a question as to whether the entire body could be completely made of it. Next year, when the iPhone turns ten years old, big changes are expected in the apple phone, and a different chassis material is offered. Whether it will be ceramic remains to be seen.
I would really like an iPhone made of "ceramic" material - it won't slide in the hand, better against abrasion and could charge wirelessly - the problem is fragility, but I wouldn't expect more than today's glass when falling on concrete. It depends on what material I use. I would also like it because I am a ceramicist ;)
However, I won't buy the watch - it makes no sense to me. Fine for sports and measuring activities, but I take my iPhone with me on my bike in case of a breakdown/accident or to run errands, and the Watch can't make calls without a phone. So what else will they offer me other than the iPhone? Unfortunately nothing.
So if your phone falls, the maximum display will crack. If you had a ceramic housing, your phone would shatter into thousands of pieces. Ceramics is not a good idea. I think the watch will also be pretty shitty. One carelessness somewhere will mess them up and I think it's over with them.
Ceramics are not like "ceramics", they are slightly different materials - brake discs on luxury cars are also made of "ceramics", and many different products.
So if I drop my phone and break the screen on the 6sPlus, I will buy a new phone - I won't take it to a repair shop so that they shove a screen from eBay in there and match it somehow. So I don't care if only the screen or the whole phone breaks. The glass that was talked about will break try.
You probably don't know how the brake discs work. Although they are carbon-ceramic, they are stressed only by friction. Both carbon and ceramic have brutal tensile strength, but almost fail in compression. So if you let the brake discs out of the subway, the crayfish would fly to pieces.
I have one ceramic watch from Armani, and apart from being pretty, it's terribly impractical. The ceramics will turn yellow due to sweat and everything else, and the only way to get rid of it is to sand it. So the ceramic iPhone will not really be a hit parade.
As I wrote, there are different compositions and procedures, it depends on what properties they want to give it.
Ceramic watches from Armani - well, I would never buy this fashionable fake, there is nothing of the quality of ordinary quartz watches about that brand - but if they turn yellow and you grind it, well, I don't know, I don't know - the basic property of this material is chemical resistance and abrasion resistance - that your sweat would be more aggressive than acids I don't know I don't know and that you grind it... with what? Of course, it can be sanded with the appropriate tools, but you will break the entire case.
Armani nothing. Rado has been doing ceramics for many years and it is very good. For idea: http://www.rado.com/collections/rado-true/true-open-heart-0173401013090
I'm sorry, but we are talking about completely different materials and if your "ceramic" watch turns yellow, then I have bad news. They are not ceramic.
carbon fiber, magnesium alloys,... there's a lot of material, iPhones don't necessarily have to be made of the same material that teeth are made of :D
although marketing ceramics probably sounds better than carbon :) it's still white and shiny :)
There are a lot of materials better than aluminum to make an iPhone, even better than ceramics, but Apple simply doesn't use them because users don't appreciate it (the case is not a weak link, it's just a display)
I don't know, on the contrary, carbon sounds much better to me than ceramic. ;)
JJ, Here you can enjoy: http://www.hublot.com/en/collection/big-bang/big-bang-all-carbon-44
Ceramic watches are made by the Rado company and are beautiful, one of my own and never had a problem or a single scratch
Please, the first generation Watch Edition was not "sprinkled" with 18-carat gold, it was a single-piece composite material that was composed of 18-carat gold and ceramic particles, the more so their value was questionable because it was relatively much degraded by the given ceramic component. As a huge fan of Apple and their products, I have been critical of the 18kt Watch Edition from the very beginning. I think even a person who really doesn't know what to do with money will think twice about investing over half a million crowns in a device that has been in the portfolio for over a year. The usability of such watches is then very problematic, even if the gold were to be separated and sold. I really liked the design of the gold Watch Edition, definitely more than the Sport model in gold-colored anodized aluminum. Therefore, in my opinion, the easiest and best way for those who would like and like the gold color is to have the classic Apple watch and perhaps even the Series 2 professionally galvanically gilded with a thicker layer.
Well, in fact, not the gold Watch but the regular models affected the sales of the classic "swiss made". So gold was an unnecessarily big cannon commercially :) but it is said that it at least satisfied the design department of Apple because they worked with another material.