“For Apple, the hard part — making a smartwatch — is nearly over,” Brian X. Chen writes for The New York Times. “Soon it will be time for the harder part: selling the long-anticipated Apple Watch to consumers who, so far, are not very excited about the idea of wearing computers on their bodies.”
“But Apple has been in this situation before. Most consumers didn’t care about computer tablets before Apple released the iPad, nor did they generally think about buying smartphones before the release of the iPhone. In both cases, the company overcame initial skepticism,” Chen writes. “Last week, Apple sent out invitations to the media for an event to remind people about the best features of the watch and share some new details about the product, according to two people with knowledge of the event. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, is expected to be the host. Apple is expected to say more about price.”
“When Apple releases its watch in April, it will enter a market already flooded with smartwatches running Android Wear, a version of Google’s Android software system tailored for wearable computers. The results so far for Android smartwatches have been disappointing. About 720,000 smartwatches with Android Wear were shipped in 2014, according to Canalys, the research firm,” Chen writes. “Daniel Matte, an analyst for Canalys, said based on those numbers, it would be premature to call smartwatches a flop. He also predicts Apple’s watch will become the top-selling smartwatch next year.”
“But it is unlikely to be a game-changer for Apple, at least anytime soon. Toni Sacconaghi, a financial analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein research, thinks the watch will make only a modest contribution to Apple’s bottom line this year. He predicts that Apple will ship 7.5 million watches in the second half of the year,” Chen writes. “Tero Kuittinen, a director for Frank N. Magid Associates who does consulting for app developers, said he had talked to about 20 app developers about the Apple Watch. Most of them, he said, were ‘cautiously optimistic.’ But they worry apps for watches won’t be as lucrative as apps for phones because the tiny screen can limit features or — even worse — ads.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: NYT’s headline:
“Apple’s New Job: Selling a Smartwatch to an Uninterested Public”
NYT’s so-called basis for supporting said headline:
“The first batch of smartwatches from companies like Samsung Electronics, Motorola and LG did not sell well, nor were they particularly well reviewed. And wearable devices like the Google Glass eyewear that got mainstream attention — if not sales — were greeted with considerable skepticism… When Apple releases its watch in April, it will enter a market already flooded with smartwatches running Android Wear, a version of Google’s Android software system tailored for wearable computers. The results so far for Android smartwatches have been disappointing. About 720,000 smartwatches with Android Wear were shipped in 2014, according to Canalys, the research firm.”
Plus a couple of bearish analysts who both have spotty track records (examples here and here) when it comes to “analyzing” Apple.
Yellow journalism. A specialty of The New York Slimes, along with declining readership, of course.
Bottom line: Don’t believe everything you read, especially if it appears under the masthead of “The New York Times.”
Related articles:
Vogue Paris: Apple Watch is a ‘revolution’ – February 27, 2015
The Apple Watch is about to change everything – February 26, 2015
Analyst: 100,000 Apple Watch apps in App Store by April 10th; 42 million Watches sold by year end – February 24, 2015
Apple Watch, the world’s first real smart watch, will be a massive hit – September 9, 2014
Well, if anyone knows what it’s like to try and sell something to an uninterested public, it’s the NY-Times….
You prefer Fox Lies? You need a college education to understand the words in NYT.
TinFlint, do you actually mean that the NYTimes, now partially owned by Mexican telecom magnate Mr. Slim, has actually had its circulation numbers go up now?
And in your case, an elementary school education is more than enough to post on MDN.
So it’s one or the other?
I don’t have cable, and I don’t subscribe to the Times.
(yet I am probably more informed than you)
I am willing to bet you cannot give an example of a lie from Fox News. You probably have never watched Fox News for fear you’d be contaminated by conservative thought. You just know what you’ve been told.
LOL. Look at the leftist, jumping to conclusions as an answer. First, you must compare apples to apples. The WSJ would be a good, though not perfect comparison.
Second, isn’t it time to stop calling people who disagree with you “stupid”? That’s third-grade schoolyard argumentation. In this case, it’s also false — you most certainly do not need a college education to understand the NYT.
Third, your hysterical, apples-to-oranges comparison that calls opponents stupid is in no way representative of intelligence. Posting what you posted is not smart.
Lol another NYT bash piece against apple. Yawn what a surprise. Its time for this rag to close its doors. Yellow sheet journalism at its best. You were dead on with your MDN. Dead on.
But, but; if the NYT doesn’t like it, hardly anyone in NYC will buy it, because … that is their world.
Now, the NY Slimes need to remind us which consumer electronics store in NYC is open 24 hours a day. I suppose they are doomed to fail, too.
The “uninterested public” is irrelevant, because Apple Watch is not selling to the general public. It’s selling to people who are already enthusiastic Apple customers who said “yes” to Apple for (at least) one iPhone. This group of existing Apple customers is generally characterized as “above average” in personal wealth and technical “savvy.” And when Apple Watch goes on sale, there are likely to be more than 350 million of such “positively biased” potential customers. By the end of Apple Watch Year ONE, there will be more than 500 million; Apple keeps selling new iPhones at a faster and faster rate.
Who thinks at least 1-in-10 iPhone (5 and later) owners will say “yes” to Apple Watch? If you do, you are predicting Apple will sell at least 50 million Apple Watches during its first year. Who thinks it will be higher than just 10%…? 🙂
The only thing holding back Apple Watch sales will be Apple’s capacity to produce them fast enough.
Your numbers are too high. Many of the new users are already customers who will just upgrade. But that said I do believe the first quarter will blow away all expectations.
And their old iPhones, which are compatible with Apple Watch, go do someone else. And they become potential Apple Watch customers…
Sounds to me like a certain NYT writer didn’t get his invitation.
I think his invitation came from the Association of Swiss Watchmakers.
Marching orders. After all, who is going to buy advertising space: Apple or watch companies selling the same old, tired product? Apple rarely advertises; it doesn’t need to.
The proper news story presents a range of analysis so that readers and also optionally the writer can present the final opinion.
Instead, from the top, the writer is saying the public is not interested.
What the public really wants to know:
1. Prices
2. Does it look good ?
3. Can I read ?
4. What info can be provided.
All of the signs are encouraging.
In the long run, I view the Watch as epic.
What does the Watch provide best ? CONVENIENCE (speed) and SAFETY. For those people who are texting while driving, the Watch may decrease this dangerous behavior.
For some buyers, just plain status.
Now, back to the original writer: how do u still have a job.
I like our strategy, I like it a lot ….. We’ve sold zillions of phones and
Apple has not sold one and soon they will have the most expensive phone on the market and it is not a good email machine because it doesn’t have a keyboard …. Now it may sell but at $99 the POS Phone does email and music and the web …. Yea I like our position I like it a lot!
Well ok Mr. Softy we saw how that worked out and no for the NYT … Your TIME will come soon!
Just like the iPhone won’t be a success in Japan, right Brian?
Regularly scheduled NYT pre-release hit piece. They are click whores timing their negativity for maximum clicks. Are you going to reward them? Don’t read more in the full article – it’s not worth the internet space it is taking up.
Brian X? The guy that said Japan hates the iPhone? NYT hired this fool? LOL!!!
Hard, yes so very hard for Apple.
“For Apple, the hard part — making a smartwatch — is nearly over,”
Harder, yes a lot harder for Apple.
“Soon it will be time for the harder part: selling the long-anticipated Apple Watch to consumers who, so far, are not very excited about the idea of wearing computers on their bodies.”
That’s only hard and hardest, fortunately it’s not in the realm of the impossible, say something along the lines of incorporating integrity, research and facts into modern day jouranalism.
Or is that just the hardest thing for Apple to do Brian X. Chen?
The New York Times is desperate, and has been for some time, just like the rest of the newspaper business. The venerable Gray Lady fancies her bonnet as fine as any, yet secretly scrimps and mends it herself, as her subscribers and advertisers dwindle.
One sign of this creeping genteel poverty is the resort to yellow journalism and tech punditry. Another is the increasing amount of spam from them in my inbox, offering special deals to extend my print subscription from Sunday to weeklong, and promoting multiple mobile versions of their publication.
They are tinkering, trying to capture and hold readers that no longer consider them the last word in news. If they only understood that I liked their Sunday edition mainly for the magazine with its 250 fashion adverts, and cared not a whit for their editorials! Then they might bug off.
A friend of mind did some research. Most news outlets today sell fear. Governments love that because it allows control. If they fear they will follow.
It’s good for a while, but you can’t sustain that for ever.
About 720,000 smartwatches with Android Wear were shipped in 2014
Shipped, not SOLD. IOW Android Wear is a FAIL.
Can Apple do better? I’d say the hurricane of press chatter about the Watch indicates: YES.
When Apple releases its watch in April, it will enter a market already flooded with smartwatches running Android Wear
‘Flooded’? 720,000 shipped, not sold, has nothing to do with ‘flooded’; Especially when the same article is predicting Apple will ship 7.5 million watches in the second half of the year.
A ridiculous, incoherent article. Brian X. Chen didn’t even bother to edit his own writing, let alone his NYT editor. NYT in decay. 😛
However, the pundits will likely consider anything less than tens of millions of AppleWatches sold this year as a failure. AppleWatch sales expectations are being pushed up higher as the days of the release date get nearer. There are people who desperately want AppleWatch to fail and will do anything to try and prove it as so. As an Apple shareholder, I’d like to see consumers purchase the product, but I don’t necessarily expect Apple to sell ten million of them for the year. That’s just my gut feeling based on a product that needs an iPhone to be useful. That would seem to rule out so many hopeful owners.
Mr Brainless X Chen is still in the FUD-business?
“A market flooded with Android Gear”. I haven’t seen a single one in real life, yet. Less heard anyone talking about what a amazing product it is.
There were carryable mp3-players before iPod.
Then came Apple iPod and changed the whole industry.
There were “smartphones” before iPhone. Then came iPhone and changed the whole industry.
There were watches and smartwatches before Apple Watch. Then came Apple Watch and changed the whole industry.
History is repeating.
Apple do what they do. Change. Improve. Innovate.
QUESTION – how does the end cap on the Digital Crown change color? Notice in the video it’s color matches the band from time to time (end of video). I’ve not heard how this happens?
Two possibilities, a really teeny tiny display or it doesn’t change colors, but has an inset that is different for the different series. Coordinated with the color and material of the band for the Edition series, the color of the case for the Sport series and seems to be black in the Watch series. Which sort of obviates the concept of changing bands on a regular basis. Pay close attention to the photos in the Gallery section of Apples Watch web page. No metallic bands in the Edition series either.
I think it is a blue dress with black trim. 😉
If I recall correctly before the iPod there were an awful lot of “uninterested public” for portable music players. Sometimes the public doesn’t really know what is interesting and uninteresting until it hits them square in the face.
I can’t imagine what the world would be like today if inventors gave up their dreams of offering a product based on the premise that no one cared or wasn’t interested. Brian X. Chen certainly doesn’t understand the public consumer. He’s obviously never heard of marketing and sales. I may not have much interest in a product I know nothing about until I get a chance to try it. I’d say that’s only natural for most consumers.
I am tired of hearing people claim most devices are “smartphones” and now “smartwatches”. They canont all be smart; at least, not equally smart. We need an objective assessment of device IQ, along the lines of human Intelligence Quotient testing.
For human IQ, mean intelligence (at the time it was originally measured) was was distributed according to a Gaussian (ie, “normal”) curve with a mean of 100 and standard deviation (SD) of 15. Those familiar with statistics will understand the population distribution implications of 1, 2, and 3 SDs from the mean. Then we can grade all device according to an objective scale. We would then know which are just “average smart”, which ones are “smart” and which ones are “very smart” and maybe which ones are geniuses.
Yes, every parent thinks their kid is “smart” but it cannot be true. We need an objective measure of smart so we can differentiate devices. Anyone out their game? Any journalists, analysts, researchers up to it?
except apple has never used the lable smartwatch for the AppleWatch
Hmm I’m seeing all these round smartwatches coming from LG, Huewai etc. and while the renders look like a half way decent watch you could get at Macy’s there’s still something about Apple Watch that looks more premium, specifically the bands. It’s like someone told these Android OEMs to copy a high end watch but on a tight budget. So at s superficial level the look nice but when it comes to actual quality they fall short.
They’re right.
I’ve completely switched to the Washington Post since Bezo’s bought it. I don’t even bother with the NYtimes anymore.
Does anyone in this day and age care what the NYT thinks? Maybe my grandfathers did.
https://vine.co/v/O2qFXmwW9uz Comparing Fox to NYT is like comparing TMZ to LIFE.
What you said is true only in the minds of those who cannot or do not analyze what Fox News says. And by the by, do you include Shep Smith, Geraldo Riveria, and Juan Williams in your monolithic consideration of “Fox News”? Fox News is far more ideologically diverse than the NYT.
To add to the bottom line..Or MDN!
I see nothing wrong with the article. All he says is that Apple is entering a market that’s been largely cold so far, but that Apple has proven it can turn cold markets red-hot with its products.
To be fair, the apple watch sales numbers for the last six months have been dismal even compared to those of the android watches. Using this baseline I predict it will stay flat.
There, can I get my million dollar salary as an analyst??
its funny that these journalist always quote someone else that too with wrong assumptions…….its a clear indications that they are ASS LICKERS…….
What is very easy to conclude is this- since this particularly irrelevant, immaterial, and incompetent article does not allow comments- it is declaring itself irrelevant, immaterial, and incompetent.