“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
