“Apple Watch is not a watch,” John Paczkowski writes for BuzzFeed. “It may well be, as Apple CEO Tim Cook says, ‘the most advanced timepiece ever created.’ But ‘watch’ is a misnomer, a branding sleight of hand.”
“The Apple Watch is not a watch in the same way that the iPhone was not a phone — or at least not what we knew to be a phone at the time,” Paczkowski writes. “‘Watch’ is not the device’s primary functionality, just as ‘phone’ was not the iPhone’s primary functionality. iPhone was an honest-to-god computer in your pocket — and Apple Watch is an honest-to-god iPhone on your wrist.”
MacDailyNews Take: Whoa, flashback! From the day that Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone (and several years before the iPad, no less):
The only thing really wrong with Apple’s iPhone is its name
Apple’s “iPhone” isn’t really a phone at all. It’s really a small touchscreen Mac OS X computer, a Mac nano tablet, if you will. Here’s how misnamed the iPhone is: Some people are complaining that Jobs didn’t spend enough time on the Mac in his keynote! Folks, iPhone is not only a Mac, it’s the most radical new Mac in years! What’s to stop Apple from making a 12-inch model (and larger, and smaller) one of these days (use the headset for the phone, please) and calling it a Mac tablet? … But, the main thing about the “iPhone” is that it’s really a pocket Mac. — SteveJack, MacDailyNews, January 9, 2007
“But there’s a big caveat: It’s an iPhone on your wrist that requires yet another iPhone in your pocket,” Paczkowski continues. “The device is your phone. It’s your boarding pass. It’s your credit card. It’s your keys. It’s your garage door opener. By tracking health and fitness data, ‘it’s a coach on your wrist.’ With Siri integration, it’s an easy way to get answers to simple questions or to set reminders. (Frankly, it may be the single most compelling use-case for Siri we’ve yet seen.) It’s an automation solution for the so-called internet of things. And it’s an authentication solution for mobile payments and identity. But to be all these things, to serve all these purposes, Apple Watch needs an iPhone… In other words, if it succeeds at market, the Apple Watch will become a new engine for iPhone growth.”
MacDailyNews Take: Exactly. Paczkowski gets it.
Paczkowski writes, “If the Apple Watch does all that it promises to — if it’s unobtrusive and it simplifies access to key categories of information and identity — it may well become as indispensable as the smartphone is today, setting Apple up to define another massive shift in computing — for those aware of it, and for consumers with no idea it’s headed their way.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup.
With iPhone, Apple changed the fabric of our everyday lives: All around the world today, you see people constantly pulling phones from pockets and staring at them. With Apple Watch, Apple will change behavior worldwide once again. A quick glance at your Watch and you’re off. No more smartphone zombies. Watch and see. – MacDailyNews Take, January 30, 2015
Right on!
Finally an analyst with a noodle in his noggin.
John got it. Probably the smartest thing I’ll hear all day in the media.
I’m not sure he got it all….
He’s insinuating that an Apple watch is not a watch but that an iPhone is a phone… hmmmm, Twisted logic me thinks.
Wrist zombies now…lol
Not just an iPhone sales engine. Also one more death knell for knock offs. They barely keep up with the tech in the iPhone, couldn’t keep up with the iPad and won’t be able to copy the Watch. Envy for the people with the Watches will lead to jealousy whilst they watch the companies that they’ve invested in’s profits plummet as Apple’s soar until eventually they give in and make the switch.
How true. I am already too attached to my iPhone that it can be pretty disruptive and reduces my attention span. I find that I can’t focus on tasks like reading a book for a hour or more like I used to.
You probably will have fewer big disruptions. Watch will be faster than using iPhone for many aspects.
Wall Street isn’t going to like this one bit. The biggest complaint Wall Street has with Apple is that it’s become the iPhone company. I believe Wall Street wants Apple to do something that doesn’t involve the iPhone or doesn’t heavily rely on the iPhone. There appears to be a huge investor fear that consumers will wake up one morning and decide they don’t like iPhones anymore and will stop buying them. To me, that fear seems ridiculous but I think it certainly exists.
Whatever it is, the stock is acting flaky again, that’s probably due to investors covering their losses. Anyway, I hope Apple is able to find some new product to lessen the iPhone’s burden of carrying the company. The more money the iPhone makes Wall Street claims it’s too big a risk an that may cause potential investors to balk. I just don’t want to see Apple wait until too late for a backup plan but there’s nothing I could think of that would get even close to the iPhone’s revenue.
Sounded like Starbucks relied to on selling coffee or cafe latte!.
Toyota depends so much on selling cars.
Wall Street wants Apple sales under wears or bras like Victoria Secret, perhaps.
Maybe Ford or Chevy should get into the SmartPhone business by pre-installing them in autos. 😀
It’s amazing that Wall Street still can’t comprehend that the iPhone is a computer. And just recently, Apple added another computer to the line-up: The Apple Watch. The brilliance of Apple is they usurped the monopoly of Microsoft by inventing new iterations of computers and made them popular by incorporating beautiful design and top-notch engineering. The next brilliant stroke is the creation of a central location to download safe apps. And lastly, they provide new reasons to upgrade the hardware every couple of years like one-touch fingerprint unlocking, Apple Pay, 64-bit processors and software, bigger screens, etc. And now all these computing devices in the Apple ecosystem can handoff tasks to each other like phone calls, text messages, app states, etc.
No, this ecosystem won’t be usurped anytime in the near future. Look at those that have tried like Samsung. They had some initial success by being one of the first with larger screens, but their failure to further innovate, poor enginering and poor quality has lead to their downfall. In addition, they don’t own the operating system or apps which means the experience isn’t as elegant. Can a user be 100 perecent certain that their favorite app will work on those devices?
Apple’s business of selling many different types of computers will continue to thrive for many years to come. And because Apple’s business will provide excellent growth for investors they deserve a P/E in the 20’s.
I don’t know what is freakier, the fact that a reporter is making sense of the picture of that guy. I mean he looks what I would expect the concierge at Guatanamo Bay to look like.
So it begs the question…With so much on your wrist, just how much iPhone do you need in your pocket?
Actualy, the Apple Watch the perfect name!
It lets you “watch” what’s on your iPhone.
Damn lack of Edit button to fix spelling mistakes. 😳
this is the whole point of buying apple devices in the first place: they work together as they should and do the “computer” stuff in the background so you can do what you need to do. Each device enhances your computer experience and helps you get done what you need to get done. The iPhone saves me 3-4 hours a week, the iMac 2-3. That’s HUGE. If the Apple Watch could save me 30 minutes a week that would be huge too.
A relatively simple concept (but hard to execute correctly) is to make the Apple Watch attractive so you WOULD wear it on your wrist. Would Ballmer/Gates come up this this idea? Not in a billion years. Or if they did, they couldn’t execute. Didn’t I see a “baby ruth candy bar” brown Zune at one time? (google glass misses the whole point too: you can’t piss off people around you by wearing a product. Bluetooth in ear headphones/mics are distracting enough.)
This guy thinks WATCH is a watch.
😜💥😱🚀😡
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmatthews/2015/03/11/why-the-apple-iwatch-wont-sell/