“Some consumers are still waiting for Apple Inc.’s long-awaited smartwatch,” Louis Bedigian writes for Benzinga.
MacDailyNews Take: “Some?” Try “most.”
“The hype and anticipation was supposed to come to an end on April 24, but the company reportedly had a number of supply issues that prevented Apple from selling its newest device in its own stores. A report by The Wall Street Journal indicated that a faulty Taptic Engine could be to blame for Apple’s troubles,” Bedigian writes. “In a note to investors, Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry said that this issue has been solved and referred to the story as ‘old news.'”
“‘I think the watch is going to be huge,’ Tigress Financial Partners analyst Ivan Feinseth told Benzinga. ‘All you have to do is go to the store and look at the watch, play with it and test it out and you will understand the impact that it will have,'” Bedigian writes. “Many analysts expect Apple to sell 20 million watches during the first 12 months at retail. Feinseth said that would be just a few percentage points of Apple’s total market penetration for the existing iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 user base. ‘But 20-25, 30 percent of iPhone users could adopt and use the watch,’ he said. ‘That’s about 100 million watches. So you’re talking about a real product line. That’s a very important product line.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Watch is a device you have to see and use. Once people see what it does, they will flock to get theirs, too.
Meh. The people I see who are using their phones a lot are also typing messages furiously. The watch can’t substitute for that.
The people I see doing that are falling off curbs or walking into sign poles.
As an apple watch owner, I can tell you that about half of all the messages I would’ve previously typed on my phone are now handle by my watch. The speech to text and Siri functions work really well.
I agree with you! I have had all kind of trouble with Siri on my phone, but the dictation on the AppleWatch is superb!
Keep dreaming. A person needs an Apple Watch like they need a lobotomy. In fact, you would have to have had a lobotomy to even consider that overpriced, poorly made, ill conceived piece of tech trash!
Do you realiize how Apple execs are laughing all the way to the bank, as they push out garbage like the new Macbook (slow as hell, replete with a single port); and the Apple Watch (80-bucks to make yet going for 17-grand, replete with a few hundred dollars worth of gold)?
Only the gayest of Tim Cook era Apple fanboys who hit Hollywood boulevard in Tiger shorts would ever fall for such rubbish!
Your clueless third grade comments are tritely and childishly designed to inflame on this site but have little effect, except pity for your specious mental condition of course. Go back to your usual cruel hobby of picking wings off flies troll.
organdy enjoys the down votes and caustic responses. Take a page from psychohistory and ignore him into oblivion.
I really enjoy my watch. Space Gray Sport Watch, black band. Apple did a beautiful job!
Even great new products have a bell curve type adoption curve, so I don’t think that a slow supply start is going to hold back the Apple Watch.
The initial iPhone, as great as it was (got mine on day 1 in 20 minutes at the Apple Store at the end of day 1), did not start out at huge volumes.
Apple’s overall success has given the many commentators reason to write a negative article about the Apple Watch.
I suspect that is just because the writer’s boss is hammering the writers for something to fill space in their blog or paper or magazine in the next “issue.”
First let me say that I’ve been a Mac owner/user since 1987. I currently own an iMac, MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone, AppleTV and Airport Extreme. I don’t even consider alternatives because I just want my technology to work (without tweaking it or going to school).
Now, about the Apple Watch: expanding on your iPhone launch comparison, Apple’s most successful new product launch, the iPad, sold a little more than 19 Million units in its first 12 months. At launch the iPad had a clear use case and did not require tethering to another Apple product.
Expecting the Apple Watch to do better than that is aggressive, maybe overly so. Still, in the long run, as the use case for the AppleWatch improves and becomes more apparent, I think the Apple Watch will be very successful (by any measure).
Most importantly, the success of the Apple Watch will accelerate switchers from other platforms to the iPhone, and no competitor has the cloud infrastructure, inter-product integration to compete with the Apple Watch/iPhone/Apple Pay/HomeKit/HealthKit/ResearchKit et al.
The geek market (<3% of the total) may be impressed by processor, display, etc., specs, but the real market are those that don't understand the nuances of hardware specs, and don't care to.
1. The Apple Watch does not have to be always tethered to the phone.
2. iPad functionality is basically the same as the iPhone, except the screen is larger.
3. The Apple Watch adds less cumbersome health and fitness tracking.
4. The Apple Watch adds personalized messaging: heart beat and doodles
5. The Apple Watch adds quicker message retrieval and info lookup (stocks, weather, time, etc).
4. The Apple Watch is an always visible and recognizable status symbol.
5. The Apple Watch is a conversation starter
I expect demand in the December quarter will exceed 10 million. This will bump the yearly sales over 20 million.
Great post! But I would like to point out that Apple’s iOS user base in 2010 was a small fraction (~30 million) of what it is today. Tim Cook just mentioned they sold their 800 millionth iOS device, so their current user base has to be at least 500 million. 80% of which are compatible with WATCH.
That’s a potential market size of 400 million users!!!
I received my Space Gray Sport just yesterday, my order was in at 12:03. It’s working great though, I think I’m really going to enjoy it.
As the iPad has shown having massive growth in sales up front isn’t necessarily the best option for the company launching the product over the longer term spreading it out a bit is generally better. As a fashion item this might be a little less of a problem but if its quality is as one expects and the functionality isn’t going to take a sudden hike for a couple years then this initial hold up might actually be an advantage as it may smooth supply and demand and allows Apple to keep production at more predictable and cost efficient levels over a massive and costly initial effort that inevitably has to be wound down.
Last night I received confirmation that my black sport band is shipping. But not my black stainless steel watch to go with it. One band for working around the house and outdoors and one for dates with my wife.
…yeah huge. This is why aapl is dropping like a stone right?
Only the most ignorant would blame AAPL’s current trading on the Ap-ple Watch.
Apple is dropping because markets across the board (DOW, S&P, Nasdaq, Russell, FTSE, DAX Hang Seng, etc) are down.
Buster, better to remain silent, and have people think you stupid, than to open your mouth and prove it.
Don’t forget the head of the Fed just said equity prices were too high. Must be paid by the bears.
“Apple Watch is advice you have to see and use.”
WTF is this? ‘a device’?
No, no, no… What MDN meant was that after the special upgrade Siri was now giving great advice on the Watch.
Right??!
The Apple Watch will never be more than a niche product for Apple. Heres why:
1) It’s not replacing an ESSENTIAL category of products that SUCK. Cell Phones sucked before the iPhone.
2) What’s the killer App? Apple Pay? So your telling me I should pay $350 so I can save 5 seconds at the checkout counter when I send more money? Um, REALLY?
3) who cares about sharing a heartbeat? I mean, come on.
The Apple Watch is NEAT-O. It’s incredibly well designed. And it’s utterly non essential. It’ll be the equivalent of an iPhone nano, and sell as well as the iPod nano.
It will be a good lesson to Apple, and especially Tim. (Hey Tim, nobody gives a shit if you can draw a stupid picture on your wrist and send it to someone)
Now if Apple would focus on replacing an ESSENTIAL technology that SUCKS, like TELEVISION, then they can keep scoring big hits.
Sorry, but you’re missing something very significant about the Apple Watch. The Taptic engine is the quiet revolution (literally) and there’s no better place for it than the wrist.
Was at the Altamonte Springs (FL) Apple Store Monday after work. There was a moderate crowd in there, but no one was trying on the watch, no one at all. A few people casually glanced at the display case but did not show much interest. All of the display models were available to try.
An elderly lady did come in and said she wanted to buy the watch. She was told that she can’t buy a watch in-store. She left.
I was kind of shocked by the lack of interest in the watch given the internet and media buzz. This is just one store, but I’m not thinking the watch is going to be a huge hit. Even after trying it on and playing with the demo models I’m trying to figure out why I need one, and I’m a fanboy.