“When was the last time you put on a watch and felt it was absolutely necessary?” Richard Saintvilus writes for TheStreet. “The truth is you haven’t. And you’re not alone.”
“For the same reason you no longer see watches that hang on chains, in the next couple of years you will no longer see them on wrists,” Saintvilus writes. “Unless, of course, it’s a watch from Apple.”
“If rumors are to be believed, the tech giant has found its next industry to disrupt. Companies such as luxury watch manufacturer Rolex is one of several brands that stand to get slapped on the wrist, if not killed off entirely,” Saintvilus writes. “[iWatch] won’t be your average Timex or Seiko. Apple plans to enter and dominate the fashion watch industry. This is a market currently dominated by Rolex.”
Read more in the full article here.
Is this a joke? People will take off their Rolex watches for a digital watch? Right…comical
Only iWatch in Solid Gold!
No. Sorry. I love Apple, but they won’t be replacing my Rolex.
I love my Tag and wouldn’t take it off either. Unless they come up with a watch that runs on a self winding mechanical movent!
You haven’t been keeping up with the liquidmetal patent applications. What they can do with that material is incredible. Those Rolex wrist bands are going to look prehistoric in comparison. When the iWatch comes out people will be weeping for its beauty. Then for the cost. Then they’ll buy one anyway. There’s no way this doesn’t happen.
BTW, there won’t be liquid metal in the next iPhone, or sapphire. Both will be in the iWatch only. Expect the 6s to get sapphire. Expect the 7 to be sapphire/liquidmetal.
No. This will not happen unless this particular iwatch costs 10k and above
I’m an Apple guy 200% but Rolex isn’t going anywhere
I’m a Rolex guy (and an Apple guy), but yes, I can see this happening.
Young people don’t wear watches. The real estate has already been freed up.
Apple just has to provide a compelling product — putting that real estate to good use — then wait for all of us infantile status-seeking mechanical-fetishizing geezers to die off.
“Young people don’t wear watches”. Are these the same idiots covering themselves in tattoos that they will later regret for the rest of their lives?
BS! What the F#%^ does this Saintvirus knows about watches!
Smoking a lot of medical pot lately?
If you thought for one minute that, “Saintvirus” was gunna sneak under the radar, wrong bongo. Dang near wet spotted my britches. Loved it, Thanks.
Oh, and can all the know nothings of the planet STFU about the non-iWatch, um k? Should it become official, then let the BS and bitching commence. Hell I can already hear it.
There’s nothing new to write about so all these tech bloggers are entering fantasyland to drive traffic.
Rolex and other expensive watches are as much jewellery as they are watches. That’s the reason everyone doesn’t wear a $10 casio. Apple are not going to dominate watches from a fashion perspective because they would likely only sell one style, maybe a couple of colours. Do Rolex only sell one model?
For many years, long before having an iPhone, I didn’t wear a watch, I used my computer, car, tv, etc, but then I start hiking and I decided it would be useful to know the time. Even now when I can use the GPS on my phone to track my position and pace I still wear a watch because I can quickly glance and tell the time, how long I’ve been out, etc without having to stop and get my phone out. I wouldn’t spend a lot on a watch, just like I wouldn’t buy jewellery, it’s of no interest to me, but having easy access to the time and timing functions I find very useful.
Wristwatches took over because they are convenient, if they had no purpose then people wouldn’t be talking about a supposed iWatch.
That’s exactly why only Apple could do it. They understand the psychology involved.
But it will eventually change.
The wrist is just too good a resource to waste on one function. 100 years ago time was important to access dozens of times a day. Now we have so many additional high-priority tasks screaming for the access & attention that this prized real estate provides.
That hair saloon owner Ive will wear it on his head like a flower.
It’s hair salon, you imbecile.
I can see the gunman, black-hatted and long-haired, pushing past the swinging doors into the Long Branch Saloon, leering at the hushed crowd of gamblers and ranch hands, demanding the attentions of its proprietor, Miss Kitty Russell. She steps forward with jaw set and arms akimbo. “Do me, if you please, Miss Kitty. I do fancy a French curl,” he simpers, fingering her bare arm. “You’re disgusting,” she snaps, pulling back. “That head of hair hasn’t seen water since Noah’s Ark floated.” Then Marshal Matt Dillon bangs into the saloon, shouting, “John Wesley Hardin, you’re under arrest for robbery and impersonating a gentleman!” The gunman whirls and draws, but Dillon fires first and he falls with a thud. “Kitty,” he says, holstering his Colt, “you might as well get started on his coiffure. I parted his hair for him, and you’re welcome.”
Rolex is not in the fashion watch industry, period. Some other Swiss watch makers are, but Rolex produces much the same range, year after year, decade after decade. This guy can’t even get the basic details right. Love my Apple gear, love my Rolex, but no watch Apple produces will get a precision mechanical watch off my wrist. But IF Apple does produce the goods with a desirable “watch”, it’ll go on my other wrist.
Rolex dominates fashion watches? Hardly.
Can a banker grovel for money or what. Investors aren’t making any money off Rolex but they sure as hell can off of Apple. They want Apple stock to up 20% a year, for ever. To that point they want to instill fear in the market, buy Apple before it’s too late.
What a joke. I’m as much a fanboi as anyone but Apple isn’t going to replace highly technical diving watches of any sort – like Rolex. I actually prefer the UTS 4000m GMT but to each his own – http://www.utswatches.com/4000m-gmt-dive-watch And after 175 years, Patek Philippe isn’t going anywhere, either. http://patekphilippe.com/
That’s bollocks. Many, many people, me included, see absolutely no reason at all to have some device on their wrist nagging them to look at something all the time. I wear a watch for one specific purpose; to tell me the time at a glance. My watch requires no battery, it self-winds while I wear it, will keep running for over fifty hours if I take it off, glows brightly right through the night without having to press a button, and is more accurate than most electronic watches I’ve owned.
Plus it’s waterproof to 100 metres.
People who buy wristwatches won’t buy an iWatch, and it won’t kill off the traditional watch industry, any more than Casio calculator watches, or Texas Instruments LED watches did.
And your watch is a …? I only ask because it sounds like what a watch should be. The only downside would be if it costs enough to feed a family of four in the developing world for a year. I could put up with some tradeoffs to avoid wearing that and having to think about a starving kid every time I looked at the time.
Sounds like my Seiko divers watch.
Apple’s wrist candy will be more of a medical early warning apparatus and less of a time device.
Anyone on the panicky side of 35 will want one.
LOL. 🙂
Rolex watches last for generations. Apple products are good for about five years.
Aren’t Rolex watches a Veblen brand?
No. Rolex is a Rolex brand, always has been, and always will be. The trust formed by the Rolex founder prevents the sale of the company.
If Steve Jobs was alive, I might believe this…
As Apple is run now? No way in hell.
I didn’t even bother with the article. It’s just another piece of bullshit musing, with Apple in the headline as click bait.
Apple + Kill = double click bait
And the Segway scooter will destroy the horse in Polo
Mac Daddy A Velben Brand is not a brand name, but one defined as “Abnormal market behavior where consumers purchase the higher-priced goods whereas similar low-priced (but not identical) substitutes are available. It is caused either by the belief that higher price means higher quality, or by the desire for conspicuous consumption (to be seen as buying an expensive, prestige item). Named after its discoverer, the US social-critic Thorstein Bunde Veblen (1857-1929).
In other words there SHOULD BE a “Velben” watch brand.
Which reminds me: a marketing friend once said he wanted to start a shirt company where the embroidered logo was simply the (absurdly high) price of the item.
‘Kill Off Rolex’
Of all the gawd awful August Effect dreck… 🙄
Nope. Keep’n my Yachtmaster. Sorry. Unless my doctor prescribes an iWatch I’m staying with Rolex.