“The smartwatch market’s fate rides on the Apple Watch,” Fred O’Connor reports for IDG News Service. “If it fails, it could have as devastating an impact on smartwatch sales as Google Glass has had on smartglasses.”
“That’s according to a report research firm IHS released on Thursday. ‘Apple’s smartwatch competitors need the Apple Watch to succeed,’ said Ian Fogg, senior director of Mobile & Telecoms at IHS, in a statement,” O’Connor reports. “Conversely, if the Apple Watch is a hit with customers, its widespread adoption will help all smartwatch makers, including those running Google’s Android Wear, in part because the Apple Watch may be too expensive for a segment of buyers.”
MacDailyNews Take: The buyers Apple dosen’t want, but who will nonetheless be used against them later on in order to claim that Apple is “losing” based on market share, when market share ownership doesn’t matter nearly as much as which part of the market you own.
“IHS predicts the Apple Watch will be successful, calling for 19 million units to ship this year, representing a 56 percent share of the smartwatch market. In comparison, 720,000 Android Wear devices shipped in 2014, according to research firm Canalys,” O’Connor reports. “By 2020, Apple’s market share will decrease to 38 percent as more smartwatch makers enhance their devices and court Android users, a market that Apple doesn’t address, IHS said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: So, which outfits are going to be the first to steal Apple’s Digital Crown, app layout, short and long Glances concept, band designs, Force Touch, Digital Touch, Taptic Engine, Watch OS look and feel, and other original ideas, intellectual property and trade dress designs?
Tick, tock, thieves. Tick, tock.
As with smartphones, it’s back to the drawing board for Android stupidwatches. – MacDailyNews Take, March 17, 2015
Related articles:
Apple Watch technologies that destroy Android Wear stupidwatches – part 2 – March 18, 2015
Apple Watch technologies that destroy Android Wear stupidwatches – March 17, 2015
Apple Watch vs. the stupidwatches: No contest – March 10, 2015
Apple Watch, the world’s first real smart watch, will be a massive hit – September 9, 2014
Clueless companies race to debut stupidwatches before Apple defines the smartwatch – January 3, 2014
I seriously hope that the watch will be great but since it is in fact NOT by Steve and the reality distortion field I don’t see much of a chance of it succeeding. The fact that Tim Cook is such a great operations genius and the fact that the launch was the most botched launch ever I don’t know.
Trolling on a Mac site, how quaint.
Not a troll, just not a fan of Tim Cook’s Apple. I am not alone on this either.
So you’re simply a homophobic trolling on a Mac site; how quaint.
grow up
Why is it always the gay thing, or the race thing, or the..?
I am not homophobic. I am not scared about people’s life choices. I am worried that Xcode is getting crappier on every version, that there are Windows type errors starting to creep into OSX, that innovation means making a trash can that you cannot upgrade, then having to deal with jerks who buy Windows systems because they can be more powerful, etc etc.
The people that are most “homophobic” are the ones that claim everyone else is. NEWS FLASH… homo’s are boring, race is boring, Taylor Swift is BORING, and MDN is a contradictory, hobbled together blag of other’s work, so there PTTHHHSSSSZZZZZTTTTT!!!!! [insert grains of salt for those that actually take any of this shiz seriously]
Fuck off, j-ackoff ß-ot.
Cheers!
KRONOS offers the type of comment that should have one banned from forums for life.
I agree partially with jß . Cook has made Apple more Microsoft-like, and Apple products & services are increasingly compromised. If it is unacceptable to discuss this on a Mac forum, then this only feeds the perception that Apple fans are increasingly a religious cult. KRONOS and silverhawk1 are the ones making Apple look bad, and they do Apple and all of us a huge disservice by shutting down all conversation that would lead to ideas for improving Apple. If MDN cared about Apple, it would cull the snobbery and attackers aggressively. A healthy debate starts with someone offering a position that isn’t identical to yours.
I concur, JB, but get used to it.
Even though you purchase Apple products like we do, if you don’t swallow sausages while wearing a rainbow t-shirt in your spare time, while wearing your pointless, douchebag Apple Watch… then you are persona non-grata with the regular MDN faithful (AKA Timid Cook cheerleaders).
Apparently you don’t know very much and suffer from a myopic POV on top of ridiculous analysis. A whole new device market fails because of the excessive demand at launch? Get real. Problem gets solved, demand continues apace. Simple. Learn something.
A launch is a launch – there’s nothing “botched” about it. Apple doesn’t OWE everyone in the world a watch on the day it’s released. Every company is free to release a product on their terms, not yours. They had X available, it’s as simple as that.
Furthermore, Tim Cook is the CEO, he’s not the COO anymore. And considering Apple has shipped and sold well over 100 million iPhones in the first half of the fiscal quarter, I’d say the current COO is every bit as good as Tim was.
Rumors were that a huge chunk of “Taptic Engines” were faulty coming off manufacturing – that is in no way Apple’s fault.
Botched because it was far more successful than expected? Botched because of overwhelming response?
Botched because Apple promised something it knew it couldn’t deliver. Again.
Your reasoning is very weak, jBeta. Your contention appears to be that any product not initiated by Steve Jobs cannot succeed? In that case, Apple is doomed (standard YNBAID argument).
The launch of the Apple Watch was not “botched.” Millions were ordered online and are currently receiving their Apple Watch products ahead of schedule.
What other useless things do you have to say?
Actually, Apple does want those waiting buyers, but not all on the same day. Not every buyer is early adopter or early majority. Not every buyer is ready this year.
Because not every buyer has an iPhone.
If there were more buyers of Apple products, Apple take the unprecendented step of opening a few stores in the USA in 2016.
I doubt the possible failure of Apple Watch will negatively affect the sales of other wearables considered smartwatches. Haptic feedback is already present in smartphones, not a big innovation for wearables and Force touch, at least as a long press on a capacitive surface, has been around for a few years for Android, possibly before Apple ever implemented either for any of their devices.
The whole point is Android wear market share is an apathetic rounding error unless the Apple Watch kicks it into high orbit. A rising tide lifts all boats but Android is the Titanic without Apple’s entry into the market.
Kinda reminds me of the tablet computer mrket before and after the iPad. Almost like Apple literally creates newly lucrative markets, in categories that were once sluggish and moribund. They do it by building a better mousetrap. Then all the other guys wise up and copy them. I see this pattern continuing for a long time.
Remember when the Titanic was skippered by Capt Ballmie? Now we get the co-captains, Brin and what’s his name.
Possible failure of Apple Watch?!?!?
Sorry, should rephrase that.. I doubt that even should by some chance the Apple Watch be considered a failure, it will not affect sales of Android powered smartwatches positively or negatively. They are simply 2 different beasts.
I would agree that they are currently different; however, give Samsung a year, and its watch will look and behave almost identically to the Watch.
But there you have the issue… I do know that the technology of the Taptic engine, or something similar, has been incorporated in at least 1 model of a particular phone, but I don’t believe Apple’s Force Touch is to be found outside of Apple, but even if what you say is true, and these technologies have been around for a while, it’s quite evident that no one’s buying them, nobody has heard of them, they have not bee incorporated into today’s technology effectively enough to drive demand, in fact, before Apple incorporated these technologies, almost no one had even heard of them. It took Apple, as usual, to show the world how to really use the technology. And that, my friend explains the fear of the entire smart watch universe collapsing if Apple fails.
Resistive technologies have existed in portable electronics for years in many popular products before it was integrated into a product also using capacitive touch. I will agree that Apple may have innovated in the sense of possibly being the first to do it in a wearable product and coining a new name for it.
>“By 2020, Apple’s market share will decrease to 38 percent”
Remember back in 2011 there was some research firm whose “projections” showed that Windows Phone would overtake iOS by 2015?
You should iCal this clown’s prediction for mockery in 2020, MDN.
That’s right! That fool and his website should get a big mention and never be forgotten in the Tech Hall Of Shame. The foolishness and boneheaded doofusness should continue on to their epitaph.
And the fool who said the Apple Store would fail and turn the lights off after a year. Wasn’t that a David Goldberg, and do you remember Laura Goldman? The trail is full of Apple’s road kill.
Come on, there is no hall of shame. No one remembers losers, only winners. In fact that is exactly how these asses get away with their failed prognostications, which are quickly forgotten. And they know it, and go on with their perversions, relying on readers’ short memory. iCal an’t cutting it, they need some kind of Star Chamber accountability, but I don’t see it ever happening. And there is no point in emialing them either. They are trying to make a living and resent you trying to correct them.
There is definitely an MDN Hall Of Shame and posters here don’t forget the slights and deliberate undermining. Does it have any ultimate effect? Probably not because the people we are pointing fingers at are shameless, immoral hucksters out for a buck, not accuracy or the truth. I don’t think any here are under any illusions about that. And you’re right “they just can’t handle the truth” and the art of polite retractions and apologies era seems to have vanished.
Apple is Apple. google and cia = stupid boys with useless toys.
iPad is iPad… tired of these copycats.
People who have iPhones will not be buying Android watches. And people who have Android phones will not (for the most part) be buying Apple Watches.
The difference is, will Android phone users be buying their watch?
Yes. Android watches will be give always for tablet buyers.
I have not used a watch in years. Will I go and get an Apple Watch?, maybe when they release a second generation. I never buy first generation anything, no matter how hyped. The software will only get better and the hardware will also improve. This strategy has served me well in the past. Second generation Apple-ware has a longer supported life.
Everything is driven by teenagers. Android has no halo effect. When Andriod teenagers see the AppleWatch in action and in fashion, their next phone will be an iPhone. Apple Watch=iPhone sales. Just who is going to see a Gear in public(I haven’t seen one yet) and then switch to an Android phone? Odds are slim.
The article is correct in this respect:
I’ve bought an Apple Watch and if it disappoints me greatly, THERE IS NO WAY I’LL EVER BUY ANY SMARTWATCH FROM ANYONE EVER AGAIN.
I’m awaiting the arrival of the watch and I think it will surprise me.
As I’ve said before, the (non) killer App for the Apple Watch is two minutes warning of a stroke or a heart attack. If it could to that, then you would be a fool not to get one. That’s a real tough thing to do, but initial reports of the accuracy of the heart monitor of the watch are encouraging. “Heathkit” has the software tools to do the programing for this. What is missing is the data and the functionally (what actually happens to your heartbeat two minutes before a heart attack), not to mention the legal aspects of what I’m asking for.