“Despite all the supposed shortcomings of the Apple Watch, one thing becomes crystal clear when you use one for a few days; it is going to sell like crazy. Not just well, but insanely well,” Boris writes for The Next Web. “So far, almost every person I met who played with it for awhile converted from cynical to excited within minutes.”
“It’s very similar to the first iPhone,” Boris writes. “Many disliked and dismissed it. But then you would hand someone one, they would start playing with it, and then you would see the expression on their faces change into childlike excitement. And then they got one.”
“So why is Tim Cook frustrated right now?” Boris writes. “Because it is now very obvious that there aren’t enough Apple Watches available.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup. And so are millions of would-be Apple Watch early adopters.
This too shall pass. We are hearing that Apple suppliers have been and continue to ramp up Apple Watch production significantly. We also have reports of Apple Watches arriving well before, or very early in their stated delivery date range.
Getting the Watch into early adopters’ hands is key. Most people need to be led by others. They need to see it in use in real life on the wrists of people they know. As we wrote on March 27th: Just like the tens of millions who said they didn’t want or need an iPhone, who are now on their fifth iPhone, so it’ll go with Apple Watch.
Five hundred dollars! That is the most expensive watch in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good machine …. I like our strategy. I like it a lot.
This is a play on Ballmer’s interview about the release of the iPhone…
For true fans of Apple, the sarcasm is obvious.
Yes we got it thanks.
The iPhone uses an experimental notification and health monitoring device called the Watch. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I don’t want one of these newfangled contraptions. (Dvorak)
or…
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
Isn’t it amazing the old farts who are so-called tech writers but who come off more as belonging in a senior citizen facility as Emeritus Curmudgeonus and thus incapable of understanding or appreciating new technology regardless of blatant evidence? Their brains have atrophied along with their lack of comprehension and imagining the usefulness of future device paradigms?
Maybe it’s a sign YOU SHOULD RETIRE John Dvorak! Leave it to those who still have their much more youthful imaginations intact (regardless of age). I tire of your clueless Grumpy Grandpa act (and I’m a Grandpa myself!).
Dvorak is still alive?…
Barely. But not at all in the cognitive sense. 🙂
At this point I think he enjoys being wrong – on purpose – just to get any kind of reaction and his name still bandied about occasionally.
Someone forgot to tell him he’s no longer relevant to the conversation. But he’s an excellent barometer usually of predicting the opposite of what actually happens. As director Ed Wood was an anti-genius in Hollywood, John Dvorak is tech’s answer for it’s anti-genius.
I am just programmed to be anti-Dvorak think. But I will admit that my problems are just getting old and tired of learning lots of new tricks. I don’t see anything wrong with the Apple Watch and all of the good it does, can do and will do.
I am an old codger and remember conversations (and stories) with quite a few relatives born in the 1880s and 90’s.
I remember well hacking into my macs in the late 1980s and early 1990s with Japanese OS and changing the Japanese Finders out with and English Finders so that I could have a Japanese OS with English menus. HTML in the early days, did that too.
But now, I am at the stage where new things scare me. It is for you younger generations. Just be kind to me and help me where you can! I still jump in where it is deep but I am not as confident as I used to be.
Go get ’em fellows and ladies! Don’t listen to the likes of JD and his ilk!
Always a great quote! Ironically (or maybe not), the most unforgettable thing he ever said.
Who can say what Tim is feeling, but Tim, himself? But one thing is certain – there is no substitute for the Apple Watch and it will take some time before the shameless copiers can cobble together anything that comes close. in addition, far more so than the original iPhone, the Apple Watch relies upon a unified iOS ecosystem. As a result, Samsung and company will find the look of the Apple Watch far easier to copy than the function.
Apple is not going to lose Apple Watch sales anytime soon – consumers have no viable alternative. And it is only a matter of time until supply ramps up to fulfill the backlog and satisfy demand. The fact that many of the initial Apple Watch orders are being shipped a week or two earlier than promised is a good sign.
The situation may not be perfect for Apple and Tim Cook right now, but it is pretty darn good when you consider Macs and iPhones and iPads and Apple Watches and new forays into medical, music, and enterprise. Any company in the world would be glad to have a “problem” like the Apple Watch.
No, I do not believe that Tim is all that frustrated right now.
Some of us remember back when cell phones were expensive and mounted in cars. Some people bought fake car antennas and fake corded phone ‘receivers’ so that they could pretend to be big shots. The Samsung purchasing crowd are the same as those pretenders.
Some are on their fifth, others on their eighth iPhone. — the 6 plus were the eighth generation of the device:
iPhone
iPhone 3G
iPhone 3GS
iPhone 4
iPhone 4S
iPhone 5
iPhone 5S
iPhone 6 / 6plus
Whatever Apple chooses to call their iPhone 7 will be the ninth generation.
The “fifth” in MDN’s Take is not meant to be take literally. It merely means that people who said prior to seeing and using one that they didn’t want an iPhone, have by now had many iPhones. Their minds were changed once they saw the devices in use and tried them for themselves. Most people have severely limited imaginations. Thankfully, MDN doesn’t. They’ve been extolling Apple Watch since the day it was unveiled.
I have owned every model listed except the 6 since I got the 6+.
Some day Apple is going to release a phone and I am going to say, meh I can wait another year. Hasn’t happened yet.
Obviously,Boris has not listened to that Google partner Leo LaPorte. He thinks the watch is very disappointing and way too expensive. He goes further and believes what Google is doing with their watch makes for a superior product.
Oh Leo, we know your game! Everything at Google is wonderful. Keep Promoting Goole products for all that it is worth????????$$$$
Yeah, from Leo, the guy with a weekly radio show where people call in with their Windows problems.
“Hi, Leo, I have a Dell IPID6598-GxF and I just got this new Brother 56FLN233 printer and I’m getting an 0x539756 error. I’ve rebooted five times and still can’t get it to work.”
Good grief.
Used to really like Laporte but he’s been irrelevant for years (as has Andy Ihnatko) and a real disappointment in his eager geek preference for the dark side of technology. He has lost his view of the “big picture.”
I hear he’s restarting his old ScreenSavers show which will probably just be the Google/Microsoft show which only the deep geek cheap losers out there could love. I won’t be watching.
pb71:
I have to agree with you re: Laporte and Inhatko. Leo swings with the wind and Andy has become a windbag. Feel sorry for Rene who presents a smart and relevant analysis of all things Apple.
He’s becoming more reflexively anti-Apple all the time over the last few years… ….and you can tell he’s really not following details on new products via blantant misstatements and spreading misconceptions.
Of course I have my own love/hate relationship with the company’s offerings – feeling about most, as Winston Churchill said about democracy, they’re “the worst ever invented, except for all the others.”
I was skeptical about WATCH – I’ve never worn a watch my entire life, and wasn’t sure I’d want to wear one, even if it was made by Apple.
Shortly before pre-order (very early) morning, I decided to go with a SS WATCH instead of aluminum Sport WATCH, but decided to stick with the sport band.
My WATCH is now the first thing I pick up in the morning – instead of my iPhone! I turn off my SmartThings alarm system, turn on HUE lights from it – then move on to picking up my iPhone.
The thing I truly like about my WATCH, is the stuff it doesn’t do – while doing thinks I want it to do. Namely, I can go for a walk or hike, listen to music, have the walk / hike tracked but NOT be disturbed by phone calls, texts and a bunch of notifications. Sure I used to be able to wear a toy tracker and carry an iPod nano to do the same thing, but now I only need 1 device, and no cords!
I am no longer a skeptic of this device – I am hooked! It took using a WATCH to understand what it can … and can’t do … the appreciate it for both of those functions!
Got my space grey 42mm sport watch Tuesday. The expected delivery was May 13-27. I love it. I just got home yesterday eve and put the watch on at 11PM. 12 hours later I still have it on and 75% battery still left. Best feel of a watch on my wrist ever.
First “normal” day with Watch: 100% charged when waking, checking time throughout day, quite a few alerts through day (email, phone calls, texts and meetings), a few text message responses from watch, checked baseball scores half a dozen times and weather a couple of times. 52% remaining when I went to sleep. I have no complaints with power consumption.
I’ve been wearing my watch for almost a week now and the first person to notice at work was my boss and my CEO. The latter was all excited to see it so I let him try it on. He actually went for an appointment to try it out but was a bit frustrated that they were on back order.
Reality is that Apple products are often in such high demand that they are in scare supply for the first few months. A totally new product will be hard to ramp up so we have to expect greater delays.
I bet Cook is not frustrated but excited that the Apple Watch has had a successful launch. He will also be looking at every way to increase production without sacrificing quality.
Apple Watch already is selling like crazy. It’s just not delivering like crazy. Placed an order a couple days ago for the silver Sport with white band for my mom, estimated delivery date just says “July”.
Ordering five minutes after initial availability, mine was scheduled to be delivered May 13-27. It came May 5; thank you, Apple!
Tim Cook is likely also determined ‘right now’ to exit contracts with the part suppliers who have let Apple down and is investigating alternatives for the future.
This is a ‘Version 1.0 Effect’ that is out of Apple’s direct control. Bleeding Edge!
My favourite small little touch is the calendar notifications. I really like being able to accept or decline a calendar invite right from the watch. My life is run by the calendar so I find this feature really useful. There are many other little touches like this that make using the watch a joy. I can’t wait to see future revisions to the software, and full support for native apps. Things will really get interesting then.
After receiving my 42mm SS ML, I ordered two more. One for my girlfriend (hey, she bought me the 1st generation iPad for my birthday). And one for my mom.
Both of them were thoroughly disinterested in the Apple Watch. It will be interesting to see what they think after they have worn one for a week.
Spoiler: I know they’re going to love them!
More addicting than potato chips !
Actually the Watch is more akin to the original iPod. Most people “got it” the moment the iPhone was unveiled, hence the tremendous anticipation before the launch. But the iPod had to be used to be understood.