“The Apple Watch recently celebrated its first birthday,” Tim Bajarin reports for TIME Magazine. “While Apple won’t say exactly how many units have been sold, we estimate the number is in the 13-15 million range, bringing in $2-3 billion in revenue.”
“I recently spent time with Apple executives involved with the Watch. I asked them to explain the real motivation for creating the device,” Bajarin reports. “Although Apple has made fashion and design a key cornerstone of its existence, it turns out that this was not at the heart of why they created this product.”
“The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs developed pancreatic cancer in 2004. He then spent a great deal of time with doctors and the healthcare system until his death in 2011. While that personal health journey had a great impact on Jobs personally, it turns out that it affected Apple’s top management, too. During this time, Jobs discovered how disjointed the healthcare system can be,” Bajarin reports. “He took on the task of trying to bring some digital order to various aspects of the healthcare system, especially the connection between patients, their data, and their healthcare providers.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Watch is already saving lives and will go to save untold more in conjunction with Apple’s HealthKit, ResearchKit, CareKit and other health initiatives.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
How does the author calculate 2-3 billion in revenue from the sale of 13-15 million Apple Watches? Should it no be closer to 7-8 billion given an average sale price of $500?
How do you get an ASP of $500? The low end sport model is by far the most popular, and the Edition has all but disappeared.
If you take the low estimate for sales (13 million) and multiply is by sport model cost ($350) you get 4.55 billion dollars. The author’s math is flaky. maybe he meant 2-3 billion in profit.
The sport model retails $350 and is certainly most popular, however, the sales of the stainless and gold options could bring up the average selling price to $500. For example, the sale of a single gold Apple Watch per 100 Sport Models Watch could increase the average selling price by $100
Such a disappointing observation from a writer I respect. The idea of a health monitoring watch is a good one and the data collection abilities if the research kit will pay dividends somewhere down the line but lets not kid ourselves. The apple watch monitors pulse and activity directly but not much else. It comes in a wonderful package, but it does not monitor most of the levels that steve’s physicians asked him for directly. It may mature into a health monitoring device. Ive called for as much here. But don’t congratulate yourself when that product, a true health monitoring device, does not ship yet. I think its a wonderful idea. When they deliver it i will buy one. But the watch isnt nearly there yet.
The point about the health implications is not what it currently does, but what it will be able to do in the near future.
As the article stated, what is needed is a joined up solution for healthcare. Apple is uniquely placed to integrate devices, apps, desktops and cloud services. By making Apple Watch into a platform rather than just a watch, it becomes extendible. As technology allows sufficiently small sensors and monitors to be created, the obvious solution is for other manufacturers to make them work with the Apple Watch or HealthCare ecosystem. Similarly any useful newly developed sensors or monitors that could be suitable for building into a watch housing would likely be given serious consideration for a future version of Watch.
This is a classic Apple strategy. The initial release of something doesn’t tap anything like the potential that appears over the next 5-10 years, but the fundamental design was sufficiently forward looking to incorporate them.
Yes. We’re still waiting for Apple to do something significant with this:
IFixit also found what lives behind a mysterious door that lives behind the band enclosure of the Apple Watch. It has six copper connectors, but it’s not clear exactly what they’re used for. It’s rumored to be a diagnostic port that Apple Store employees can use to determine what’s wrong with your Watch.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/24/technology/inside-apple-watch/
Apple iWatch, a question looking for a question; an impractical, overpriced, ugly piece of technology. Perhaps in 15 years iWatch will overcome these limitations.
Where did you get “iWatch” from? It’s Apple Watch, not iWatch.
Oh, sh*t. You’re absolutely correct. But call it whatever you want, it has zip interest to me.
As we, MDN and the world have zip interest in you or anything you say. Frankly we prefer it when intelligent people post, not woebegone drunkards like you. So kindly fuck off.