“It took fourteen months but it finally happened last week. I began seeing Apple Watches on a daily basis. Just a few months earlier, it would have been rare for me to see someone wearing an Apple Watch. Something has changed,” Neil Cybart writes for Above Avalon. “Despite the short amount of time on the market, the Apple Watch has been called everything from Apple’s largest flop in decades to the next big thing after the iPhone. In reality, we actually know much more about how the Apple Watch has performed to date, and there is evidence Apple is still just getting started.”
“As seen with the rethought user interface included in watchOS 3, Apple spent the past year studying how people were using Apple Watch. Friction points such as a clunky interface and little-used features, including Glances, were removed,” Cybart writes. “Instead, Apple went back to the basics with a simpler interface and additional focus on Watch faces as the device’s most valued real estate.”
“In terms of Apple Watch unit sales and revenue, we haven’t been left as much in the dark as initially feared,” Cybart writes. “Every three months during Apple’s earnings calls, we have been given at least one major clue as to how Watch sales had fared… In taking all of these clues into consideration, I have a high degree of confidence that Apple has sold 12 million Apple Watches to date… I estimate that if Apple Watch was a standalone entity, it would be worth $10 billion… This is even before all of the significant changes in watchOS 3 were unveiled on stage at WWDC.”
Much more in the full article – highly recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Prior to watchOS 3, we wrote:
Apple Watch is currently in the same situation as iPhone was in 2007, saddled with 2G speed and prior to the iPhone OS SDK (March 6, 2008) and the resultant App Store (July 10, 2008). A few of us had iPhones for that year while the rest of the world looked at them as a curiosity, but we knew.
We wouldn’t trade that early iPhone or this early Apple Watch experience for anything.
You can have our Apple Watches when you pry them off our cold, dead wrists. — MacDailyNews, December 1, 2015
SEE ALSO:
Previewing watchOS 3: The Apple Watch comes into its own – June 24, 2016
With watchOS 3, Apple paves the way for major Apple Watch innovation – June 24, 2016
Apple watched how we actually used our Apple Watches and adapted watchOS to fit – June 16, 2016
Apple reveals watchOS 3; faster, simpler with breakthrough health features
Monday, June 13, 2016
Apple Watch: Why let facts cloud the debate? – June 6, 2016
Apple Watch: Still the leader of a growing smartwatch pack – May 31, 2016
Looking back on a year of wearing an Apple Watch – May 31, 2016
Living with Apple Watch for one year – May 4, 2016
Reasons why I still wear my Apple Watch every day – April 25, 2016
A year with the Apple Watch: What works, what doesn’t, and what lies ahead – April 22, 2016