I can’t help but think the Apple Watch is going to join the iPhone as a juggernaut.
It might take time, but I think time is going to be very kind to the Apple Watch. Think back to the first iPhone. It was saddled with slow cellular radios and limited power. But it was clearly better than what came before it. As technology evolved, the iPhone experience improved. Remember the constant dropped calls? The problems of the wrap around antenna that caused reduced signal when you held the phone without a case? These were genuine problems which brought a fair share of negative press. But the iPhone marched on, continued to improve. Battery life improved, the cell radio got stronger, carriers built out the cell infrastructure. And the iPhone became a juggernaut.
The Apple Watch is brand new. So much change is coming. The vast majority of the current Apple Watch processing is dedicated to communicating the results of processing done on the iPhone. The current Apple Watch is a relay device. But my guess is that that will change over time. As battery life continues to improve, as the processor gains power, as the software continues to evolve, the Apple Watch will grow and do much more “in house” processing. Apple will guide that process by adding to the Apple Watch SDK, giving developers more to work with, more flexibility to extend the bounds of what makes an Apple Watch app.
There are enough Apple Watches in the wild (or coming over the next few months), there are enough early adopters that, in my opinion, the Apple Watch has achieved critical mass. There will certainly be complaints, but the Apple Watch community is now large enough, it is (or soon will be) in the critical work flow of enough people, that there’s no turning back.
The Apple Watch is a juggernaut. Or perhaps a juggernaut junior.
Also: The Apple Watch is the first new product category by Apple that has been developed AFTER Apple has become the world’s most valuable (and rich) company.
If there’s anything that Apple needs to make the Watch a success, Apple will be able to simply buy it or make it happen.
They got their own SoC architects, hired a bunch of people from companies that developed sensors to track your health etc.
Money can’t replace expertise but money can buy expertise.
And other companies will want to support any new service that Apple creates (like Apple Pay) just because they know that it’ll become a success.
Much easier to create a juggernaut in that position.
Another interesting datapoint that convinced me: look at your App Store updates. EVERY developer is looking seriously at Apple Watch experiences. All my updates the last week have been Apple Watch versions!
The ground interest from the developer perspective has already been addressed. Watch is going to hit the ground running with tons of interesting products. There are lots of challenges, sure, but Apple has already overcome many of the issues platforms like Windows are still struggling with for their phones.
While final judgement is out until us unwashed masses have it in hand (or, to be more accurate, on wrist), looking at the reviews I’d actually say this is the most complete gen 1 product Apple has put out in the consumer space. It’s already got iPhone-based apps available with full blown local processing scheduled for this year (so on the same hardware). Inbuilt functionality is largely good and there’s not a huge amount obviously missing (some would argue cellular connectivity but I honestly think that’s a very niche market). While additional sensors can be added it’s got the important stuff (base fitness and Apple Pay). Heck even battery life seems good!
Will it improve over time? Certainly, technology moves on after all and I’m sure batteries will last longer, SoC’s will be more powerful and those four circles on the bottom will look more like a spirograph drawing before too long. But when compared to the iPhone, iPad and even the iPod I’d say it’s far more comparable to the iPhone 3G and the iPad 2 than the original models.
I think we’re in iPhone territory in another way, too. Right now you can’t write native apps for Watch, only Extensions for your app that lives on the iPhone. Remember the original iPhone? No native 3rd party apps at first. But they delivered an SDK a year later and the rest is history… ‘there’s an app for that’ is a catchphrase because of this.
Soon, perhaps this WWDC, perhaps next, we’ll see tools and tech to support native Watch apps and the next generation or two of Watch will get more capabilities…. if that happens and developers come up with really compelling, interesting apps that take advantage of Watch then, well… watch out.
The Apple Watch will almost certainly not be an iPhone-scale business, almost by definition. However, I think it could easily eclipse the iPod, and has a good chance of being an iPad-scale business. To me, that would be an unfathomable success, yet it’s pretty likely to occur.
It will also be interesting in see what the Apple Watch replacement cycle will be. Even with a large acceptance in coming years, what will happen four years from now. Will we see an iPad like pull back. The iPhone replacement cycle was driven by the cell companies two year contract cycle. Without that, what will it be for the watch.
What I’ll be curious to see is how many iPhones get sold to go along with new Apple Watches…
Should be easy to see as Q3 and Q4 phone sales generally decline. Would be impressive to see this trend inspire early adopters to abandon android. My guess is that Q3 sales/supplies (>5mil) go to existing base, Q4 sales go to converts. Q4 is the one to watch. Would be ridiculous if they can best FY15 Q1 record setting revenue on tock cycle with watch. 1 Trillion valuation here we come.
My prediction, very much a “a juggernaut junior.”
Over the next 12 or so quarters it will sell better than iPad, but not as well as iPhone. Conversely, its market-share numbers (which is a totally meaningless metric) will be the more iPad-like than iPhone-like. That it, it will totally dominate the smartwatch sector, but that sector will never be huge. It won’t be a bad business to be in, even by Apple standards (which is still more than most companies can hope for), but it won’t be the iPhone.
uh, no, that was not a genuine problem. Jobs stated on stage himself — the stats at&t compiled showed dropped calls were not significantly worse on the iPhone 4, and any phone w/ an internal antenna could have its signal damned via a death-grip, since we’re made of water.
who writes this stuff?? wish JD was leading this blog…
the iPhone is the most successful CE product known to man — its not saying much and a matter of course to to state the AW won’t be that. especially since its, you know, an accessory to said product.
Admittedly those were non-issues—mostly, dropped calls were a real and serious problem in SF, but for localized reasons (e.g. high user density, uneven geography, and transit catenary lines/above ground utility lines), but let’s not forget, for the first year the iPhone couldn’t run native apps, it took two years for copy and paste, sync via Wi-Fi took three.
I should have put more emphasis on “junior.”
An ” accessory to said product”, for now. I have no doubt that Apple intends for AW to be a stand-alone device, but even when it is it won’t be anything close to “the most successful CE product known to man” that it’s older brother is.
I think everyone is misremembering: the worst dropped calls were in 2007/2008 (iPhone, iPhone 3G). They had nothing to do with the iPhone — every time I left New York City and spent time in Europe, the problems miraculously went away. Heck, in Paris you could make and receive calls on the subways (metro).
It was all, 100% due to AT&Ts incompetence and the first time they ever had to deal with really large, dedicated number of cell phone/smart phone users. It went on for several years: AT&T would improve things by broadening their bandwidth in the spring of each year, then as soon as the new iPhone would come out, it would go back to being horrible, because each time they grossly underestimated how many people would end up switching to iPhones and suddenly actually start using their phones, which they rarely did with the junk they had before.
Things finally were solved when the iPhone start being carried by all the major (and many minor) US carriers, splitting the user load enough for all the companies to keep up and also forcing them to do so they wouldn’t lose a large percentage of customers to their better bandwidth equipped competitors.
The whole iPhone 4 story was essentially myth: remember the iPhone 6 “bendgate”? How this that work out? Which bends more the iPhone 6 or the new Samsung (who were probably responsible for promoting bendgate in the first place). With every release, new BS is put out by Apple’s competitors, hoping each time to ruin the iPhone and failing miserably each time.
I’ve pre-ordered, and I’m a bit of an Apple fan, with Macs, iPhone and iPad as well as a couple of Apple TVs and AirPlay units attached to sound systems. This eco-system is one of the big reasons I want an Apple Watch – I will be able to control a lot of my extended kit from my wrist, without needing to keep my iPhone or iPad to hand. It won’t change my life, but it will be cool. 🙂
Give the Watch a year or two and it will really hit its stride. More than ever, electronic devices are just a view on data stored centrally in the cloud. Since the Watch can connect to the internet via both your iPhone and your known wifi networks getting quick glimpses into that data will become very easy to achieve.
A little example – I regularly catch the train and buy tickets in advance. You pick them up by entering a code which gets emailed to you. Juggling iPhone, wallet (you need to enter your card too) and typing the code is a hassle. Being able to pull that email up on my watch will take my phone out of the equation. A very little thing, but it will be much easier.