Nick Heer, commenting on the Bloomberg Jeff Williams article and reports that the 18-karat Apple Watch Edition sold only low 10,000s:
Even with the lowest possible numbers within this framing — 10,000 units sold of a minimum $10,000 product — that still means Apple made a hundred million dollars on the first-generation Edition.
For a swing and a miss, still a helluva home run.
The gold watch could have sold 0 ands still would have been a hit. It was a marketing tool the garnered way more coverage for the watch launch than the same money could have purchased.
It wasn’t a swing and a miss. It did exactly what it was supposed to — give Ive something interesting to work on in material science, and make a splash. No one expected it to be a massively popular model. Come on.