Apple Watch Survey Results
Yesterday we did another Apple Watch followup survey.
The results are in and the numbers continue to be impressive but the trend is not in the right direction.
| May 21, 2015 | August 5, 2015 | Change | |
| Total Responses | 760 | 688 | |
| Wear It Every Day | 81% | 70% | -13.6% |
| Changed Life Materially | 46% | 37% | -19.6% |
| Love It More Now Than Time Of Purchase | 71% | 59% | -16.9% |
| Recommend To Others | 67% | 55% | -17.9% |
The most impressive number to me is that 59% of respondents say they love it more now than they did at time of purchase. Clearly this device is working for many of the people who bought it.
But the trend is universally down. Less people wearing it every day, less people recommending it to others.
The picture that is emerging to me is a niche device that a small group of people have purchased and an even smaller group of people get value out of.
This is something to build on for Apple, but I remain on the fence on the question of whether the watch is the next big thing in mobile.
Comments (Archived):
Interesting that, even after there are many more devices in circulation, your sample size went down. Its hard to know if that means you’ll have headed toward a more fractured sample comprised of people passionate enough to answer (on both sides love and hate).The big unknown is sample overlap so we could track the change in responses from the longer term users.
Agree 100% Brian. I didn’t see your second section before adding my comment. At my startup we try hard to understand “love” versus “like.” So the question could also influence me. If I don’t really love it but I like it, will that influence my choice? Yes/no is also a different question from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree ranges, but that’s also related to the “love” choice in the question. Do you either love it or hate it, or do you still love it but a little less? 🙂
Without knowing that it’s the same set of respondents, it’s hard to draw a conclusion from the 59% saying they love it more now than they did. It would also be important to cut that data by purchase date. I may love it more thanks to the new apps / bug fixes, or love it more because I actually found a good use for it now. I would want to know if the same 71% still loved it more. (Sorry if that’s noted in the manual) 🙂
V good points. Also, there was no opportunity to say I haven’t bought it … so a person could have reasonably answered no to all the questions without having bought it skewing the results.
And purchase price, better question might be how would your responses change when costs are 50% less and performance is 100% more.
Rich, in order to accurately reflect that you’d have to do a willingness-to-pay study, find out who views this as a productivity tool, a lifestyle choice, who derives value from being an early adopter, who loves the Apple brand and is either increasingly or decreasingly critical, etc. Price at 50% may be irrelevant for someone who spends $30k on a watch, and performance at 200% irrelevant for someone who wears it as a novelty item. The Porsche Cayenne is an example that comes to mind. They’ve stuck with it and it is now >50% of their volume. The 911 purists I know wouldn’t drive a Cayenne if it were given to them for free, fuel included.
I agree, but look at history of iPod and IPhone, for the bulk of the distribution mass the phone has to get below $200 out of pocket at time of purchase.That said, Id like to see freds poll controlled for chineese buyers.
In that case the data you’re looking for is not the early adopter trend data that Fred is collecting. Early iPhone adopters I know loved it because a) nobody else had one, b) when others had one they were “cool” people too, c) they had other Apple products, d) Microsoft / Blackberry was for corporate slaves, e) Steve Jobs was way more inspiring than Bill Gates. Those same people now jailbreak their phone as a mark of differentiation vs the “uncool” masses on $200 down and $40 a month.
that pendulum of hacking a phone to be cool has swung
I don’t know what data you have on that…Asia is a hotbed of custom OS…and you can order pizza through their equivalent of WhatsApp…just saying.
Hacking the OS and the building an app that rubs in the OS are two different things, for 95% of users ease of use always trumps optionality.
Way too early to call. WatchOS2 is about to launch in September. In iPhone parlance its like moving from web apps to native apps.
I agree with Barry, it’s way too early. I believe that Watch has it’s “secret” killer feature: mobile payment. But that feature is not advertised as the whole ecosystem still needs to evolve (more merchants accepting Apple Pay). We’ll see how it wil go.
It will be interesting to see the next survey.
Could be interesting if in next survey you add a question related to the model they own. Just guessing if i could confirm my theory 🙂
Indeed. As Benedict Evans says, “the smartphone is the Sun and everything else orbits around it.”Http://ben-evans.com/benedi…
I’ve learned a lot reading Ben’s posts. Sharp cat.
Careful what you comment though. He doesn’t tolerate fools gladly.
He doesn’t back down, and I respect that. And I’m kind of a troll, so we have a nice relationship I think.
Don’t forget that the Watch is a much bigger innovation than the iPhone and asks for a much bigger shift in consumer behaviour.We already expected phones to get better, most of us were already upgrading every couple of years. The iPhone entered an existing mass product category with an existing buying cycle. And pre-iPhone smartphones were hardly niche — there were Blackberries everywhere.Wearables and smart watches are still too early to call. I can’t see myself owning one yet, but I couldn’t see myself owning a smartphone until they’d been out several years.
I agree they have potential. I’d like to get one eventually, but they will need to be better than the smartphone, not a companion to it.
Need doesn’t matter and obviously need isn’t a market driver for Apple.But these devices work great as a smart pager for people who need to be contacted and given messages but can’t or shouldn’t be using a phone.From drivers to waiters, from kitchen to construction workers.To our kids actually.
Agree and good examples. I am sure my wife will be using an Apple watch in a few years (or similar) in her job. Noting importantly that people rate the functionality as far as what they see now. (Kirk’s comment). Not what it can or it will become as the product advances. (Even Thomas Watson of IBM said “only 5 computers needed in the world” or something like that).I remember a few events in the past that illustrate this point. First was 1980’s when the HP laser printer came out and I was in the printing business and as part of that did typesetting. (Printer could do 300 dpi and cost $4k in 80’s dollars). I laughed and thought laser printers could never be good enough to replace what we did with high end equipment. I was wrong about that didn’t take long until both people’s expectations adjusted and equipment both dropped in price and increased in quality. Luckily I had invested in a typesetter (Linotronic) that could be driven by a 512k mac .. Unlucky because I lost my biggest account who replace the resume work we did for them with a laserwriter which was “good enough” for their purpose. Also my key graphics employee left to start their own business. They could do this because they could afford their own equipment the barrier to entry in business had dropped. Another time was when the internet first came out (I used Delphi) and there weren’t even graphics it was all text based. Later in ’95/96 it was so slow as to be of little value to most people. Who can forget “dial up”?When I started with RC Helis they were gas only, you had to build them and it was a total hobbyist niche. Now we have consumer drones that fly themselves that are electric. Back when I started the only electric was hooking up a cord to a wall outlet for training. I saw a demo of that. Impossible at that time to even imagine electronics, computers and batteries would advance and allow electric rc helis and drones. I have a little one that I fly outside my office in the entry room which cost me $40 and is loads of fun.Ditto for photography. Back when I did in high school and college I needed a darkroom. Hard to imagine advances that we have now that allow you to take pictures from your phone.Early 90’s I remember first digital cameras. Was about 1992 Nikon had one iirc was 1mp and professional photographers who I dealt with laughed at the prospect of that replacing the film cameras. They didn’t understand how technology could advance. I think the later consumer one that I had did VGA grade 640×480 with a super slow shutter speed.
“only 5 computers needed in the world”.He said needed not wanted. I think that 5 is still the correct number of “needed” computers.
Unrelated but have you seen this about Machine Intelligence applied to fine wines?* http://phys.org/news/2015-0…
Thanks.A long time ago, I dabbled in wine as an asset class but honestly I don’t care about that anymore.I care about wine as a community and wine as a connector and wine as an ethos actually.You might enjoy this post.http://arnoldwaldstein.com/…
It would be interesting to see what is currently the most compelling case for wearing it in the first place (activity tracking, notifications, apps ?). It would also be interesting how this changes over time as watch evolves. Personally I love knowing how much I walk every day.
3/10 owners don’t wear it everyday!Thus, it’s not a watch. It a wrist wearable marketed as a watch.Thus, expect it to have the same fate as Nike Fuelband and others.
This is spot on. By the same argument a hotel is not a home.In my view it is not only not a watch, it’s not even a glance !
I disagree. First you’d have to ask the respondents how many watches they own and wear each week. I wear 2-3 different ones, depending on the activities I have planned (work, play, impress chicks). So no watch holds more than a 40% share of my wrist time, regardless of the brand. The Apple Watch does pretty much everything Fuelband et. al. do, but none of those tell the time or answer messages. I expect it to update and evolve, like everything else Apple has done.
The whole wearable market, particularly the iWatch has a Newton ten years before it’s time thing going on. Mobile phones fell into people’s lives like a meteor. Minaturizing a phone, attaching it to a band and calling it a watch forgets the notion of human scale.I’m with the folks from Argo Design. The screen is done. It’s interations are just that. Screenless UX is the new frontier.Now if the watch was a projector and displayed an upwards facing hologram at human scale that I could interact with more easily, now you’ve got my attention.Written on my phone while on a walk.
Where did Argo say the screen was done? Im curious, haven’t heard that.
http://www.fastcodesign.com…The article is mostly about owning a piece of the design, like Ammunition and Beats – but here is the salient section:——————The difference with argodesign? “All of the guys who’ve tried this [ownership model] today have done it from a hardware position, using design to give them an edge,” Rolston explains, citing Ammunition’s success with the Beats brand as the earliest and most notable example. “[But] what it means to create a great product is changing. It’s not necessarily a product, but it might be made of unseen elements. This is making up a sort of modern challenge of a designer.”While Rolston’s perspective may sound heady, or even contradictory, it makes a lot of sense. As computing disappears into the cloud, physical devices can become less important, and often even invisible. What’s left as The Product in these cases? It’s the UX—or user experience—that defines what something is. Rolston isn’t alone in this philosophy, either. Innovation by Design nominee Lapka recently released what they’re calling a post-Apple product, a breathalyzer made to disappear into someone’s hand. What defines that product? Not the anodized aluminum body, but the gesture of blowing—an interaction that could become a brand unto itself.
Interesting. Thanks.
The Shapelessness of Things to Come – http://growconf.com/2015/sc…
Clearly you were right all almong and it’s not (going to be the next big thing in mobile). Some have predicted a bigger adoption rate in future iterations and others are remaining hopeful that there shall be a “killer” app; but “mainstream” is now a remote possibility., if that at all.
Some people are finally beginning to learn to make decisions based on objectives. What does the watch actually do?! What objectives does it help someone reach? Does it help people work less but get more done?.All this gadget stuff is fun but people are realizing “Hey… Wait… This stuff should be all about me but instead it’s all about the device. I’m a slave to this stuff instead of this stuff being my slave. I don’t like the whole premise here.”
Dopamine my friend dopamine, ha ha! Too many people are looking for that rush over logic.On the other hand it seems that more and more Millenials are getting into minimalism, which goes a long way in the other direction, I’m conjecturing.
Hmm… I need to look into this “minimalism” thing. I think that’s what I’m into. But not in a consumer way. I’ve always looked for biz ops that require the least “things” to get started. I’ve always tried to take the least “things” on a camping trip. I don’t try to do without. I just try to ensure I have the least parts working to reduce the number of parts that can fail..I think I’ll call it “modified minimalism.”
Sounds like a way of operating rather than a way to live.
I’ve been using a Moto 360 for a while now and I’ve found it surprisingly useful. But if I’d paid $400 instead of $150 would I find it equally so? And if I wasn’t using a way too massive Nexus 6 would the Android Wear device be of as much value? I think wearables have to be put in the context of the network of devices we use on our bodies. We’re just beginning to iterate on the best combination of devices and body add-ons that make most sense and I think this is going to vary quite a bit person to person, use case to use case. Also, 31% people not liking it as much as they did when they bought it seems a big number. (Also: I can hear my English teacher grandmother in my head … “fewer” not “less” when dealing with discrete quantities or “countables” like people.)
I won’t even consider the Watch until it has a SIM card and is fully untethered from the iphone. Until that happens, the Watch is an inefficient, expensive and largely unnecessary mobile accessory. It is a flea pulling a cart.
.Well played on the flea pic.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Nextgen UX / next big thing in mobile was already previewed back in 2010. Hence 2015 MS Hololens. Let’s not assume, though, we all need headsets.There’s enough emerging tech that can be integrated for no need of wearables. They’d be nice-to-have rather than must-have.* https://www.youtube.com/wat…Of course, still needs founders who can integrate such tech and those are rarer than the “unicorns”.
Indeed, the holoworld is not that far off. Of course that may be 5-10 years, but seems like Apple would want to build a device that properly bridges to that, and not so sure AW is it.
Given that you primed the poll with “I’ve been seeing a fair number of negative reports …”, I’m surprised the drop isn’t more pronounced. That kind of introduction is going to have a big influence on the numbers 🙂
1. Good conclusion….but I remain on the fence on the question of whether the watch is the next big thing in mobile.2. Deal flow – Fred it would be interesting to gauge this to deal flow and portfolio company activity. re: Are there any deals coming in for watch app only ?,,,,is there a general feeling around USV portfolio companies that they need to have a watch app…and their users are looking for one.3. Apple stock – you can add that to your chart as well down 13%#WatchFirst
I wear the watch everyday and love it. But, I don’t expect it to be the “next big thing in mobile.” Instead, I view it as a very useful extension of the current of the current thing in mobile. I wonder if one reason people seem to have a hard time wrapping their heads around the AW is that it’s the first mainstream computing device that may be better in part because it does a few things in a better way, rather than vastly expanding the use cases. Less is more or small is beautiful could be its essence.
Big red flag to me is the change in “would recommend to others”. would imply that people aren’t in love with their devices, and aren’t learning to love them either.
The “watch” is much like the Blu Ray (or HD-DVD for historians of physical media). Humans need to see an exponential increase over a predecessor in order to adopt something. The watch doesn’t do that. Doesn’t even come close. In fact, in most ways it’s inferior to its older sibling the iPhone.You do get some convenience from it, yes, but no real meaningful or lasting improvement, especially one magnitudes better which is needed for broad adoption.Perhaps later versions of the “watch” will do that, though I’m not so sure, because I don’t think it’s a software issue really (native vs tied to iPhone) or one killer feature away. It comes down to the physical limitations of a screen that small.All that said, as it improves (and it will) there will be a market for the watch, just a small niche market similar to the vinyl enthusiasts to bring it back to the original analogy 😉
Well to start it won’t be a niche (Apple Watch anyway I assume you mean Apple and not “smart watches”) because if it ends up being a niche Apple will just kill the product as they did with, for example, Newton, Apple Clones, OSX Server (Apple made 1u servers a few years ago) [1] and so on.By the way did you know that you could do this with an apple watch? (Remote baby monitor). No way you are telling me you wouldn’t want to be able to check on “trouble and more trouble” right on your wrist from time to time.https://cloudbabymonitor.com/Although I haven’t gotten one so far actually now I might go out and buy one. One thing I’ve noticed is how many times my iphone is on my desk and I get up to go to a different part of the office (or the “head”) and my phone rings. I’d love to have the Apple Watch on my wrist so I don’t have to always stuff my phone in my pocket.[1] When Apple made the servers my ex brother in law who worked for Apple selling into Pharmaceutical accounts told me “Apple will never kill this product I have customers that love it”. He had been with Apple forever. Apple killed the product within a year of that statement. Didn’t move the needle for Apple, so ditch it. (Of course that was the Steve Jobs days so granted things could be different but I bet they still will kill any niche product..)
Niche in the way the Apple TV is. A “hobby” as Mr Jobs put it.And I have no interest in a baby watch monitor at all. I see plenty of my kids 😉
i am getting way into vinyl this summer, largely because my son is way into it. it’s a fun father/son thing to go vinyl shopping together
The moments in life that matter, matter because of the people we share them with. In my book there is no better moments than parent/child time doing just about anything.
Is there suppose to be a matching comma in your first sentence?
Feel free to add or remove commas at your own discretion 😉
lol.I just can’t seem to be certain if every comma should have a matching comma. Some say yes and some say no.
Two things to consider:1. http://www.grammarbook.com/…2. https://www.youtube.com/wat……I prefer #2 😉
He also ended the first sentence with a preposition.
I’ve seen! That’s so great.
Back in the 80’s there was a store in Philly called “Third St. Jazz and Rock”. My office overlooked the store. People would drive up and have loads of vinyl records in their trunk and the owner would come out and buy the inventory. CD’s came out in the 80’s of course so the owner unloaded (before the body was cold on that) the business to his lawyer. The lawyer thought it was a great business because he didn’t know what was happening with CD’s and I guess the owner never told him. Musical groups also frequently showed up at the store. Not being into music in any way this was actually an annoyance for me but provided interesting scenes out of the window.Here is an article from Philly.com dated 1997 which is essentially the obit:http://articles.philly.com/…Third Street became a hangout where people talked and listened, and where more than a few regulars met their future spouses. “It was a really fun place with total reverence for music,” Gordon said. “Music first.”Lozoff, who was Gordon’s lawyer, bought the place in 1987 and moved up the block to 20 N. Third St., to a place three times as big. The attorney gave up a $67,000-a-year job to sell records. He computerized the inventory system and went from one cash register to three.A decade ago, Lozoff predicted that his inventory of 120,000 items would increase by a third and that the new space would allow for $1.7 million in sales that first year.It never happened.Yesterday, sitting in his law firm’s conference room with only the sound of a heater playing, Lozoff said he was blindsided by some swift changes in the industry.
I miss album covers huge
What vinyl player do you have?
if you are into high-quality music but don’t want to give up the convenience of portability, check out hdtracks.com where they sell 24-bit recordings (in some cases, very close to studio masters). those pairs with a dedicated music player (like Fiio or Pono) and a good set of headphones – yum.
Analog stomps a mud hole in the ass of digital.
Interested in your interactions on digital music with your son compared to your vinyl interactions – would you say they are comparable?
“similar to the vinyl enthusiasts”.But with vinyl you’re comparing analog to digital. This watch doesn’t do anything that profound.
I just meant the % vinyl occupies in the audio landscape (around %1). That’s where the Watch currently sits in Apple’s P&L is my guess.
You might own a Watch and feel that it provides, “no real meaningful or lasting improvement.” My own experience, which I might put in front of non-owners, is that pre-Watch, my daily walking routine averaged somewhere around 5 miles per day. Post-Watch, a lazy day for me is over 7.5 miles, and the average has been more like 8.5-9 miles a day. The subtle behavioral nudges are perfect for someone like me — generally healthy, but by no means an exercise enthusiast — and I think the device could have a profound wellness impact on regular Joes (who also seem more inclined than early adopter, super techie types to think the Watch is special).So, if there’s anything to the whole “more movement contributes to better health” thing, I’d say the impact will be a lot more than marginal. And easily worth a few hundred bucks.I tell people there’s nothing super exciting about the Watch, but beyond health, there are numerous subtle, really well executed features that I appreciate, and that quickly have become, more or less, an unconscious part of my routine.
I don’t own one. I’m glad to hear it’s helping your routine though!
Me, too. It was an unexpected surprise, as someone who’s really not into wearables or quantified self. Work picked up the tab, so it was no-risk to me, but I’ve been really pleasantly surprised. From a marketing and customer-advocate standpoint, though, I do think it’s a very difficult product to explain in a halfway compelling way.
If you want to run this poll a third time, I’d like to see how Watch owners’ opinions change after they’ve spent some time using native apps (guessing apps avail in sept?). Just as the iPhone is much more useful with apps, I think the Watch will be, too.
Confirming my decision to stay with the Fitbit Charge ’til AW 2.0 comes out.Recently I won a Garmin watch at a private equity event – and didn’t even take it out of the box for a month. Only then did I find a gift receipt to a local sporting goods shop. It was enough to buy my wife a cool used bicycle. Now she can’t say complain when I buy my Apple Watch…
Mike’s prediction: Wearables become smarter – everything else becomes input/output devices.
Flaw in the 59% comparison is that the later number had a meaningfully longer history of usage, so not apples-to-apples (so to speak).
My n=1 data to add:At Panera this morning I used my iphone to pay for my purchase.I asked the cashier how often people use Apple pay and she answered enthusiastically in a way as if she is seeing it quite often and importantly that the usage was definitely increasing (she has been there for years). I then said “do you have many customers who use an Apple Watch to pay” and she said “Yes! And it’s kind of funny seeing them put the watch to the terminal”. I actually expected her to say “not much” or “never really” but her answer indicated differently. Fwiw.
“The most impressive number to me is that 59% of respondents say they love it more now than they did at time of purchase.”.Given all the numbers it appears to me that some people are just trying to convince their self that it wasn’t a wasted purchase.
It would be interesting to know how many people wore a watch before getting the Apple watch.
Personally, I wish my niche business generated +$1billion every quarter. It’s tough to work on niches that small.
That’s a great point. I think when Steve Jobs had somebody ask him about market share. He said what is BMWs market share??And you are right if you told me ok, we can make a $5B a year business with Apple’s profit margins, I would hardly call that a failure
BMW’s market share is always a relevant question, just ask Norbert Reithofer. Jobs could say that when Apple was still a challenger brand, like BMW was hell bent on overtaking Mercedes-Benz. I seriously doubt Apple will break even on the Watch for quite some time, but with >$200bn in the bank, they can afford to experiment.
I’d be absolutely shocked if Apple isn’t already making a profit on Apple Watch. I’d bet on > 50% margins and probably $4B in sales already. Even if you include design and development time, all sunk time, I’d bet they are at least $1B in the black already.
Hmm I doubt it and I don’t trust public companies’ accounting – managerial or financial! All that matters is: do they have the best people. And based on the majority of bugs in my startup coming from Apple browsers and what we see on GitHub and Stackoverflow, Apple is the new Microsoft, but with a hardware/OS ecosystem.
Still think 1st gen entry should have been priced a tad lower to drive indoctrination (as a fashion accessory, the entry watch resembles a Swatch). There isn’t a large enough buzz currently cause there’s not enough sold product in the pipe. Until killer app and/or untethered version developed, likely a niche product. Way, way too early to pass meaningful judgement. Different companies have different standards for success/failure. A modest failure for Apple would be considered a grand salami for others.
When you’re a $780bn company whose valuation is derived from expectations of new and innovative products, a $1bn niche product really isn’t that impressive, especially considering how much it probably cost to design and develop the thing. That’s why Apple stock dropped 15% in the past 2 weeks.
$1B a quarter is a potentially $4B business if it projects out… round down to $3B if it wanes. That’s not a lot for a company that does $50B a quarter, but the comparison isn’t to $780B. And, how do you get the next $10B product? probably by creating one that starts at $1B in a quarter… Ditto for the next $100B product… 🙂
It’s generated +$1Billion for one quarter, it’s too early to say anything else.
Is it reasonable to think that the sample from the first survey would be more positively inclined towards the device because they bought it right away? If so, you probably need some discount to the % negative change in sentiment.
even if it isn’t widely adopted, it adds to the apple brand. I’m not sure what the average age of a kid is when they get their first phone, but what I do know is that more and more virtually all parents will reach out for an iphone if they can afford it.
I had a payments industry person tell me “is it that tough to pull a credit card out of your pocket” when talking about things like Google Wallet. Same might be said for the watch. Wear able sensors are coming to clothing though so it could change
I think the win is more in when you don’t have to have the credit card on your person at all.
.Actually many credit card agreements require the merchant to physically see the card in order to receive fraud protection.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
That’s exactly right. It is not an order of magnitude better.
Doesn’t seem as extremely bad as Google Glass, but not a must have for all individuals like their cell phones. I struggle to find the benefit of being more connected to constant notifications. In fact, I’ve been trying to avoid real-time notifications since they’re a constant distraction from trying to be productive during my work day. Apple and competitors need to spend more time on health and truly analyzing the data to benefit users beyond step count.
Fred – What do you think these %s would look like for Uber/Lyft, AirBnB, and Warby Parker? Other than cellphones and Teslas, I gotta believe these %s are pretty high when it comes to any discretionary item – even if the trend is down. no? Isn’t the only one that’s critical here the NPS? Reco’s are important – that’s a concerning trend. The other scores seem like high watermarks.
The key for technology to virally adopt is it needs to do something you can’t do right now, or do something an order of magnitude better.I do not (yet) see this with the watch. People have said payments. Mobile payments have not taken off because they are not an order of magnitude better than the credit card.In my opinion the watch makes payments one tiny sliver easier and not really by much.Sorry how many phone cases do you see that can hold a license and credit card.I could easily be wrong (and have been in the past)
Interesting point, agree and so far the AW seems more like incremental progress on it’s way to something else. The one thing that does stand out to me is that it may be less a technology and more a brand decision. Perhaps they’re willing to sacrifice a portion of the all powerful revenue for headspace / brand. Of course I can’t imagine them ever admitting to that, but it seems possible.
Or maybe they want more revenue and are getting it. Does it need to be as ubiquitous as the smart phone to be successful????No way as Elia points out it is probably a very decent business.Car makers do this all of the time with their models.But if you are trying to build on top of it and want it to be the foundation/platform for your business?? Depends how big you want that business to be. For how big Fred likes/needs them………….I don’t think so.My point is that to have something that people have to have like a smartphone (and I’m talking I have people that work on my house that want and beg for extra jobs so they can pay the rent) that have iPhones. It better be not be incremental.For geeks???? Hell yes. For the person paining my porch railings today???? Hell no.
Nicely said, I do agree w/that.
.I agree more with you than I respect the law of freakin’ gravity.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I think the point about overlap and purchase date for the population is important. The second group could merely reflect the more mainstream attitudes versus the first group are the early adopters and Apple lovers.In regards to “changed life materially” I think it’s important to note that many people do not use or install third party apps on their mobile phones. I see this everyday when I show someone an app (or need them to install one) and they do not know their password and their iTunes login is using an e-mail they no longer have access to. That’s why I think it’s a huge marketing and customer service advantage that Apple has its stores where it offers clinics and help with their products.I think the autumn software upgrades are going to make a material difference in the usability of the watch. When things have limited interfaces the contextual intelligence becomes more important. When I was apartment hunting it was really cool that if I had the address in my calendar the Maps app on my phone automatically loaded it in when I opened it up before I went.I agree with others on price point. $349+ is not a giftable price point for mainstream consumers. It’s definitely not an impulse buy. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple chooses to occupy only the high end of the market or if they have lower cost options vis-a-vis iPod.
Like most new platforms, it’ll take a couple of years to figure out what new applications the Apple Watch makes possible. Right now, we’re in an awkward phase of people just trying to shrink down mobile use cases.A story came out today about a man diagnosed with a cardiac arrhythmia based on his Apple Watch heart rate data: qz.com/472522/how-the-apple…What will happen when we learn to do that at scale?
The biggest challenge here is perception. Logic dictates that there is one iPhone type of ‘hub’ play in terms of the high volume, recurring refresh cycle type of device, and multiple lesser accessory device plays around that.Those lesser accessory devices can each be $2-10B annual opportunities, and halo effect the overall ecosystem, but when measured against the mammoth iPhone, they will necessarily feel disappointing.Apple has to play the long game here, and while I am not (today) an Apple Watch (or any watch) user, if it follows the evolution path we saw with iPod touch — in terms of hardware, software and SDK evolution — they’ll be just fine.
i’d be cautious reading to much into this survey, the way you framed the questions was different… this time you set it up by saying there’s been several negative reports in the press, that can bias the respondents more negative.
About that question !I remain on the fence on the question of whether the watch is the next big thing in mobile.Maybe Apple is framing the question more likeis the watch the next big thing in post-mobile”post-mobile” visionas in everything is presumed baseline mobile so it’s onward to explore the next ecosystem “job-to-be-done” gold rush.watch = farm-fresh new worlds to be eaten by software 🙂
In my opinion the Apple watch like the Google Glass don’t have the product/market fit yet to be the next big thing. Both look a bit like the Palm and the Blackberry before the Smartphone i.e. the iPhone arrived. No question, both products are great engineering work, but they don’t offer much more than what you can do with your Smartphone and credit card. And, they are not really cool, aren’t they?I guess the next big thing might be glasses, in the shape of fancy sunglasses (then worn by movie/rock stars), that can do some fancy things with augmented reality. And I am pretty sure we see this quite soon, unless some hiccup with the unicorns delays everything for a couple of years.
One word needed to respond to the next big thing for the masses.PLEASE!
Would be interesting to see how the numbers compare to other wearables
I think it’s important not to extrapolate too much. This is V1. One of the killer uses is going to be using Passbook cards on the watch to authenticate and pay. Right now, it’s too many swipes. Instagram only took off when the iPhone 4 included that HD camera.
Seems to me that Fred’s final statement of “but I remain on the fence on the question of whether the watch is the next big thing” is quite more positive than prior statements that clearly stated Fred didn’t think this would be a big thing…
Very interesting survey responses. I think it is *not* the next big thing in mobile. But it does seem to be a basis for concluding that it is the next big thing in watches… Maybe that’s good enough, since Apple already has the next big thing in mobile (iPhone).
Apple is really good at identifying holes in the market place, you could say that most of their product introductions began in a niche market segment.It’s way, way too early to make a call on this product but I do like apple’s vision for the watch, I think it has a really good chance of succeeding.
Very early days on this one. After a few months, the hype is over and people and developers are still learning about the use cases. Data like this might sink because the mix of users is now not as much pure fan. A few points:1) It’s very helpful to have notifications on my wrist, especially when actionable. It is not an essential thing but I would not want to give this up.2) Health and fitness is a killer app. 3) Taps on my wrist are much nicer than buzzing and ringing and may become the new social norm. Seems like a huge help to women whose phones are in their purses.4) I was in a hospital and saw a lot of nurses wearing them. Their hands are full a lot of the time and they get constant messages – watch must help them with that.
I did not buy the Apple Watch nor did I read all the comments. I am just going by the data that is presented in the survey.When Apple introduced after the iphone 5, a iphone 5c and the differentiating factor was availability in different colors and stripped down power/features as compared to the higher priced iphone5/5s it became very clear to me that Apple had lost it’s mojo in terms of truly being an innovator.Coming out with a watch again similar situation, it is a watch but since it lacks anything substantive they are trying harder to sell it with the innovation being availability of 20 odd straps and finishes etc.In the laptops/desktop line of computers they have made it faster, slimmer and lighter but again nothing revolutionary coming out of Cupertino lately.So the big question is does Apple have some other stuff in the pipeline that is truly something that improves critically on stuff out there.Maybe Apple TV will be equipped with Siri and voice will be the remote to get to the content one wants i.e. user will not have to know where the content is coming from just know the content and get it on their devices. So “Orange is the New Black” or “True Detectives” become the key words not “Netflix” or “HBO”. Could Apple make that happen? Siri show me the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer celebrates Festivus….not happening anytime soon
Yeah and it has to be pointed out there is a massive “fred” skew in this sampling population 😉 To me that skew = apple skeptics and android fans in this crowd are >> what is represented in the general public.The numbers are actually very encouraging $1B in top line and 2 million units sold. Yes that is not great by apple standards but it is certainly bigger than a niche device 😉
It also depends on what top line you had in mind with the 20M units sold. You might be closer to that than you think with the $1B figure….