Posted on 04/16/2015 5:29:23 PM PDT by Star Traveler
The Apple Watch is on fire: KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo estimates that Apple's debut smartwatch has sold more than 2.3 million units since preorders opened, MacRumors reports.
Apple hasn't released any sales data on Apple Watch sales, and it most likely won't until the company's quarterly earnings report. But this 2.3 million figure echoes what others have estimated — the research company Slice believes there were about 1 million US preorders on launch day, for example.
Ming-Chi Kuo has a good track record on Apple: He was spot on with his predictions about the iPhone 5S, for example. If Kuo's figures are correct, Apple has — in a stroke — cornered the entire smartwatch market.
The Apple Watch's strong sales are bad news for Google and its Android Wear smartwatch operating system OS. According to Canalys, devices using Android Wear sold 720,000 units in 2014. Slice's figures suggested Apple was able to easily breeze past this figure in a single day. In doing so, Apple took away Google's one historical advantage, which Business Insider explained in a previous story:
The iPhone has always — with some truth — been considered the "rich man's phone." Apple customers tend to be better off than Android users and spend more on apps and in-app purchases. Accordingly, ad rates on iOS, Apple's operating system, are higher than on Google's OS.
This strong push is immediately going to make Apple's Watch OS an extremely attractive platform for developers looking to move into wearables, especially when coupled with the purchasing power of Apple consumers. And as this app ecosystem develops, it will make the Apple Watch even more attractive compared with other smartwatches, consolidating Apple's position further still.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Used to be true. Why wear a watch when your phone tells time better than the best Switzerland can produce?
However, you still have to pull out your phone.
That's where the Apple watch comes in. Turns the value proposition around 180°! Everything of immediate importance that your phone knows, including the exact time (not the Swiss chronometer time, LOL!), is available from the watch! Suddenly your watch, formerly a redundant (in the UK sense) bauble, has real role to play: saving you from having to fumble for your friggin' smart phone!
My Western Electric rotary-dial phone makes calls that always go through. Never a signal problem, it’s pretty much unbreakable, and it never runs out of battery. Why would I want a so-called “smart” phone?
By your own rantings, you must consider that the “smartphone” is an abject failure because it must be charged daily, while the wired landline phone is superior.
Yes, and some 25 years ago I used tablet computers to. While a valiant attempt, they too sucked.
18 months? Then it’s less than a dollar per day.
The demographics for iphone don’t support your imaginary breakdown ... :-) ...
A tale of two cities: The maps that reveal how iPhone owners live in affluent areas, while Android is for those in poorer parts of town
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2597269/Maps-reveals-Android-poor-people-iPhone-owners-live-affluent-areas.html
Apple took 65% of U.S. phone buyers making $100,000+ a year
http://fortune.com/2014/02/21/apple-took-65-of-u-s-phone-buyers-making-100000-a-year/
iPhone Users Earn Higher Income, Engage More on Apps than Android Users
http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Data-Mine/iPhone-Users-Earn-Higher-Income-Engage-More-on-Apps-than-Android-Users
What Kind Of Person Prefers An iPhone?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddhixon/2014/04/10/what-kind-of-person-prefers-an-iphone/
iPhone people are a notch up the socio-economic scale: higher income, higher education, higher representation in professional and managerial jobs. They are tech enthusiasts, but more as consumers than producers: a big over-weight for digital device addiction, but none for technical jobs.
Yeah ... why would anyone want running water or an indoor toilet?! ... LOL ...
Yeah ... :-) ... I drink stuff in the morning and pee it out, that costs more than a dollar a day!
But of those 25 apps an iPhone user uses per month, there’s about 5 that are used _frequently_, ones that the user is getting tired of having to dig a phone out to use.
I wear my father’s Rolex Oyster Perpetual that he purchased at a PX in Paris in 1954 for $100. it’s worth a little more than that now. Each day I put it on an think fondly of Dad. It is a marvel of engineering, this watch, and one day I will pass it on to one of my grown children. It will be on the wrist of someone in my family for at least 2 more generations, and now that the grand kids are getting older it looks like there will be a generation to follow them as well. I am content with my iPad and my Droid, my wife has her iPhone and a Droid Tablet (seriously). You may keep your symbol of technological capitalistic glory. Some things are too valuable to be given up....
Helps if you actually know what you’re talking about.
The clock function is powered different from the other apps: there’s a power reserve mode to ensure you can still check the time & get alarms for days, even when there isn’t enough power for ongoing app use. Heh...I _wish_ the iPhone had a similar function, reserving power for phone calls so the camera wouldn’t suck the battery completely dry. People bitched about having to recharge smartphones daily when they were used to going weeks between plug-ins, now daily charge is the norm precisely because people discovered smartphones are so d@mn useful.
I’ve used an Apple Watch. Small, yes, but quite useable. No, you’re not going to edit documents on it...but it WILL take dictation. Yes, you can read a map on it; maybe not for when you need a big spread to check a wide area, but fine for navigation when you want flick-of-the-wrist visibility and not have to fumble with a phone or tablet (or [gasp] paper). Yes, you can read a text message; it’s a “retina” screen and very clear (your eyesight may vary). Apps usable on this tiny screen? I’ll be extending mine to it once I finish this next release.
Of course, over time the battery life will improve, computing power & efficiency will improve, a camera will be added (hello, Dick Tracy!), and it will pair with more devices and become more independent.
I’ve been following the developments in computing technology for 40 years. Every single time, people like you spew vitriol about how dumb & wasteful the next development is ... and then they get sucked into using it, just like everyone else, because it proves useful & cost-effective after all. We’ve been trying to get “smart watches” usable for decades, and Apple finally made it happen.
Check https://www.apple.com/watch/app-store-apps/ for a long list of apps for the Watch. Hardly comprehensive, does give a good sense of what kinds of things people will be doing with theirs.
“Will it ever be able to tell the time better and with less fuss than your typical $5 Chinese watch from Walmart?”
Um...yes, actually.
Time accuracy: 50ms. Always. DST included. Time zone adjusted as you travel, likely within feet of the official date lines. You’ll never have to set it. That $5 POS is only as accurate as you manually set it, which may be minutes off (ok, starting *RIGHT*NOW* do nothing at all for two minutes, and think about how “close enough” isn’t). (Heck, I’ve still got clocks I haven’t changed for DST because it’s a PITA to do; they’re over an hour off.)
Presentation: what kind of watch face do you want? change it with a tap and a flick. Classic clock? Mickey? Digital? Analog? World sunlight map? Exotic? Heck, I imagine someone will integrate calendar & GPS functions in, so it will change face to what’s most useful for your circumstances: normal clock for most times, countdown as you approach a scheduled event, hour-generalized for nighttime, ETA when obviously traveling in a common direction, etc. Hard-press the face, flick to preferred watch face style.
I like “marvels of [mechanical] engineering” too. There is something nostalgic about it and it is fascinating ... the fascination that invisible electrons flowing through circuits too small to be seen do not engender.
BUT, once I get over the nostalgia and get back to reality, I want those invisible electrons, in their “too tiny circuits,” in order to get a lot of things done productively ... and Apple is the best at that productivity for the mass market!
Yup, your grandkids may appreciate having your father’s Rolex. They’ll wear it on special occasions, and treasure the heirloom. On most days, though, they’ll wear an Apple Watch 17, as it will provide pervasive functionality throughout their day every day. Likewise I’ll appreciate receiving dad’s vast library of paper books, but most of the time I’ll be reading whatever I want on a tablet with instant download and virtually no space limitations.
You made my case, you spend too much time reading worthless polls. You really need to get out more.
Actually, I spend way too much time reading people like you, and then getting information to show how off they are! ... LOL ...
But, unfortunately, people like you do show up on Free Republic ... :-) ...
Oh ... and by the way ... I was “out” and typed that to you from the QuikTrip parking lot, and now, I just got through dropping someone off at school and am just about to leave the school parking lot, and will probably answer back again, from Home Depot, as I head there, and later on, I’ll catch you at Starbucks! ... LOL ...
I must be nobody. Excellent!
I'm not likely to ever get any kind of 'smart watch' though. My watch is plenty 'smart' in that it does exactly what I want it to do (i.e., tell time), and is made of nothing but gears and a spring.
Ahhh, your benefits for your EBT card came in, eh?
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