Posted on 04/17/2015 9:27:26 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Apple Watch. Seems like Apple has a hit on its corporate hands. Or a preorder hit. The company sold a million Apple Watches in the first 24 hours—just in the U.S.—according to one piece of analysis. That would make it the most successful new product category launch in Apple's history—so what do you do if you've been talking smack about it for months?
If you're Roger Kay, you stuff a straw man full of nonsensical numbers that will allow you to declare the device a failure no matter what. It's a neat trick so long as no one applies a gram of logic to what you're saying. Unfortunately for Mr. Kay's latest column at Forbes—Apple Watch Wager—I have plenty of logic lying around.
Mr. Kay's story starts off on Friday, when he reported that an informal poll of Silicon Valley tech execs found none of them intended to buy an Apple Watch. That led him to, "suspect that the watch will underperform from a sales perspective."
I suspect he is wrong.
Mr. Kay added:
The top press all got free demo watches, and they’re mostly positive about it, saying they have 'discovered' what makes the watch so special. But methinks the lady doth protest too much. If they had to pay for it, they would not likely have run out and bought one. And methinks the lady doth project too much.
The quote above was originally published on April 10th, the same day Apple Watch preorders went on sale and customers could make appointments to see them in Apple Stores. Here we are on Monday, April 13th, and Apple Watch is, as noted above, a smash hit. The debut device reached at least a million sales around the world in the first day. As HuffPo noted, it took 74 days for the iPhone to reach that number, and it took 28 days for iPad to do the same.
That puts quite the damper on the doom and gloom crowd's conviction that Apple Watch would finally be Apple's megaflop, its long overdue comeuppance after so many years of success.
Mr. Kay was challenged on his predictions of failure by readers who asked him to put his own predictions on the line, which he did on Monday. It's how he did so that has me tilting my knapsack off. From Mr. Kay's piece:
Rather than throw my hocus pocus on top of everybody else’s (after all, who actually knows something as intangible as likely demand for a product in a new(ish) category?), I took a look at the ranges that some other people have laid out and used them to set a 'stretch' goal for Apple: 50 million units in the first year. That’s pretty much the high end of today’s forecasts with a few million more units added on.
Here are the numbers he used:
In a Fortune survey done on March 2, 2015, financial analysts offered a range of predictions from
8 million to 41 million for the Apple Watch’s first-year sales
How to Shape Your Apple Watch Predictions to Suit Your Goals
Let's start with the fact that 50 million units isn't "pretty much the high end of today’s forecasts with a few million more units added on." It's a full 21.95 percent above the highest of the high end. It's also more than double the average of the analysts estimates he cited—122.5 percent of the average, for those keeping score at home.
And if Apple does this—sells more than 20 percent above the most enthusiastic predictions, and more than twice the consensus—then, and only then, will Mr. Kay magnanimously admit that he was wrong. From Mr. Kay:
Here’s what I’m going to do if Apple does manage to sell 50 million watches by April 24, 2016, a year from the starting ship date: I’ll get a T-shirt made that says, 'I ♥ Tim Cook' on the front and 'You were right. I was wrong' on the back. In large letters. Credit Ryan Wood, a personal trainer at my health club, for the actual wording. I will wear this shirt and have pictures taken, front and back, which I will post to Facebook’s Instagram with proper notification to my various distribution lists and social media along with a reminder of what this is all about for those who dump their own memory cache periodically to make room for the next crazy thing.
How generous!
I wrote a piece looking at the mental gymnastics required to be a member of the Church Apple Doom, but this takes the cake. Mr. Kay is setting the bar for Apple Watch success in fantasy land and couching that as reasonable so that no matter how well it does, he will still be able to label it a failure.
The funny thing is that I also have a bet running on Apple Watch with my friend Rocco Pendola. About a year ago I bet him that Apple would sell 40 million Apple Watches in the first full year of availability. I'm going to lose that bet. I was thinking in iPhone terms, not a new product category, and I was thinking about it as a fan of watches. I made a terrible bet, and I'm OK with that.
If Apple sells 2 million units in the first year, it would be a huge success compared to any other piece of wearable computing on the planet. Those kinds of numbers would make the device a blowout hit by any yardstick other than "Apple." At 5-10 million units, Apple will have a runaway success by any sane standard. Apple Watch sales above that will simply be stunning.
But don't look to Roger Kay to acknowledge such success.
It is definitely QUITE AMAZING that Apple has so much support through its developer infrastructure, that we are able to see OVER A THOUSAND APPS, thus far, which are available for the Apple Watch!!
That, of course, does not mean that people are going to load up their Apple Watch with hundreds of apps on their wrist ... but that the VARIETY will be IMMENSE ... so that each person can find just the perfect selection of apps which meets their own particular needs.
That’s the great thing about Apple having such a wide-ranging variety of DEVELOPERS to create such an infrastructure for customers.
The INFRASTRUCTURE here is quite important and is a big selling point for attracting more Apple customers!
It’s no wonder that Apple is SO WILDLY SUCCESSFUL in its business.
It’s also quite amazing that we have a certain number of Free Republic posters who are so RADICALLY JEALOUS of Apple (for very weird and obsessive reasons) that they feel absolutely forced (in and of themselves) to condemn all people who buy Apple products and say that these people who do so are basically fools or idiots or crazy ... because these Apple customers do not listen to these APPLE-HATERS!!
These APPLE-HATERS are quite a unique phenomenon, in and of themselves, and should make a good thesis for some psychology major or doctoral candidate! ... :-) ...
Huh?!
Are you reading some foreign language news from Borneo, which has been translated into French, then next Russian and now from Russian into English ... with the translation being done by a Junior High student from Zaire? ... LOL ...
What???? I love Apple. I've got a drawer full of Apple gadgets that I replaced with even better Apple gadgets. I have an iPad Air 2 and an iPhone 6 and they go everywhere with me.
I hope Apple becomes the first $Trillion company. I really do.
But I wouldn't wear an iWatch if someone gave me one. I just don't need the functionality and I just hate watches in general.
So shoot me. But scratch me off your APPLE-HATER list first. ;)
It’s fine to not want a product.
No need to get emphatic/defensive, and if you are don’t be surprised if you get lumped in with the “haters”.
That’s perfectly fine if individuals determine that they really don’t have a need for a particular product ... whatever that product may be ... Apple or any other company. I don’t go around accusing people of hating Apple because a person says that they don’t have a need for a particular product.
What is being talked about here ... has to do with a certain small number of FReepers who are ABSOLUTELY OBSESSIVE in searching out all the Apple threads, and then criticizing everyone who says that they not only want an Apple product, but also that Apple is the one that BEST meets their needs in this particular product (whichever one we may be talking about on that thread). And this particular and select group of Free Republic Apple-Haters don’t think that anyone even has the right to choose an Apple product, and if they do, they must be idiots or fools or “paid by Apple” to lie about it online ... because, according to them, only fools or idiots or paid-PR people could ever say that Apple makes something good or an excellent product.
And these people also lie about the facts related to Apple or the products that Apple makes, and they call people names, and/or say that they must not be conservatives, or that they must be homosexuals or support homosexuality, and that they must have also voted for Obama! You find a variety of these accusation over a period of time, from various members of this APPLE-HATER TROLL GROUP on Free Republic.
Now, I haven’t seen you doing those things that I mention of this APPLE-HATER GROUP, because your name rings no bells with me. And besides that, I have never “named you” as part of that APPLE-HATER TROLL GROUP, as I have definitely done with others who have been easily identified before.
So ...and again ... I believe the choice of an Apple product or any other manufacturer’s product is solely the choice of that person and it’s done according to their own very personal and unique circumstances, preferences and desires. I never call anyone an idiot for choosing another brand ... but I do call some people idiots and also abusive for INSISTING that others must agree with them on their personal choices and then calling those Apple users idiots and imbeciles and fools and liberals, and homosexual supporters for choosing the products that meet their needs perfectly!
Apple is an EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL COMPANY which has achieved this success by meeting the needs and preferences of a VERY LARGE SEGMENT of our society ... including some very smart and intelligent FReepers, and it deserves praise as a company for doing exactly what creates a success in a company in our captalistic and free market economy and society, and these APPLE-HATER TROLLS on Free Republic seem to absolutely hate that fact!
So it's sort of like those $500 kitchen knives at the Williams Sonoma store?
You said ... “I have an iPad Air 2 and an iPhone 6 and they go everywhere with me.”
— — —
I had to laugh here ... as my iPad goes absolutely everywhere with me ... :-) ...
Of course the iPhone has the Internet connection, as my iPad does, and virtually the same apps are there for the iPhone and iPad ... BUT ... you just can’t beat that extra screen space of the iPad, and the new larger iPhones just can’t beat that!
Having that iPad with me is just like carrying around a desktop computer right in my hands and with such a light and tiny device, while still having a significant screen size. It’s GREAT!
My desktop computer now only gets about 20% of the usage it has gotten in the past. The 80% is going to the iPad!
Glad to hear you’re doing so well with your iOS devices!
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I don’t have one now, but I’ll be getting one in the future. I mentioned that before on a couple other of my posts. I have a couple of other Apple devices I’m scheduling for purchase first, before the Apple Watch.
HOWEVER, having said that, I don’t look at getting the Apple Watch as a gay status symbol and fashion statement for myself. That never even entered my mind at all in getting it. Even after you saying that, all I can think about that is to LAUGH and wonder how anyone could consider an obviously useful technological device with such advanced features as a “gay status symbol” ... LOL ...
In that light, you might as well say that anything Hi-Tech is for gays ... :-) ...
And when you consider that there are several other manufacturers who last year struggled to even sell 700,000 Smartwatches, I have to wonder if they were trying to sell a “gay status symbol” last year, and they didn’t do well ... was that because those Smartwatches weren’t gay enough or what?! ... :-) ...
That idea just makes absolutely no sense at all!
You know ... when seeing that watch face you posted, I realized that the Apple Watch will be able to allow any user to put on whatever background “face” they want. Of they had a special Presidential Candidate they wanted to promote, they could make it so that this candidate was the background for the Apple Watch!
Now, I don’t think that Apple has it set up for replacing backgrounds for anything the user wants, but I could be mistaken. They may have set that up already.
HOWEVER, even if Apple didn’t include that option, a developer will quickly come up with it.
That’s actually a great idea for an app! Is there a developer listening here?! ... :-) ...
The Bill Clinton Backward-Running Apple Watch App.
Yikes! It’s $49 on Amazon ... :-) ...
Hey developers! Get to work on that iOS app.
It wasn't worth getting one?
By the way, are you the same person as Swordmonger? You sound, act, think and write just like him.
I do believe I told you I had a couple of other Apple products in rotation for replacement ... which I am doing first.
Is that a problem ... with your obviously defective mentality about Apple and its customers, that some of those customers are not buying as fast as you say that they always do?! ... LOL ...
And ... if you want to find out if Swordmaker is me ... or ... I am Swordmaker, I would suggest you check it out with Jim Robinson ... instead of continually making up your WILD-EYED LIES ... :-) ...
So basically you're saying that you have better ways to spend your money than buying an iWatch.
And ... if you want to find out if Swordmaker is me ... or ... I am Swordmaker, I would suggest you
One good way is to simply ask you. But you declined to answer that question.
Your reading comprehension is sorely lacking ... LOL ... I’ll try saying it again, but slower and with lower syllable words ... :-) ...
I - will - be - buying - one - after - I - buy - a - couple - of - other - Apple - products.
I hope that worked this time ... :-) ...
And as far as your Swordmaker question, it’s been repeatedly asked and amswered, so I figured you needed something “authoritative” from Jim Robinson this time to clear it up for you.
Right. You have better things to spend your money on. It's not worth it. If it was any good you'd be buying one now.
And as far as your Swordmaker question,
You didn't answer it.
Again, I buy my Apple products one after the other, not at once. You still have a problem comprehending ... and improving your comprehension is something for which you’ll have to seek out professional help. It’s beyond my scope, here ... LOL ...
I have definitely answered it, but you ignore the repeated answers many times over again ... so you apparently need Jim Robinson to answer it for you ... :-) ...
In the mean time, I have an older iMac, and MacBookPro that both need hard drives.
I plan to wait until at least Apple Watch 2.0 comes out.
It’s kinda funny that these APPLE-HATER TROLLS first tell Apple users and satisfied customers that they are fools and idiots for buying Apple products, and then they say something is wrong with them when those same Apple customers don’t buy the Apple products “FAST ENOUGH” ... LOL ...
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