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.
I have upgraded my iPad a few times, but I'm happy with the one I have now.
So in your view, Apple could not figure out how to make the product worth buying the first time around.
The point is that you did not find this new product compelling enough to buy.
That’s what you don’t seem to get and represents the fact that you want to impose “your thinking” onto others instead of hearing what others think and do for themselves.
I find a certain number of people around, in society, who do this sort of “thinking”. These people seem to operate under the idea that “how they think” is how everyone else thinks (or “should think”) ... and when someone presents a different kind of thinking than they have, they basically “can’t process it” — because all they are able to do is understand how they think themselves. And thus, to these people who are so wrapped up in “themselves” that they cannot comprehend anyone thinking or doing differently ... this “different thinking” represents some kind of “defect” or “error” to them — and they “label it” with all sorts of epithets. They cannot operate outside of just their own mindset.
You are one of those who cannot process how anyone can think any different then you — EXCEPT — that they have a problem in their thinking ... LOL ...
This is a perfect example of that, just what we’re talking about here. I say I have a schedule of devices that I’m getting, and that I rotate my devices out and I have two that are coming first ... and ... that I am getting the Apple Watch after that.
Now, to you ... you obviously CANNOT PROCESS in your own mind that people schedule thongs like this according to their own decisions ... and so you “impose” some kind of “determination” upon it, that the person has told you is not right. This shows a complete inability to understand that others can make decisions based on their own criteria ... and ... that’s perfectly fine and just as good as yours.
You would say that everyone that doesn’t think like you on products and what to get must be foolish, or an idiot or ignorant (all things which have been said over a period of time by the APPLE-HATER TROLLS).
If you and your types were to run a government, you would make sure that people could only get the products you approved, would be put in institutions for psychiatric care if they didn’t think like you, and would outlaw choices and behaviors that didn’t correspond to yours ... in other words, you would form a DICTATORSHIP ... LOL ...
THIS is the “thinking” that is represented here by your thinking.
The Apple users ... on the other hand ... are not concerned if others get other products. They’re very happy with the excellent products that they get from Apple and they’ll tell people about them, but they’ll not insist that others MUST think the way they do. What happens with Apple products is that people end up picking these products — freely — because they work so well for them, and then other people see how well they work, and they pick the products freely, too. THIS is the perfect example of how our capitalistic free market system is supposed to work. Apple has made this work VERY WELL for them, so much so, that they are WILDLY SUCCESSFUL in having others pick Apple products freely and be quite happy with them!
You need to “get with the program” for what our capitalistic free market system is all about and why it works so well ... :-) ...
When I bought my first iPhone I bought the 5C over the 5S, I didn't see where I needed the 5S. This fall when the new Apple products come out I will decide which new products to buy. I'm not a power user by any standard, I just like my devises to work.
To me the watch isn't that big a deal to go right out and buy one.
Right. You got better things to do with your money.
You sound exactly like Spongemaster. Did you attend the same brainwashing camp at Cupertino?
Right. If you thought this new product was compelling enough, you would have bought it. But you didn't. I'm afraid you can't have it both ways.
Now I wouldn't go so far as to call it "brainwashing" but it was definitely an enlightening experience for me. I went through the 7-day program. The food was excellent and the facilities were extremely clean. In fact, our sleeping quarters were completely white. From the walls to the floors to the sheets on the bed, everything was completely pure white with a trim of "glow-in-the-dark" blue to show us where the doorways were. It felt like being on a spaceship.
My only disappointment was that they didn't give us a lot of swag to take home with us. All I got was a small bag containing a leatherette iPhone 6 case, some Apple logo stickers, and this T-shirt.
I wish I could speak about the seminars I attended but I'm afraid I'm sworn to secrecy. I am one of them now.
The watch just isn't a priority right now.
You really gotta get a handle on the fact that there exists “other choices” that people make — other than yours. It’s your OBSESSIVE/COMPULSIVE DISORDER which is making you think that everyone else has to agree with your choices ... LOL ... and that’s definitely a sign you need some psychiatric help, especially since you jump in on threads to tell all the Apple customers that they’re all wrong on their choices ... :-) ...
It might be a long process you have to go through to get stable again, but you’ll appreciate the psychiatrist helping you out with that.
You said ... “So in your view, Apple could not figure out how to make the product worth buying the first time around.”
— — —
Now THIS is an example of your EXREMELY DEFECTIVE THINKING capabilities. You’ve got something severely wrong in your head, and I would definitely recommend psychiatric help so you can sort this out for yourself. You have LOST YOUR GRASP on REALITY!
Here’s how ...
What Apple does with EVERY ITERATION of a product ... is IMPROVE IT. In other words, the next update and/ or upgrade is ALWAYS GOING TO BE BETTER ... without question.
If a company is good and dedicated to always improving the customers’ experience, this is always going to be the case. Therefore we can say that the previous version is NEVER as good as the present version, if the company is doing their job right!
Now, you — with your DEFECTIVE THINKING — obviously think that this means that “something is wrong” with the previous version. With your defective reasoning ... the only way something would not be wrong with the previous version is if there was NO IMPROVEMENTS to the current version. In your TWISTED THINKING ... having no improvements now means the previous version was good ... LOL ...
It’s a good thing that the overwhelming majority of users realize that it’s a GOOD COMPANY that always makes the next version better and the next version after that better still ... and don’t have your twisted mentality that this shows that the company made a bad product, not worth buying ... because “they made it better” in the next version and every version after that! ... LOL ...
Well, now ... you’re just making me jealous, with your cool t-shirt!
Cool beans!
As Yoda would “Strong is Stupid with this one.”
I feel so...special. I must be a chosen one for sure.
You are definitely one of the chosen few! ... :-) ...
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