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.
Pretend?
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Apple people are creepy. Just one small example; you charge your droid, but you “feed” your iPhone. just creepy.
It’s a really nice product, and a huge improvement over the smart watches from other companies.
Personally, I don’t see myself owning any smart watch until the battery life increases dramatically. I like my Citizen watch that charges the internal battery via a built-in solar panel.
But if you don’t have an issue charging it every night, and I think many people won’t mind that at all (after all, they do that for their phones), then this seems like the device to get.
It does seem like it would be very convenient to see whose calling or what your next meeting is without having to pull out a phone.
Am interested to hear if anyone here has one, and if so what your impressions are.
They are. But I’ve put my head in a noose more than once when I remember that I sold at 80, PRE SPLIT, five years ago. What would I have done with hundreds of thousands of dollars anyway lol. /sobbing
Never been a fan of fancy doodads. Or watches for that matter!
Did you buy one?
Not going to buy it. Call me a bigot Mr. Cook.
I don’t own an Apple product nor do I intend to ever do so. Just what is this bloody thing supposed to be good for?
when the group of us worked on the original mobile phone software, we joked about the dick tracy watch being done eventally. we weren’t geniuses but we knew it was coming. now it’s here that was in 1983 amps
I believe the (only) way the product will become a true success is if it becomes a fully-capable unit just like a iPhone. Fully capable as a stand-alone phone.
For example, I might just buy one then.
In which case, it competes against every other Apple product. Big time. And other units will likely, soon follow, and a competition will become truly amazing.
If is doesn’t allow people to communicate the same way, I don’t believe it will truly attract the same sort of consumer audience.
But in that case... someone else will produce a stand-alone phone in a watch, and they will rule that market.
Badly hurting Apple.
Things will get interesting soon, I believe.
It's a gay status symbol and fashion statement. Wearing one means you're on side with Timmy Cook.
The question is since you don't own an Apple product or ever intend to, why do you care what it is good for?
I’m seeing lots of posts on Apple threads by folks who seem to have inherited the discernment/vision of their great, great grandfathers who stood on the side of the roads yelling “Get a horse!” as other folks in early cars drove by.
Some folks have major problems with “the vision thing”.
I got the Pebble watch for 95 bucks.
It’s great, messages are immediately seen on the wrist. Honestly, surprised how much I like it. I keep the weather app on the face.
It’s also for straight people so I had to get one. I can’t wear the gay watch.
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