Why Apple Watch may not be the overnight success Cupertino is used to

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The Pulsar 1 cost $2,100 in 1972. Only 400 were ever made. (Photo: Diginut)
The Pulsar 1 cost $2,100 in 1972. Only 400 were ever made. (Photo: Diginut)

While cellphones have come a long way in a very short time — from the Wall Street bricks of the 1980s, to the gorgeous iPhone 6 devices of today — a new article from Wired argues that innovation takes place much more slowly in watch land: something that could spell trouble for Apple.

With insights from watch and clock historian Alexis McCrossen, the article notes that attempts to reinvent the watch have historically proven difficult, with a key example being the world’s very first electronic watch: the $2,100 Pulsar 1 from 1972.

Despite there being “very similar hopes to those swirling around the Apple Watch” the article points out that “a decade later, most watch-buyers were still expecting the same kind of analog features they’d wanted for years.”

McCrossen says out that despite the first wrist watches appearing in the 1880s, they didn’t actually outstrip sales of the pocket watch until 1927, with many in polite society considering it rude to continually refer to a person’s wrist: something that would surely happen a whole lot more with Apple Watch.

McCrossen also observes that many students and younger people currently don’t wear watches (a problem Apple seems to be very aware of), which means reeducating them in a whole new product category. Then there’s the whole question about whether it really does anything that your iPhone doesn’t already do.

These are all interesting talking points, definitely, but ones that I don’t think tell the whole story. Although Apple is using the familiar term “watch” to give new customers — unfamiliar with devices like the Pebble — something to latch on to, the timekeeping properties of the Apple Watch aren’t its main selling point, any more than the iPhone is considered to be just a phone.

Like the iPhone, the Apple Watch is a miniature portable computer, and its success or failure is going to be based on how well it pulls off this particular task.

Certainly analysts seem optimistic about Apple’s chances: with some suggesting that it could match iPad sales in its first year. We’ll have to wait and see.

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