If you’re not convinced you need an Apple Watch, you might be able to justify one if your job forbids you from checking your phone.
This makes the wearable particularly popular within the service industry, according to an informal survey of airline attendants, bartenders, waiters, baristas and TSA employees published Monday.
The digital news site, Quartz talked to people who work in wholesale, retail and service-industry jobs, many of whom are discouraged or restricted from checking their iPhones while on the clock. A discreet glance at the wrist is allowing them to stay connected while on the job.
“It’s definitely easier to check your notifications,” a J.Crew store employee from Brooklyn told Quartz. The retailer said the company frowns on its employees from looking at their phones while on the floor.
Quartz left last names out so as not to get their subjects in trouble with their bosses. Writer Mike Murphy used the anecdotal information to raise a good point: maybe Apple should market the Apple Watch as a convenience for the quarter of the US labor force that works in wholesale or retail.
Apple boasts about its Apple Watch sales each quarter but declines to disclose figures or number of units sold. The Apple Watch, which debuted in 2015, gets lumped in with “other products,” from AirPods to Apple TV boxes, in quarterly earnings reports.
Some Wall Street analysts believe Apple sells about 4 million watches each quarter, but many analysts will not speculate that precise a number.
The Quartz story shows the Apple Watch does more than benefit runners and other athletes.
One worker said he walks within 300 feet of iPhone to check his watch while at work. Another, a hotel bartender, bought the watch for running but frequently checks it while working for his steps and calorie totals for the day.
Apple Watch Series 3 is $329 on the Apple website. Older models are less expensive.
Source: Quartz
