A year after launch, it’s now clear that pretty much no one needs an Apple Watch | Hacker News Reader

A year after launch, it’s now clear that pretty much no one needs an Apple Watch

qz.com

133 pointsdoener123 comments

I don't need ANY of the watches I own, including my:

  - Concord Mariner
  - M&Co. "10-5-1"
  - Apple Watch

It is not news to me that a watch is a luxury item. It is jewelry. Now that being said, it also does some lightweight fitness stuff for me. It provides unobtrusive notifications. I have made and taken a very small number of calls with it. It is more convenient to start and stop Strava with my Apple Watch than with my phone, and that saves me buying a dedicated bike computer.

All together, I say it is jewelry that happens to provide some handy-dandy reasons for rationalizing my purchase of jewelry. What is the problem here?

Now if Apple isn't selling a metric fuck-ton of watches, is that a failure? No. It is only a failure if Apple is not selling watches, but Samsung is selling watches, and Google releases a Nexus watch, and so on.

If "Smart Watches" become huge and Apple Watch is squeezed out, Apple could one day discover people buy a watch, then purchase a phone, tablet, and laptop that are compatible with the watch, instead of purchasing a watch that is compatible with their iPhone, iPad, and Macbook.

Thus, Apple may say they want to sell a bajillion watches, but what they really need to do is sell enough watches and have enough credibility that if smart watches disrupt smart phones, Apple already has a seat at the table.

Exactly. When my friends/strangers ask me about my watch they always ask if I NEED to have one. I always tell them the same thing-the Apple Watch makes my day better/easier and I like the look and feel. Do I NEED it? No, but if I'm not wearing it I feel it's absence. I've also gotten way more random people asking me about it then any other device I've ever owned. Strangers will walk up and start conversations with me when they see it on my wrist.

Strangers will walk up and start conversations with me when they see it on my wrist.

The DeLorean Effect.

I had a conversation along these lines with my friend the other day. Our conclusion was that it seems like a neat thing to have but so far there isn't anything that makes people say 'I MUST have this!'

I thought maps/navigation were the killer app for smartphones - for many other things you could use a laptop instead, but being able to use your phone to navigate was just so damn useful that you'd be a fool not to buy one if you could afford it. Neither Google Glass nor the Apple Watch seem to have hit on a magic thing that they do so much better than a phone, so far.

It took 3 years after the iPhone came out to get turn-by-turn navigation, though. Google Glass has been around for about 3 (although I've heard it actually does have some killer apps among surgeons & firefighters and stuff), but the Apple Watch just came out last year.

I will tell you that using Apple Maps for directions while using the watch is great-it knocks on your wrist in one way to alert you that you're going to need to take an action, then it vibrates in a different way to tell you to turn right or left, or continue on straight. Its a small feature but when you're driving someplace busy or walking down an unfamiliar street its really very nice to have this kind of feedback without taking your eyes off the road/sidewalk.

For me it would need a large flexible screen on the palm side. This would be much more comfortable to use and with a camera would allow video calls and selfies (if that is your thing). Also, being able to hold it up to the horizon would allow map directions with an augmented reality feel. The other (normal) side of the watch could have had a tradition analogue clock face.

I actually bought an Android Wear watch for the maps. I ride a bike, and having a watch tell me what direction I should turn next and buzz me when the turn comes up is actually pretty useful.

Google Glass and Android Wear have maps and navigation, and have from the beginning. It's pretty cool too.

If I could swim with the apple watch and have it track my laps, I would totally buy one. The non-waterproofing was why I didn't buy it.

Funny story about that:

There are lots of reports of people swimming with their Apple watches. I shower with mine on all the time. But Apple is simply not quite ready to guarantee that you can swim with your watch.

Does its heart-rate monitoring work while swimming with it? (I'm in the market looking to buy a new HRM)

You'd figure it would have some level of waterproofing, as any sport device is expected to handle a lot of sweaty athletes.

It's splash and water resistant (not proof) so the sweat isn't an issue. They have a support page detailing the water resistance that might be useful for you: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT205000

There are reports that it can handle water MUCH better than that. Showers, swimming, etc.

But Apple doesn't promise it and it would void your warranty. It's a question of if you're willing to risk $400+ on people's anecdotes or not.

I've been swimming with my apple watch for several months. Heart rate monitoring works (not sure if it's less accurate somehow? but it works), but there's nothing out there for tracking laps. The screen is also basically impossible to use while the buttons are too easy to trigger accidentally, so I start a workout and lock the watch, then unlock after I get out of the pool.

I was considering writing my own app for laps, and I do believe there was a story shortly after the watch came out where someone else worked on an app like that, but obviously it would not be allowed on the store. :(

I was shocked and awe-fucked when I accidentally went swimming with my Volvo key years ago, and it stopped working.

They don't claim it's waterproof, but plenty of anecdotal evidence supports that it does just fine while swimming.

I've been swimming with my AppleWatch from day one.

How is it for swimming? Do you use it to track your laps? I have a Garmin Forerunner 920xt right now and it's a pain because it's too bulky and also doesn't track my kick sets (since I'm rehabbing a leg injury I do about 1200 m per workout just of kick). Thanks!

I bought the Apple watch to experiment with WatchOS - however, now I find myself promoting / apologising to my friends that also have a keen interest in watches. It's all I wear these days.

If Apple can displace the swiss watch I used to wear from my wrist, they're moving in the right direction in my opinion.

The question is - does anyone really need a watch when they have a phone in their pocket? No.

However, do I feel properly dressed if I go out without a watch? No.

It is far easier to glance at your watch than it is to pull your device out and turn the screen on turn it off and put it away. Neither is hard but I can check the time in 1/2 a second while doing other things rather than 4-5 seconds and interrupt what I'm doing.

Not only is it jewelry essentially, but it's jewelry with a relatively short shelf life.

and ugly.

that's what the top commenter fail to realize. nobody needs expensive watches, but the communicate that you have disposable income and maybe good taste. an apple watch communicates you're a nerd. which may be quaint in some parts of San Francisco.

> nobody needs expensive watches, but the communicate that you have disposable income

I respectfully disagree.

Like all objects, watches hold different meanings to different people. For you, it sounds like they are a social signalling mechanism - but not for everyone. For example, if you collect watches you'll appreciate many aspects of these wonderful objects. Take the Omega Speedmaster 105.003 - it's vintage, it's probably expensive, and it looks like your grandfathers watch. I could care less what it signals to others, for me - it's the watch NASA sent to the moon. It's mechanical. It's an object that I love! I wear it because it pleases me to look at it.

However, having said that - I now wear an Apple watch for a completely different reason - it's functional. It's more useful than the Omega.

Wearing a watch is not about social signalling for everyone. Some people just like watches :-)

Let me know if you start thinking about selling that Ed White ;)

Got an original Broad arrow to trade? ;-)

I have two broad arrows, but they’re not Speedmasters :)

https://omegaforums.net/attachments/img_0405-jpg.125750/

Totally agree with you. Before switching to the Apple Watch(black stainless steel metal strap), I also had an Omega Seamaster!

> Take the Omega Speedmaster 105.003

An interesting example. If they had been assembled under license by a little-known NASA contracted-company in Illinois, would you still be as keen on it?

Until 1979 Soviet cosmonauts used their standard pilot-issue Strela watch, including on EVAs. In the West it was branded and sold as Sekonda[0]. Without the cachet of a luxury brand and extensive marketing it is almost unknown despite being just as functional as the Speedmaster.

http://www.netgrafik.ch/russian_space_watches.htm

[0] The Sekonda trademark was later sold and today has no connection with the original watch

> If they had been assembled under license by a little-known NASA contracted-company in Illinois, would you still be as keen on it?

Yes, the brand doesn't hold a lot of meaning for me - in any case (no pun intended) it's not just Omega. Arguably one of the most important parts - he movement itself, wasn't actually designed by Omega. It's a Lemania Calibre 1873 (Omega branded this as Calibre 861).

Extreme temperatures, vibration, pressure, acceleration, shock and so on; the 1873 enclosed within an Omega case survived all of this with +- 5 seconds per day accuracy. Moreover, it outperformed the qualification conditions against other well-funded, experienced watch makers. For me, this is impressive.

If the same watch was built by a little-known company out of Illinois, I'd be even more impressed!

P.S. Thanks very much for the information on Soviet watches, I'm really interested to learn more about these models. Thanks again!

> Thus, Apple may say they want to sell a bajillion watches, but what they really need to do is sell enough watches and have enough credibility that if smart watches disrupt smart phones, Apple already has a seat at the table.

And that is the difference between Apple-with-Jobs and Apple-without-Jobs. Apple with Jobs didn't worry about "if smart watches disrupt..."; Apple with Jobs built products that DID disrupt.

Um, except plenty of evidence exists that Jobs was involved with the Apple Watch plans from the beginning -- supposedly all major product lines released through 2015 began under his watch (no pun intended).

Big difference between a project beginning (experimentation) and going all the way to launching...

Jobs had plenty of duds, as well. Remember the ROKR? Or the iPod Hi-Fi? If you do, then you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, well, you just proved my point.

Anyway, disruption doesn't happen in a year with the first version of a product in a brand-new market category. But when watches do become capable enough to disrupt phones, Apple is well-positioned to ride that wave.

Or... DID EVENTUALLY disrupt. Or DID get killed and forgotten when it didn't disrupt. Apple has had it's share of failures.

>Thus, Apple may say they want to sell a bajillion watches, but what they really need to do is sell enough watches and have enough credibility that if smart watches disrupt smart phones, Apple already has a seat at the table.

That's a fine strategy followed by many companies. It's not usually Apple's strategy though. They pride themselves on being a huge company with a very limited product range. Even in the product ranges they do have they're not usually the first one out with new products. iPod/iPhone/iPad were all very polished products launched into markets that already had quite a few products but still took over. They have a few niche products but the watch seemed to be another of those big bets which is why people are looking at it attentively.

The Apple Watch had 50% market share among smartwatches within one quarter after it came out. That's insane, particularly since their competitors had a 2-year head start. Normally a company is lucky to get 50% market share at all, and it takes many years.

The problem with the absolute numbers is that wearables as a whole is a new market (in the Lean Startup) sense. You can't rush adoption in a new market: no matter how much advertising you throw at it, it still takes time for people to assimilate what the product category can do, to identify why they'd want one, and to make the purchasing decision. The best you can do is to establish a dominant position within the market so that as it grows, you grow along with it.

This. Especially in the range of a ~$1000 watch. A Movado will cost you $500-$1500...it's not a high end motorized watch, but it looks nice. The Apple Watch is certainly more useful, one can argue it looks better than a lot of watches in the $1000 range. It wouldn't replace an uber luxury timepiece, but I certainly think its the best watch you can buy in that price range and it is BY FAR more useful.

Then difference is what is the value of a 5 year old Movado? What is the % value maintained by a 5 year old iPhone?

A good mechanical watch lasts you for life. The life of an iPhone is 3 years. Who really needs more items going obsolete every 3 years?

I guess I don't need anything except food, clothes and shelter. But I do like/prefer wearing a watch (I'm old). I like to know what time it is or getting to be, and I prefer briefly lifting my wrist within sight, rather than reaching in my pocket. I use most of what's on my Casio geek-watch: time, 5 alarms, stopwatch, timer. I don't use the compass or barometer.

I haven't worn a watch in years but I would not buy an Apple or any other "smart" watch. I've always preferred a simple analog watch that just tells the time and that's it.

For what it's worth, I find the ability to add a weather widget to my watch has been a major win for me. Just a little number in the corner giving me the current temperature. It's that sort of thing that has won me over to the Apple Watch.

I worked on Android in 2008 and now work on applying Apple Watch to heart health (https://cardiogr.am or http://on.wsj.com/1qCfnjR for details).

People forget how long it takes a new platform to develop. It took Android about a half a year to sell even a million units (Apple Watch is reportedly at 11 million). The first phones were frankly not very good: it wasn't until the Motorola Droid and Samsung Galaxy that Android started to get significant market share (see http://imgur.com/nPgiS39). New platforms always develop in fits and starts.

So what am I excited about, with Apple Watch? Think about the health implications of 11 million people wearing heart rate sensors:

1) About a quarter of all strokes are caused by abnormal heart rhythms, which are easily treated but often go undiagnosed for years. How many lives could we save just by building an algorithm for just this one problem?

2) Heart rate variability is correlated with everything from stress and depression to sleep apnea to dangerous heart rhythms to irritable bowel syndrome. Can we build tools to help us understand our inner world in as much detail as photo sharing apps have helped us map our external world?

3) We spend about a third of our lives sleeping. How much more productivity and creativity would we unleash if everybody could use data to get a good night's sleep?

4) The world is full of advice on how to exercise (should you get 10,000 steps? High intensity interval training? Yoga? Crossfit?), but what really works? More importantly, what will work for you?

5) About a quarter of Americans have pre-diabetes, but only 4% have ever been told that by a doctor. Medical research has shown that your pattern of heart rate variability shifts in the early phases of insulin resistance. Can we prevent the next generation from developing diabetes?

Those applications will take time to develop, and Apple Watch is quite clearly a first-generation product, so I can see why people are disappointed. But I think it's worth remembering that even with the iPhone, it took Apple two years to go from the first version to the iPhone 3G.

Sounds like you want a fitness tracker and not a watch. A pretty good one can be had for 100$, and I don't charge mine every day.

Of course it's a luxury. What I find really enjoyable about it, I can reply to a text by tapping it and speaking. It is a lot more satisfying of an experience than it sounds like when described in words or even the videos used by Apple. It combines the best of the immediate talkback feature of Nextel with the benefits of asynchronous communication.

Where it really shined, I had my car in the dealer getting repaired. There was a lot of back and forth, and they used text messaging. So I could read the issue in about a second and dictate my answer and hit send. Each exchange happened in seconds compared to minutes that it would take via voice.

Based on this description, why did you spend that much money for an apple watch? Pebble time gives to everything you just said, but saves you 100 bucks and you have to charge it once a week.

Pebble Time does voice-to-text transcription for iPhone owners?

There are more voice-te-text apps, but Snowy is a good example, say "Take a note" and the Nuance library in Pebble recognizes the speech https://mydogsnowy.com/commands/

I want a lightweight watch that can open my door at home and work, unlock my car, pay for my groceries, and carry the digital equivalent of membership cards.

If Apple could that, I'd buy one and empty out my overstuffed pockets. But at the moment, I don't see any reason to buy one. Fitness tracking and the grocery list app mentioned in the article sound nice but not nice enough to buy another gadget.

Edit: Someone please, please find a way to make a watch that can replace everything in my pockets. You'll be my hero.

Why does that gadget need to be a watch?

It seemed convenient. Do you have a better way?

Edit: Convenient = it's right there all the time, you don't have to reach for anything or hold anything.

I don't, I am simply curious as the appeal of a smart watch has never been clear to me.

Embedded microchip in your palm?

Do you have a phone that you always carry? Why couldn't it serve the same purpose? As braythwayt mentions, there are door locks that work with bluetooth phones.

There are door locks that can be opened with a bluetooth-enabled app on an iPhone. They work by proximity. So... If you have your phone close enough to function with your Apple Watch, you already have a way to lock and unlock your door without taking the phone out of your pocket.

However, those same locks would be awesome if the manufacturers released a Watch app so you could manually lock and unlock the door rather than relying on proximity.

Well, don't forget about battery life. If it is doing all that, battery must last at least for a few days, or you'll discover some day that you forgot to charge at night, and now can not get into your home anymore.

I'd love to get something like that too. The problem is that it is mostly impossible to build today... and is completely impossible to build one that sends all your data to the cloud, so the big players that could look into it won't.

I have a Pebble Time, which works fine for me.

I only really use it for 'glance' like interactions, when I get notifications and calls, it's nice to be able to review them or dismiss them without having to dig my phone out of my pocket, and obviously it tells the time.

Battery life is fine as well, 3-4 days between each charge.

What I want is a a dumb external screen+keys for my smartphone that already has gps, Internet,...

I don't need another smartphone strapped to my wrist!

I'm not going to ever want to charge two devices when I go to bed so battery life of a watch needs to be in the order of many months.

This comports with my thought that automobile screens should just be extensions of your phone, without the separate hackable hardware/os.

Eh, I have a Timex with a plain face that I can read without my glasses on, and the battery lasts for a year. I can check the time without having to carry the phone around or dig it out of my pocket and turn it on (a problem while jogging or driving). I can tell the time with a glance at my wrist.

I also regularly break my watch by banging it on things or lose it because the band breaks. But the watch is cheap, so no matter.

I guess I'm just old fashioned and out of touch :-)

Old fashioned: rational. Out of touch: capable of independent thought.

I found this article spot on and in fact just decided yesterday independently I'd like to sell or give away my watch.

Yes, it's nice to respond to a call on your wrist, and yes the health tracking (esp. the heart rate monitor) is kind of cool, but it just doesn't add that much value overall.

And there are downsides:

- The cost

- I always felt a little embarrassed wearing it for some reason; probably my own issues but I didn't like the idea that I was broadcasting "I spent $400+ on this not-that-useful watch"

- I often went running without the watch, and then it would complain I didn't do much exercise that week

- It's another "thing" to manage: charge it at night, take an extra charger with you on trips, something to get lost, etc.

I think the fallacy here is that Apple tried to create a mini iPhone plus a few extra features. But then it's not adding much incremental value, and it requires an iPhone anyway.

I'd rather the Apple Watch go in a direction that opens up new frontiers, which I think is all around the health tracking and minimizing or eliminating everything else. I'd love to get biofeedback, sleep patterns, stress level measurements, heart rate graphs throughout the day, pulse oximetry, echocardiograms, and other cool insights about my body.

My iPhone can't do any of that (without extra's), and that could make a real impact on my day-to-day.

Can the various fitness monitoring functions be turned off on an Apple Watch? I always exercise without wearing a watch and so the health tracking features are not something I'd want to use.

http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/13/apple-watch-scooped-up-over...

They still took a ton of market share. Even if it's not a big market.

Frankly, I don't have any desire to own one, at all, and I use a lot of Apple products. If they could put some effort into bringing Siri to OS X that'd be nice.

My sister lives in a politically unstable region and swears by them as a tool to protect her children: one press of a button and help is on the way. Not having to dig in their pockets avoids raising suspicion with assailants.

As for myself? All tech conveys two qualities: cost and utility. Having emails buzzing on my wrist would likely cost me much more stress than any utility than the device could possibly hope to provide. No thanks. Smart watches are incredibly niche.

Seriously? Something like a life alert wrist band would be far more effective for that, and cheaper. Plus I'm pretty sure wearing a multi-hundred dollar watch in a politically unstable region is a very good way to put your children in more danger, not less.

I actually agree on the premise that simpler usually means more reliable. I have no doubt that novelty also plays a large subconscious role in the justification.

>Every Apple product in the last 15 years or so has been two things: desirable and useful.

iPod HiFi? Ping? G4 Cube? Xserve?

Apple has a lot of failures, it would be almost impossible for something to be as successful as the iPhone.

The G4 cube was at least an awesome looking desktop in its day.

I got a HiFi as a gift. It's a pretty kickin' system for what it is. Worst thing about it is that it's pre Bluetooth and has the old style iPod connector.

I wonder if MacOS X had been where it is today stability wise, weather Xserve and the G4 cube would have been such failures. The hardware issues with the cube most likely would have been worked out as they were with the iMacs of the same era.

I wear my Pebble all the time, I imagine I'm Michael Knight or Penny (the niece of Inspector Gadget). I use it for swim lap tracking, counting my steps, measuring my run, my sleep, whatsapp and e-mail alerts, monitoring cryptocoin value, watchface with a 24 analog display with sun position, sunrise and sunset marks, 'is it going to rain in the next few hours' early warning, music remote control, calendar and todo list, voice recording and picture remote, starchart, compass, geocaching and ingress assistent and weight-tracker with a battery life > 1 week.

Now it's just a bit thinner then the Apple watch, but the new Apple watch will be thinner then this Pebble. Will the new Apple Watch be waterproof, have GSR monitoring, headset and keyboard pairing, wifi, gps, a camera and match the weeklong battery-life?

I'd be tempted, but how developer friendly is the platform compared to Android Wear and Pebble (C and/or Javascript)?

I don't think the argument here is that the Apple watch is lacking features to make it useful. It's just an extra pointless gadget for most people, at least so far.

The argument is in the last two paragraphs, does Apple have these sleeper hit features, like for example extended battery life, waterproof, wifi and some killer app like facetime calling? It's already less intrusive then a smartphone for reading messages.

The iPod had a slow start as well and I remember the first responses to the iPad. The time of smartwatches will come I think, question is, just like in the article what will be the killer feature?

Although I love mechanical watches, I caved in and got an Apple Watch just for the purposes of seeing my next meeting time and getting alerts. So far it's been good, although I miss the elegance of the mechanical watch that doesn't need to be charged every night.

Completely agree. I love having the next upcoming meeting, have both personal and work calendars synced. As a web dev with some sys admin duties (small agency) the uptime complication offered by the Vigial app, and the additional use of the Happy Apps uptime is a really convenient way to be alerted of downtime or events without having my phone out all the time.

I wouldn't wear an Apple Watch if it was free. I owned one when it first came out and eventually sold it. A few months ago I decided to give it another try and returned it at the end of the 14 day return period.

The product has many issues but it wasn't those that made me dislike it. It's the fact that to get value from it I should wear it all day (to get accurate health tracking for example). But it made me feel like I was ALWAYS connected. Sure I can disable notifications, put it in airplane mode etc. but it just felt like too much technology. Unless it starts doing really incredible things I cannot do with my phone and cannot live without I don't see myself ever buying one again.

It's a cool product and I think they've done a good job, but wearable technology is a step too far for me.

I wore a pebble for about a year and came to the conclusion that I'm much, much happier when I'm not immediately notified of every little email and text message I get over the course of a day. I cannot even remember a single instance in my life where I received an email that couldn't wait until later that night or the next morning.

Now I don't wear a watch, my phone is just a phone, and I deal with email in batches only once or twice a day on my laptop. I know a lot of people would go into tech withdrawal if they gave up their smartphone, but for me it feels great.

This isn't specific to Apple Watch, it's about all smart-watch thingies: the way we interact it them is just too limited. The screen is tiny, so you cannot use it to read / watch content, and there's no way of interacting it except for clicking a very limited number of buttons.

Though the voice recognition interface on some of them is kind of ok, it's not private or exact enough to make it actually useful.

We have the technology - we can built it - but why? There's still not a "killer app" nor a "killer UI" for a smart watch.

The rotating bezel on my Gear S2 classic makes interaction easy and intuitive. The fact that it actually looks like a watch, and the screen stays on at all times, make it something I can actually wear and not be embarrassed about.

I've never understood why someone would buy a "watch" that doesn't display the time at all times. Isn't that the main point of a watch? Getting notifications and responding to texts are secondary features. A watch that doesn't tell the time is a paperweight strapped to your wrist.

http://i.imgur.com/ZZnx5Ld.jpg

>I've never understood why someone would buy a "watch" that doesn't display the time at all times.

Neither did I, however I found over time I got used to it.

p.s. Your photo looks awesome - is the screen really that bright?

That photo was taken with the brightness at a medium setting (6 / 11). The screen looks great, it gets bright and more importantly the blacks are true black, because it's AMOLED.

It doesn't seem like a very compelling product to me at all. However, I think people made way too much hay about the expensive gold ones (Apple Watch Edition). Its existence doesn't mean Apple is a jeweler now, it's just the same product with a different metal that costs a lot. Apple makes consumer electronics, including this one which at current seems to lack utility. From what I know, most people are buying the low-end $350 aluminum one and very few at all are buying the gold one.

I want an Apple Watch, but I'd much rather have a new G-Shock Frogman. For some reason, having a rather fragile and easily obsoleted watch doesn't work for me. Maybe I'm old and moldy (barely over 30) or it's what I am used to. I might try and pick up a used one on Craig's List eventually to try out. Maybe I'll change my mind once I try it for a bit.

No one "needs" any of the Apple products or just any electronics in general.

"Want", however, is a different story. All of my family members "want" an Apple Watch but they have no needs for it. They never had a watch nor do they plan to start warning one. Their smartphones (either iOS or Android) act as a watch for them and they always have it on them.

Ok, let's start at the beginning.

Electricity is an essential, safe, and cost effective means of lighting. Radio/TV is a great way of receiving information about the world around you. A computer is now an essential way to get things done in the modern world and to participate in the market economy. A smartphone is a portable computer, it lets you do (almost) all the things you can with a computer on the go. It is quickly becoming essential. People need these things.

An Apple watch is just a useless status symbol, like all watches this day in age.

1. I know people who do not consider a smartphone essential. I may personally disagree (to a first approximation for those who can afford one) but not everyone wants to have one.

2. >like all watches this day in age

So, are you arguing that my $30 Timex is a useless status symbol? There sure seem to be plenty of watches of that sort still forsale.

> An Apple watch is just a useless status symbol, like all watches this day in age.

This argument gets thrown out a lot and there is certainly some truth to it. However it is also a very sucky symbol as it is mostly hidden in sleeve and even when it isn't, most people can't tell a difference between a cheap ~200$ watch and one worth 100 times more unless it is laden with jewels or golden.

Apple Watch is certainly not useless even if you don't have a use for it. It doesn't fit my life either, but I can easily imagine a life in which it would.

> A computer is now an essential way to get things done in the modern world and to participate in the market economy.

I would say Internet is the essential way, not computers. Take the Internet out and the equation changes completely and you can't do much without it. Take the computers out, it still remains a valid statement.

You can use any devices you want to get on the Internet; computers, smartphones, tablets, and so on. It is up to you and you do not "need" any specific device, you "want" the smartphone because it is the most convenient portable device you can use.

Do everyone need computers? No, do everyone need Internet? Most yes, it may be the only way to pay bills for some, it may be the only way to securely communicate in an oppressive country, and so on.

You can use libraries to get access to the Internet without owning any of the electronics. So, no, people don't need these devices but they may need the Internet and they want the devices to make their life easier.

Apple, please do to Google Glass what you did to Blackberry.

This will help against police brutality, false reports against yourself, etc.

Everyone needs one, yesterday.

This article is about how people don't even want to wear a watch, and you think people will want to wear something on their faces?

Yes, because the recordings would be useful, while the watch does nothing a smartphone can't do.

And I do wear something on my face all the time, glasses. Something Google Glass totally ignored, real glasses integrated with the hardware.

I'd be ready to bet the same article will be written in a year about Microsoft's (and others) laptop-tablet convertibles.

The 2nd generation Apple Watch will be faster, thinner, sexier and all the old bands will still work. (Just guessing of course) Even if they launched the Gen 2 in the next couple of months, two out of three Watch owners will upgrade.

This is already a decent little earner for Apple.

Four years after launch, it's now clear that the web does not need another useless news publication.

there is a $35 knockoff watch that is the perfect testing platform for whether the smartwatch like the apple watch is going to be a useful item. It doesn't have the app ecosystem but it has a decent UI, decent battery, decent connectivity. You can even make a call through it apparently, which is nuts for the price IMO. And if you find you don't like it, you can likely find someone who will very easily to just give it to. I'm not sure about the fitness functionality but it delivers the goods in terms of what it's like having one on your wrist and being able to noodle around with it.

>> In terms of usability, the watch has proven a tough sell. US presidential hopeful and die-hard Apple fan Jeb Bush didn’t even know his Apple Watch could make and receive calls. <<

With arguments like this, I wonder why this article is on HN :)

a) Crashing by 10-30 times the sales of previous smart watches,

b) an 5-8 million in sales (estimations go from a low 3.1 million to a high 10.5 million),

c) and 60% of its buyers saying they'll buy the next model too (just one year after they bought the previous one)? http://appadvice.com/post/most-apple-watch-owners-are-planni...

Sure, it's very "clear"...

Except if they mean "no one needs an Apple Watch" literally, in which case DUH!

My phone is my watch no. 1

Just because my stove tells me the time that doesn't make it my watch.

Mainly because a stove is rather cumbersome to carry around. But most people carry a (smart)phone around anyway, so why bother with a wrist-chafing watch on top of that?

Because a phone needs to be brought it out to check the time or notifications.

Here are reasons why I still wear a watch: I regularly have to visit places where personal electronics are not allowed, but I still need to keep track of what time it is.

But more importantly I wear watches because I enjoy wearing them. I enjoy choosing my watch based on what else I'm wearing that day. It's an accessory and fashion choice.

> wrist-chafing

You've been wearing your watch wrong, I think. A watch strap should be adjusted to give a comfortable fit on the wrist, I bought a cheap GBP 10.00 stainless steel band for my LG Watch R (Android Wear) that I then got adjusted in a small watch repair market stall by a friendly Russian gentleman for another GBP 5.00 and my watch now fits perfectly. The watch works just like an analog watch with always-on time and is a useful addition to my smart phone...

My stove tells me the time and thus I don't need an additional clock on the wall in the kitchen.

Funny aside. The decorative clock on my shelf does not work, but I can see 5 digital clocks from where I'm sitting right now. Would anyone think to look at real clock for the time anymore?

I love being able to keep my phone ringer completely off all the time, and yet never miss a call. "Need" it? No. Super convenient and gives me an advantage? Yes.

I'm currently own an Apple Watch. If the future revision can operate without the iPhone, then I plan to leave the phone at home when I go out.

And I consider the title of the article almost as the confirmation that the Apple Watch is OK. Note how carefully it is worded. It's certainly not "it's clear nobody buys." It's not "nobody will buy." It's "no one needs."

Even before the Apple Watch no one who had a smartphone "needed" a watch.

Would things have been different if Apple hadn't branded it as a watch?

what else would you brand it as?

it is a watch.

The Apple Wrist-Mounted Ancillary Phone Interface™!

The Apple W.A.T.C.H.

Wrist Activated Taptic-notifying Checking Heartrates!

My work offered a deep discount on one, and I thought, even if it was free, I don't need it. Here is the famous Apple Watch, talked about so much, and I didn't even wanted as a free thing.

I found people who wear Apple watch are solely the reviewers on Youtube. One time I found someone has one in front of me while ordering coffee. Turns out he is working at Genuis bar.

Apple thought they can sell anything with an Apple logo. Market mechanics proved how horribly wrong they are.

Are you kidding? No post-ipod Apple device hasn't sold. Even devices with no real market need, like the Apple watch sell in their thousands.

Millions.

Possible counterexample: iPod Hi-Fi.

Really a rather inexplicable product. There were already numerous iPod docks on the market when it launched, and was neither cheaper, prettier, nor more functional than its competitors.

I don't think Apple released any exact sales numbers, but it's safe to assume it was a flop. The iPod Hi-Fi was quietly discontinued about a year and a half after its launch, and there are less than a dozen currently being sold on eBay.

A few years back, I got a free iPod HiFi from work. It spent a year gathering dust in my bedroom. Then I spent $30 on one of these, and it suddenly stopped sucking:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bluetooth-receiver-for-Apple-1121-so...

I understand why Apple marketing thought it would be cool to wedge your phone in the thing at a 90 degree angle... unfortunately for Apple, normal people look at that, and just think "no."

> I understand why Apple marketing thought it would be cool to wedge your phone in the thing at a 90 degree angle...

Nitpick: iPod, not iPhone.

The iPod Hi-Fi was released before the iPhone was even announced, and was discontinued entirely just over a month after the iPhone was released. While I believe it was technically compatible with the iPhone (as both devices used the same dock connector), this clearly wasn't an intended use case.

(And in any case, the early iPhones weren't very good music players - they had very limited storage for music, and streaming services were not available until much later.)

Thanks for the corrections. When I bought the dongle, I already had an iPod Touch. I wanted an iPhone, but they weren't available in Europe yet (without a jailbreak, anyways). So I guess a couple years had passed since I got it. My memory is apparently very bad!

Bluetooth didn't work like a damn for music when the Hi-Fi came out. Spec was only 3 years baked, and wasn't in anything, certainly not the iPods everyone had been buying at the time. We wouldn't see an iPod with bluetooth for another couple years.

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