Apple Watch sales to consumers set record in holiday week, says Apple's Cook | Hacker News Reader

Apple Watch sales to consumers set record in holiday week, says Apple's Cook

reuters.com

16 pointsjessaustin44 comments

Is this real or some accounting trick? Anecdotally, I saw a lot of these being worn in public after they first came out, but there's been a sharp drop-off since then. This applies to Android watches too -- I don't think the product has been compelling enough for people to put up with nightly charging.

So are we supposed to see another glut of people wearing these things after this holiday season? Then maybe followed by another drop-off?

It would be extremely unwise for the CEO of a very public company to make such a statement if it weren't true.

The lift in units sold must definitely be affected by the recent price drop.

Anecdotal evidence: we have a fitness app that connects with the Apple Watch, and we have seen a large number of users connect their Apple Watch (about 7% of our total user base). We get data from these watches on a regular basis which means the watches are on and being used.

The battery is still terrible (barely runs a day) compared to Fitbit Blaze (5-7 days).

Maybe I do not use mine to its potential, but it is midnight here just before bed, and my series 2 is at 73%. Certainly not 5 to 7 days, but far longer than barely a day.

Same -- my series 1 is at 75%, and it's 9pm...

Also the Fitbit Blaze has 1/100th the functionality and cpu power.

Believe me, I'm a big fan of the Apple Watch.

Everytime I meet someone who uses (used to use) the Watch, it usually turns out they have given up because of short battery life. I have a series 1: looks like it has improved in recent versions. I'm glad to hear that. Mine barely lasts a day.

Battery life is really important. Many of my friends see smartwatches as primarily a fitness device, and when the comparison with Fitbit (or anyone else) happens, it usually comes last.

My hope is that Apple focusses aggressively on making the iWatch battery life longer. That would undoubtedly lead to further lift in sales and happier customers.

Unless you got it in the last two months, you don't have a series 1. You have an "Apple Watch".

* Apple Watch - released last year

* Apple Watch Series 1 - released in September of this year, has new CPU, but otherwise mostly same

* Apple Watch Series 2 - latest edition

Same for me. Series 1. I routinely finish the day with about 70%. Full brightness and an hour of fitness tracking (i.e. all sensors on) in the morning.

Something is defective with the watch or it isn't running watchOS 3 if it isn't lasting a day. I can easily last a weekend.

More anicdata, my original makes it through the day with 60%. It does about 40 hours on a charge. This is with fitness tracking and notifications on.

I put mine on at 7:30am, and its now 4:56pm and I'm sitting at 61%.

My Series 2 can do two full days (not wearing while sleeping) even with heavy notifications. My original one definitely couldn't, but the series 2 can.

I was thinking the same thing, yet I don't have a sense it is super popular or thing to get for holidays. What I think, without any solid evidence, is that sales are probably higher, but nothing major and that Mr. Cook just formulated this as they need a win of some sorts.

BTW, both android and apple watches are not very practical in terms of battery life. You had Blaze, I had Basis Peak which could do 10 days. I think Pebble is probably the most reasonable solution, unfortunately they just got acquired, so not really sure what will happen there.

I've got the Series 2 (first smartwatch I've owned) and it lasts 3 full days.

I'm not wearing it at night and I don't overuse it in the day. I also don't consciously NOT use it, to preserve battery life. Note the double negative. (Maybe I got this wrong; what I meant: I don't make the conscious decision to use my watch very lightly in order to preserve its battery life. If I have to use it, I use it. I don't go out of my way to make the battery last.)

I use Siri a lot, I sometimes take my calls on my Watch (when I am at home or alone), I use it to remote control Apple Music on my iPhone, I receive tons of notifications, I use it to check my work calendar and weather an awful lot, I have lots of apps with background refresh enabled (weather, calendar, emails, etc.), I didn't disable the GPS, it's recording my steps and activity at all time.

Very, very satisfied with the battery life. I thought it would be terrible based on Apple Watch (the old one, not the newer, revised Series 1).

Anecdotally, I've noticed more Apple watches on random wrists in the last few months. And I saw my first Apple Watch boarding pass swipe two days ago.

>Is this real or some accounting trick? Anecdotally, I saw a lot of these being worn in public after they first came out, but there's been a sharp drop-off since then.

Depends on where you live. In several big cities I visited last month, I've seen them 10-15 times in various random people and on 2 friends I've met (from an overall of 30+ friends).

They're not like the iPhone of course, that sells 60+ millions per quarter and has done so for 9+ years, we're talking about a watch that sells around 1-2 million here (and that probably globally), so much less chance of seeing one.

Naturally, I just noticed someone wearing one today. It's quite possible that I only paid attention when they first came out, and if I pay more attention again now I'll see them more often. Let's see how this goes.

On the other hand I just jumped the boat on smartwatches and bought myself a Withings Activite.

It's a normal watch, no LEDs display, but it's filled with trackers and sync with my phone via BLE. I need to recharge it every 8 months. So far it's been great :)

I like to see how much I sleep, or how many steps I did. (I don't know how but it picks up when I go jogging on a treadmill.)

The thing I wish it had was a heart rate tracker. It looks like smartwatch who have that need more frequent recharges though :/

The term is called "sell-through" and Apple is one of the few tech companies to use sell-through. It means units actually sold to customers. So no, there is no trick.

Most other tech companies report sell-in which is units sold to retailers. You can game those numbers by what's called "channel stuffing". You "sell" tons of units to distributors and retailers, many of which will ultimately be returned unsold or cleared out at fire sale prices which you'll be forced to give a rebate on. By then all the tech journalists will have moved on to the next shiny bauble and no one will notice you only sold 20% as many units as you claimed or ate losses on 30% completely wiping out your profit margin.

The piece does cite sell-through, specifically. Is it a meaningful event w/r/t wearables? What are interesting use cases for this watch or others?

> The term is called "sell-through" and Apple is one of the few tech companies to use sell-through. It means units actually sold to customers. So no, there is no trick.

Sell-through is a percentage of units sold to customers related to units sent to stores so it doesn't say much without the total amount sent

And apple gives sell-though when they can, iPhone sales are reported as sell-in when they are not sold though Apple Stores

Really? I've been noticing them everywhere* I go lately. I think the real reason you've not seen them is you weren't looking. You noticed them more before because you were subconsciously "looking".

* both US coasts, Denver, and two "middle America" states (I saw 4 people in a WalMart in Berryville, AR even, not a place known for affluent tech consumers)

Was at Best Buy recently, the Apple Watch display table was much huddled around.

I see this essentially as Cook protecting shareholder value against really poor analysis because the quarterly reports don't break down watch sales figures into its own category. How does the gift card Black Friday deal cut into revenue, is the question I have.

You take your casual observation and start talking like it's fact. Your anecdotal evidence of decline is wrong.

It's probably real, but to steal someone else's line, they're "selling like an unspecified number of hotcakes".[1]

And to steal another line (from Steve Jobs, related to Amazon's vague brags of Kindle Sales) - "Usually, if they sell a lot of something, you want to tell everybody." [2]

It would be nice to know the actual quantities of watches being sold from the horse's mouth as opposed to guesstimates from analysts.

[1] http://www.technologizer.com/2010/08/25/new-kindle-is-here-s...

[2] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/in-qa-steve-jobs-sn...

I laughed on "Apple's Cook" in the link title

I just bought one of the nike+ ones to replace my year old fitbit. Built in GPS + Waterproof is what finally sold me.

Unfortunately and I'm guessing related to the story it is expected to be 10 business days from order for it to actually ship(across all models). Pick up in store was even longer with it being over 20 days at all the Apple stores I checked.

Waterproof or "waterproof"? My fitbit charge is "waterproof" but not recommended for swimming.

What's the software like too? From a brief look it seems like nike+ is mostly focused on running which fitbit has been moving beyond.

Series 2 is waterproof and rated for swimming.

Waterproof to 50m. I'm replacing a charge HR which isn't even "waterproof" as far as I was aware(pretty sure they said to not even shower with it in the instructions).

To answer your second question:

I got the nike+ because I've started to get more into running lately. The only difference between the nike+ model and the others is a special interface for the nike run club app and a different wrist strap so not a huge difference but enough to make me choose it.

I'm having trouble figuring out what the Nike+ running app on the new watch does.

Does it do things like mapping of your route, graphing it, showing elevation and pace on sections, things like that? Can you run programs for intervals or hills sessions or advanced things like that?

I tried it in an Apple store and it just seemed like a stopwatch, but I wasn't sure if I was just not looking in the right place.

Yeah it will map your route using the built in GPS and show you Time/Distance/Pace/HR. I don't think it handles splits yet. I am doing one of the my coach training programs on the phone so I'm hoping it is seamless to the watch but I don't know for sure yet. If it sucks though I can always just go back to Runkeeper. :)

And a Nike Watch face, and the ability to use the Volt color for watchfaces.

Apple watch starts at $269. Apple Watch Nike at $369.

I'm really impressed by how Apple is able to charge an extra $100 just by allowing a custom app to run on the home screen. Brilliant!

No, Series 1 starts at $269. All Series 2 models start at $369, and the Nike models are priced at the same price points as other Series 2 models.

You're confused. Apple Watch version 2 starts at $369. Apple Watch Nike+ (which is also a version 2 device) also starts at $369.

It's the Apple Watch version 1 (not to be confused with the original Apple Watch, which was discontinued, despite being obviously confusing to just about anyone) is what starts at $269.

That makes way more sense. Thanks for correcting.

PS: I momentarily thought maybe Apple had 'pulled a Siri' on the Watch. When the iPhone 4S came out, Apple deleted Siri from the App Store so only new (4S and later) devices had it. Pretty sure it increased upgrade rate.

Really annoys me that Apple made the versioning so confusing for the watch. As a WatchOS developer, it's really important to know there's three distinct versions, but I argue even a consumer should probably know (especially if buying used).

No wonder I was confused (and I'm a WatchOS developer).

That may partially be because of the timing of the releases. This is only the second holiday season for the Apple Watch, and this one coincides better with the wave of sales that is to be expected shortly after releasing a product (the original Watch was released in April 2015, the updated one in September 2016)

It's the holidays, these are gifts. At this time of year sales <> adoption.

Would increased adoption rates drive app dev in significant new areas? Or does a bigger base primarily mean iterations on the same type fitness apps?

Personally I think it's a fad and not long for this world.

Apple watches are expensive enough that I bet most are specifically requested as gifts. Some percentage will be "I thought you might like this", but most will probably be "this is the thing you asked for."

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