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Comment by richard_cubano | Hacker News Reader

The single version of the watch is spot on. As is the implicit point that maybe they could have hit this year's holiday season if they hadn't tried to make so many different versions.

The best part of what you wrote is the end, where Steve ties the watch to the human experience. I hadn't thought about his keynotes from that lens before -- you showed me something new.

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I feel like a fool sometimes where I have my iPhone out and everyone else around me does too. At least theirs are sometimes white. Now – your wrist is almost always visible. Once everyone gets an Apple Watch, if there were just one single minimalist design, it would start to feel less like a watch and more like a dog tag.

The idea that a different screen size or a bunch of watch bands would cause a delay of 3 months is pretty ridiculous. The far more likely scenario is that either (a) there are serious hardware showstoppers, (b) yield issues with certain components or (c) the battery life is still unacceptable.

Also the single version of a watch is a really dumb premise. A watch is a fashion accessory so you need to support people's varying tastes.

Apple did the right thing by releasing dozens of customization options for watch. They also did the right thing by having different sized watch mad phone. The whole average adult hand size is just that. Average. It ignores the fact that women have much smaller hands and wrist.

Phone has evolved to become everyday life commodity. You have to consider practical needs for devices that are going to be on you half your waking life.

What worked for apple in the past may not work for them in the future. For what they are they are solid devices.

The bigger problem apple has isn't the marketing. Its that they are making products that are predictable.

Missing the holiday season is intentional -- for one, Apple does that all the time, to great effect re Q2 sales (they require no additional holiday sales boost). Secondly, they deliberately licked the cookie of this product category, which is going to annihilate holiday quarter sales for their competitors and most likely cripple wearables teams in terms of group buyin for the coming year.

Wouldn't it be even worse for other wearable companies if people could, you know, buy the iWatch in time for the holidays?

Not necessarily.

There could also be a "Well if Apple is going to release something right after the holidays, the other companies might try to make better models right after the apple watch comes out" feeling. Sort of the feeling that Apple might get one-upped by Samsung, et al.

I've heard other criticism about missing the holiday season. I suppose I feel like.. they're building a 20 year platform here. What's one holiday season?

Besides, with this timing, they can sell early adopters this "Ipad 1" of a watch and possibly release the Watch 2 in time for Christmas 2015.

Apple frequently "misses" the holiday season. Each version of the iPod Mini was launched in January of all times. The full sized iPod in summer. The iPad is in a March cycle.

I honestly have no idea whether it would have been better for Apple to sell a single version of the watch, but I see no reason to assume that Steve would have made a different decision, seeing as Apple sold 5 different colors of iMacs simultaneously under his leadership. At least the watch doesn't come in flower power or blue dalmation.

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