At $10k it's one of the cheaper solid gold watches out there. I'm sure for quite a few wealthy people in China $10k is a perfectly fine price point for a disposable tech toy with some cool features.
What surprised me was the price for the bands for the stainless steel version of Apple Watch. Sure a link bracelet from Omega would run you upward to $1000, and I'm sure Apple's one may even match Omega's in quality, but an Omega watch starts at $6k minimum, which means a band costs at most 15% of the price of the Watch.
Where as in Apple's case those bands are priced at 40 - 80% of the price of the watch they are meant for, that's...very uncommon in the watch world.
Good point, people were speculating that the innards would be swappable, but actually it looks like the model is that you keep the band, but swap the watchpiece.
So when V2 comes out in 2 years, you keep your $400 band, and just pay $500 for the watchpiece.
Why China? $10k is a very normal price for high-end watches world over. It's only a question of whether Apple has the same appeal as say, Omega or Rolex- two other watch-brands that sell in that price-range.
I thought that the debut of smart-watches were supposed to transform the watch industry and consumer attitudes towards it (where a watch's useful life can be anywhere from 5 to 50+ years).
Towards that goal, A 400$ watch with a life of 3-5 years sounds like a reasonable proposition, but 10,000$ for a watch with the same obsolescence is frankly ridiculous.
The title is a bit misleading. The sports watch edition starts at 350. What I would consider "high end" are the ones going from 800 to 1000, I think.
What this title suggests are "High End" at 10.000, I would consider "Luxury End". The 10 grand ones come in 18k Gold casings. I would really rather call that "Luxury" instead of "High End"...
At that price range you are competing with luxury watches, which will still retain their value 10, 20, 50 years from now.
But with this smartwatch you're investing 10,000 usd in something that will be outperformed and obsoleted by a 350 usd watch in 2, maybe 3 years and reach end-of-Life soon afterwards. Are there people who are still willing to pay for such a device. Sure(Think the Vertu crowd). Are they a big enough market to be worth the trouble. I am not so sure.
10 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 37.3 ms ] threadWhat surprised me was the price for the bands for the stainless steel version of Apple Watch. Sure a link bracelet from Omega would run you upward to $1000, and I'm sure Apple's one may even match Omega's in quality, but an Omega watch starts at $6k minimum, which means a band costs at most 15% of the price of the Watch.
Where as in Apple's case those bands are priced at 40 - 80% of the price of the watch they are meant for, that's...very uncommon in the watch world.
So when V2 comes out in 2 years, you keep your $400 band, and just pay $500 for the watchpiece.
Yup, totally sounds like something apple would let you do.
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc18/gaijinnv/Rolex18K_09...
I would be shocked if the most expensive Apple watch had more 2oz of 18k gold or roughly $1,750 in value.
Apple won't sell too many gold ones and they know it.
China.
Towards that goal, A 400$ watch with a life of 3-5 years sounds like a reasonable proposition, but 10,000$ for a watch with the same obsolescence is frankly ridiculous.
What this title suggests are "High End" at 10.000, I would consider "Luxury End". The 10 grand ones come in 18k Gold casings. I would really rather call that "Luxury" instead of "High End"...
At that price range you are competing with luxury watches, which will still retain their value 10, 20, 50 years from now.
But with this smartwatch you're investing 10,000 usd in something that will be outperformed and obsoleted by a 350 usd watch in 2, maybe 3 years and reach end-of-Life soon afterwards. Are there people who are still willing to pay for such a device. Sure(Think the Vertu crowd). Are they a big enough market to be worth the trouble. I am not so sure.