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People who buy mechanical watches for 3k+ buy them because they are beautifully engineered and finished works of art. Trust me, I'm one of them. Most of us will not swap out our Tudors, our Omegas, our Patek's, or our VC's with one of these. It's just a different market.


The thing is though, once a watch can do more than tell time, the market is going to expand dramatically. If a killer app comes out, I expect the original market to get crowded out.


Well, I just don't think that most of the people who wear watches as jewelry (like myself) care for a watch to do any more than it already does. I appreciate the beauty of a watch and the (old school) engineering behind it. I don't want something like this. Just a different market.

To give you some perspective, I'm a bit of a watch freak, certainly not the norm. Hell, I visit and participate in more than one watch forum on a daily basis. Mine is the general sentiment being expressed in those forums.


It's not a watch doing more than it already does; it's other devices converging onto your wrist.

You used to have to carry a camera around if you wanted to take pictures. Now that's part of the hunk of silicon in your pocket. Similarly, you used to have to carry a bunch of plastic cards in a wallet. Now that's part of the hunk of silicon on your wrist.

The hunk of silicon on your wrist isn't a "watch that does more" any more than a device that's both a camera, a PDA, a GPS, etc. is a "phone that does more." It's a convergence of several orthogonal devices that isn't a phone, or a watch, at all.

Thinking of the Apple Watch as primarily a watch obscures the value proposition. It has the form factor of a watch, but it may as well not tell time at all, for all people will care about that feature of it. In fact, maybe it's better to pretend it doesn't tell time, to help you cut through to the real reasons people would want one on their wrist.


The problem is that it competes with something that I love. I have to chose one or the other and, as a watch collector/enthusiast/lover/obsessor (I seriously love watches) it will never win. Ever.


I'm willing to bet that Apple doesn't care about watch enthusiasts who will never buy anything but a mechanical watch.


I bet the same, but that's not what we're talking about here.


You do have two wrists, right?


I really hope you're joking.


Mostly, but perhaps we'll see wristbands that don't look like watches that can be worn on the other wrist?


Actually, that's exactly what the watch enthusiast crowd seems to be asking for. They will never replace their Omegas with this, but they would be open to wearing a band on the other wrist a la fitbit.


"if a killer app"

That's a pretty big "if" though isn't it?

The killer features of watches is that they tell the time. Yet the jury is still out on the Apple Watch (and horribly divided, it seems).


The killer feature of phones is that they call people. My £10 candy bar phone does that far better than the iPhone, but I don't think that Apple is too worried.


And here I thought the killer watch app was telling time!




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