Mostly it’s saying “meh.”
- Wall Street Journal: Apple’s Watch Outpaced the iPhone in First Year. Despite sizable sales, Apple’s latest product has challenges to overcome
- Yahoo Finance: Apple Watch turns one year old and trounces iPhone sales
- Pymnts: Apple Watch Is Outperforming iPhone 1.0 — So, Why Does It Feel Like A Bust?
- Bloomberg video: Success or Disappointment: One Year of the Apple Watch
- Wareable: Why we’re frustrated by what could have been
- CNET: 7 reasons people aren’t wearing their Apple Watch
- Macworld: 12 reasons I still wear my Apple Watch every day
- The New Daily: One year on, the Apple Watch is a let-down
- Forbes: Apple Watch One Year On: Too Great Expectations?
- Gizmodo: My God-Awful Year with the Apple Watch
- International Business Times: Despite a $6B Business, The Wearable Is Considered a Flop
- Marketing Land: The Apple Watch is a flop — or is it?
- Fortune: At One Year Old Is Apple’s Watch a Flop? Not Exactly.
- 500ish Words: A Flop Unlike Any Other… The amazingly underwhelming Apple Watch
The Macalope went meta:
- Macworld: Over-the-top: Making your Apple Watch diatribe stand out
CNET’s “Are you still wearing it?” video captures the arc of the media’s narrative: from unsustainable hype to a glass that’s less than half full.
What the media is saying: “Results are mixed and inconclusive, but they are definitely negative for Apple, who have breathed new life into an otherwise totally non-existent product category.”
Just sayin’.
Mr. Cook can’t win. Not reporting sales figures works great for competitors, but not for Apple. Reporting sales figures becomes all-consuming for analysts.
I keep hearing “flop” and “disaster”. I don’t get it. With estimates of 12 million for the year it seems like a stunning success.
The Apple Watch made $6 billion dollars in its first year. During that same time period, Rolex made $4.5 billion. Now think about that for a minute. In its debut year the Apple Watch surpassed the THE premier watch company by 1.5 billion dollars.
So yeah, the dollars are, you know, kinda sorta okay.
The product obviously has a long way to go. But I owned the original Macintosh and the original iPhone and the original iPad — and they al had a long way to go too. The next iteration of the Watch will probably come out in September, a year and a half after the original. It will be faster and more powerful for sure. Will Apple have rethought it too? Probably. We’ll have to wait and see. But that’s the point. We should wait before declaring the Apple watch yea, or nay or “meh”.
Love your insights. Had to laugh at the comp to Rolex.
I see the watch as part of grand plan for wearable Apple devices, biometrics, health kit, VR/AR, and ambient intelligence. The prime real estate for wearables comprises wrist, ear, and eye. Apple will make great strides. But compared to $233B in annual revenue, each step will be reported as “incremental”.
My Apple Watch is totally integrated into my life.
Although technologically sophisticated and a long time user of Apple technology I am usually not an early adopter of new technology. I am usually content to get the best out of last year’s technology while spending less than those who rush into using the new.
Around this time last year I decided that I would run in my home town Marathon in June this year. It was thirty years or more since I had been active in sport.
A friend bought me an Apple Watch.
Having a device on my wrist that could tell me my heart-rate and the pace at which I am running has been magical and has transformed my training. I know that devices by Garmin and Fitbit also do that, but with the Apple Watch I can receive texts, phone calls and even emails while I am running. The Watch has integrated into my running and running with the watch has integrated my running into my life.
I would be lost without my Apple Watch – sometimes literally – the discreet provision of directions while walking though strange cities has also been a great bonus.