When the idea of the Apple Watch was published earlier this year, I was skeptical. As we know, Apple is a leading force in the technological world. Almost everyone you see walking down the street is either talking on their iPhone, listening to music on their iPod or using their iPad or Macbook. It is hard to escape Apple products. The demand for Apple to come out with the “new best thing” was high. Apple describes the Apple Watch as “our most personal device yet.” Wikipedia describes the Apple Watch as a smartwatch developed by Apple Inc. that incorporates health-oriented capabilities as well as integration with iOS (Apple product software) and other Apple products and services (Wikipedia). The Apple Watch is basically supposed to be an iPhone or Macbook on your wrist. Since people were skeptical about the Apple Watch, many were expecting sales to follow the trend of the skeptical views. Surprisingly, Apple Inc. sold more Apple Watches in their first quarter that the Apple Watch was available, than it did iPad or iPhones (Wakabayashil). This raises the question, why were people so skeptical? Is the Apple Watch a bust? Wall Street Journal says that after the Apple Watch was first introduced in April, customers were not able to buy any models of the Apple Watch in store until the middle of June. Wall Street Journal suggests that it would be unfair to call the Apple Watch a bust. Even if Apple were to sell all of their least-expensive models, the Apple Watch revenues would have surpassed $1 billion (Wakabayashil).
So? What do you have to think about the Apple Watch? Does anyone have an Apple Watch? If so, was it worth the purchase?
Original Article:
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/08/27/apple-watch-sales-may-be-pretty-good-after-all/?mod=ST1
Sites Used:
http://www.apple.com/watch/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Watch
As a marketing major, there have been countless times we have studied Apple from a variety of different angles in my all of my classes. Everything from innovative techniques down to branding. When reading this post, it reminded me of Steve Jobs death back in 2011. I was only a junior in high school but I will never forget the pressures put on Apple to see how, or even if, they would succeed after such a tragedy. His mission, the company mission, is the belief that “true innovation must consider everything.” Yet from a consumer perception, how many times have we heard our friends, or family members, make comments on the similarities between all their products. The iPhone like a smaller iPad which is a bigger iPad mini and etc. Of course Apple combats this by saying their products have the same accessible features across the board so it’s easy for all learning abilities. And here they are, time after time, coming out with new products with indistinguishable “new” features and still reaching high revenues. The line for the iPhone 6 last year exceeded 10 blocks including people camping out.
Now not to be biased, but I do believe that the brand equity Apple has established for themselves most likely plays the biggest role to the success of their products. Take a look at their new 2015 Macbook. I have provided a link below of an Apple Engineer who worked directly on the project, and the genuine bad quality of it. The laptop had no extra USB or Thunderbolt ports, the battery was too small, and the pixels on the laptop camera were fewer than the pixels of a iPod. He even makes the comment “Steve Jobs would have fired us all.”
So I guess the question comes down to “who” was skeptical of the Apple Watch?
This is not the first bad blunder Tim Cook has experienced with the company after taking over as CEO, and yet they still witness a positive trend in their revenues. I personally think it’s really good for the company to be stepping outside of their comfort zone and finally trying something new and maybe a little bit awkward, because not only can they afford taking these risks, but it falls in line with the company vision. Now do I believe it’s the best product out there of it’s kind and they’ve earned their revenues, not necessarily. But for someone like me who has a slightly negative opinion of the company, I do believe its good to see them attempting new innovations.
Macbook video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHZ8ek-6ccc
Tim Cook blunders: http://news.sky.com/story/1341964/apples-seven-blunders-since-steve-jobs-died
Apple revenues: http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AAPL+Interactive#{“range”:”10y”,”allowChartStacking”:true}