cardfan
Well-known member
I agree with you on this. The Watch Editions is the first High End, Luxury Smart-watch, and it’s not geared towards us. It’s geared towards people who have high disposable income. People who can spend more in a day, than any of us make in a year.
Simply put, this is the Smart-watch is for the 1%
As a CPA, I focus on high income individuals and business entities. Few would spend this amount no matter what. It depends on what it is. Clothes? Sure but not on one item. Have to look good though.. Car? Same and more but it has a long life. Watch or other jewelry? Sure, but it's a long term asset.
Fine jewelry retains its value. This can't be said enough. These folks who buy a 40k watch know it's going to be worth that, if not more, later. It's considered a long term asset with a long useful life. The apple watch edition? It's an electronic device and I'd classify it as I would a computer with a short useful life. Very very few, regardless of income level, wants to throw away 10-20k.
It will be remarkable if Apple can convince enough people to buy the edition at those prices. It's a completely new category for Apple though. And most interesting is how they're using it to market the whole category and promote the idea of the Apple watch as fashion AND..get people to accept the prices of the steel watch. But it can backfire. I've seen a lot of resentment from even what I would consider apple fans who basically have been teased for months and had their hopes dashed. This isn't something they can hope one day to purchase...it's just forever out of their reach.
Will they resent Apple enough to switch to something else is the thing. For a company already seen as greedy, this didn't go over well. Apple basically just fired a nuke if you weren't quite sure before.
BTW... does anyone take Tim Cook seriously when he talks customer satisfaction ratings? Here he is from last year:
But what’s most important to us is that customers are enjoying their iPads and using them heavily. In a survey conducted in May by Changewave, iPad Air registered a 98 percent customer satisfaction rate, while iPad mini with Retina display received an astonishing 100 percent customer satisfaction rate.
And yesterday he said the iphones have a 99 percent customer sat rating. These numbers sound so unrealistic that it makes it very hard to trust anything else coming out of his mouth. It's better left unsaid IMO.