<story><title>Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/01/apple-watch-sales-up-over-50-since-last-year/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Steko</author><text>The jobs the watch will do aren&amp;#x27;t as clear cut as it was for the iPod.&lt;p&gt;The iPod let you listen to music and carried lots of (or all of) your music and had software that made it easy to convert and manage your digital music and buy more over the internet.  Those were things basically everyone wanted and it did that better than competitors.&lt;p&gt;The watch?  Well yeah it tells time, but it&amp;#x27;s worse at that then most watches and everyone already carries a device that tells time which the watch can&amp;#x27;t replace. Yeah, it gives you slightly faster access to notifications but not everyone needs that. Yeah, it has some good health&amp;#x2F;tracking benefits but that&amp;#x27;s not a huge deal to most people. Imho the best use of the watch is for (mobile OS)-Pay&amp;#x2F;mobile ID but adoption is still weak (unless you&amp;#x27;re in Tokyo) and it can be delivered with a much smaller wearable.</text></item><item><author>mortenjorck</author><text>I’ve been saying it all along: to understand the Apple Watch, look to the iPod. The first three years of iPod sales were minuscule compared to the following ten: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;commons.m.wikimedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;commons.m.wikimedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;File:Ipod_sales_per_qua...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The two products occupy a very similar space of affordable luxury; they are not world-changing like the Mac or iPhone, but category-defining. Through gradual iteration and segmentation, Apple slowly turned its niche product into a cultural force.&lt;p&gt;Just wait until the iPod Classic 5G equivalent of the Watch comes out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dsacco</author><text>I have a few points for you in response:&lt;p&gt;1. I&amp;#x27;m what you&amp;#x27;d call a &amp;quot;watch guy.&amp;quot; In the time I have had the Apple Watch Series 2, I have barely used my mechanicals (including a Lange &amp;amp; Sohne and a Nomos Glashutte). The Apple Watch comes with me on all but the most formal&amp;#x2F;elegant occasions, and I now hate changing straps on my mechanical watches in comparison. The Apple Watch may not be as beautiful, but it is far more versatile and useful. When I want to dress it up a bit, I throw a Hermes leather strap on it, which works nicely in just about everything other than a suit (which is essentially the only time I&amp;#x27;d jump back to the Lange).&lt;p&gt;2. You&amp;#x27;re vastly underestimating the utility of quick replies on the Apple Watch, in particular. I have quick replies for every conceivable response I could give to someone that is fewer than five words or so. This makes a lot of communication much faster because I don&amp;#x27;t need to take out my phone - I can tap, &amp;quot;congratulations&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;cool!&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;no&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;yes&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m in a meeting&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m in a movie&amp;quot;, etc.&lt;p&gt;3. Having notifications or synced functionality on the watch is a very frictionless way of enhancing iPhone interaction. As other commenters have said I can quickly glance at a multitude of things, not just the time. If I receive a message on Slack, I don&amp;#x27;t need to take my phone out if it&amp;#x27;s not something that requires my attention. When driving, I can have directions on my wrist directly, instead of on my dashboard. I can even have conversations on my wrist, hands free, while cooking. These are all ways it&amp;#x27;s directly enhanced my life in ways I wouldn&amp;#x27;t have really thought of without trying it.&lt;p&gt;4. I run a fair amount - at least 30 miles each week. The Apple Watch is the single most empowering device I&amp;#x27;ve ever had for quantified self tracking and fitness enhancement. Having a pair of Airpods and an Apple Watch is a fantastic combination - I can&amp;#x27;t even imagine bringing my phone with my on a run anymore. I can look at my wrist to see my pace and split information, and that&amp;#x27;s just on the native Workout app. I can track my heart rate constantly using something like Cardiogram. I can also track my sleep. There is a massive amount of data enablement that I can now see and monitor as much as I want in the Health app.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/01/apple-watch-sales-up-over-50-since-last-year/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Steko</author><text>The jobs the watch will do aren&amp;#x27;t as clear cut as it was for the iPod.&lt;p&gt;The iPod let you listen to music and carried lots of (or all of) your music and had software that made it easy to convert and manage your digital music and buy more over the internet.  Those were things basically everyone wanted and it did that better than competitors.&lt;p&gt;The watch?  Well yeah it tells time, but it&amp;#x27;s worse at that then most watches and everyone already carries a device that tells time which the watch can&amp;#x27;t replace. Yeah, it gives you slightly faster access to notifications but not everyone needs that. Yeah, it has some good health&amp;#x2F;tracking benefits but that&amp;#x27;s not a huge deal to most people. Imho the best use of the watch is for (mobile OS)-Pay&amp;#x2F;mobile ID but adoption is still weak (unless you&amp;#x27;re in Tokyo) and it can be delivered with a much smaller wearable.</text></item><item><author>mortenjorck</author><text>I’ve been saying it all along: to understand the Apple Watch, look to the iPod. The first three years of iPod sales were minuscule compared to the following ten: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;commons.m.wikimedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;commons.m.wikimedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;File:Ipod_sales_per_qua...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The two products occupy a very similar space of affordable luxury; they are not world-changing like the Mac or iPhone, but category-defining. Through gradual iteration and segmentation, Apple slowly turned its niche product into a cultural force.&lt;p&gt;Just wait until the iPod Classic 5G equivalent of the Watch comes out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Fezzik</author><text>I think the health tracking features are the major differentiating feature for wearables. Fit people want to track their exercise and stay fit and the unfit (for the most part) want to get fit. These two groups are 99% of the population. And, as we&amp;#x27;re finding in the 21st century&amp;#x2F;age of plenty, fitness takes some work. This thread alone indicates wearable can be a big motivator for fitness.&lt;p&gt;In addition, the health tracking will only get better and lead to preemptive sensing for cardiac events, insulin detection, and who knows what else.&lt;p&gt;I think the market for wearables (watches) is bigger than the iPod market, as wearables solve a real problem (fitness tracking and health monitoring) and are more than an awesome convenience.</text></comment>