$17,000 Apple Watch: Pointless bling, right? HA! You're WRONG What's the point of Apple's $17,000 Christometer then? Apart from, you know, vulgar money? There's been a certain amount of quiet coughing and choking among the fanbois over the new Apple Watch Edition's Christometer's tag of $17,000 at the top end. That's a whole heap of Benjamins for a wrist computer, most especially as the …
>eventually they will go away.
I have a large stack of National Geographic magazines dating back decades that disagree with you. They almost always carry advertisements for Rolex watches, usually associated with an explorer. Rolex even sponsor various awards for young explorers - part of the cost of maintaining the brand that Mr Worstall talks about.
'Wildlife as Canon Sees It' has been another long-running National Geographic advertising campaign, usually featuring a red-ringed zoom lens that costs thousands of dollars. Again, the aim is to associate the product with professional use in the mind of the consumer.
"I get you point, and yes, Canon are very good at marketing their gear, but I have one of those red ringed zoom lenses, and I can testify that it's a f***ing great piece of kit, and unlike the Apple watch, the guts are definitely not the same as in the cheaper version."
Exactly. I'd love one of those 0.5f 5-5000mm zoom lenses, then *I* could take wildlife pictures of wildebeasts from 3 miles away at 1/900000 sec
No it wont. An expensive watch is yours for life (unless you lose or break it) an apple watch will be out date in 2 years when they introduce the apple watch 2 (air or some other shit). People will then actually look down on you for having the expensive one because its not the latest release. It's an absolutely enormous crock of sh1te and serves only to prove that if apple were to badge piles of horse crap fanbois would buy them and feel superior whilst doing so.
"'Wildlife as Canon Sees It' has been another long-running National Geographic advertising campaign, usually featuring a red-ringed zoom lens that costs thousands of dollars. Again, the aim is to associate the product with professional use in the mind of the consumer."
Poor analogy. Canon's high-end lenses really ARE tools used daily by professionals, in contrast to the gold Apple watch which is pure Veblen bling.
Of course if Canon manages to convince some rich novices to splash out on some camera equipment that's beyond their abilities, they won't complain!
I have always maintained that Rolex are not really a luxury brand, they are a "lifestyle" brand.
Luxury brands (Patek et. al) are somewhat different.
Rolex' target market are, metaphorically speaking "pimps, stock brokers, Joan Sutherland and Jaques Coutseau" Rolex are definitely a good choice if you are Chris Bonington, they are very reliable and pretty much indestructible. Can you imagine Sir Chris with a Patek on his wrist? Thought not.
The buyers of Patek are more aesthetes who admire the astonishing craftsmanship which comes with every timepiece. And trust me, if you want to flaunt wealth for the benefit of a cheap bonk, the Rolex is your item. 99.9999% of people couldn't recognise (or spell) a Patek Philippe, never mind being in awe of it.
Indeed I have always considered Rolex to be like the BMW of luxury watches. They market their brand in a shouty look-at-me fashion and that attracts a similar minded customer. Not to mention if it is an aphrodisiac as implied by Mr Worstall it will also attract a certain type of mate - generally the more paddling-pool shallow rattly-headed type. The likes of your real luxury watch - Patek, Vacheron, Audemars etc - would, as previously stated, not even be noticed by such types but would be admired in the right circles and be handed down as heirlooms. Doesn't one of them advertise that you don't so much own their watch but merely look after it for the next generation? Personally I just use them to tell the time so couldn't give a shit.
If Apple do sell a few dozen $17k watches, that client list itself is priceless. By definition, people with a shit load of ready cash, and absolutely no discernment.
Reminds me of a talk a programming team leader gave to us after she'd been on a course - she had a pie chart with proportions of projects delivered under budget, on time but over budget etc. One figure caught my eye 'paid for but never delivered' was 26%. She thought this was a disgrace, I saw it as a brilliant sector we should be working hard to get into!
Likewise, Apple's sucker list would be ripe for any racket going - spending an extra $16,700 on something pretending to be a status-symbol identifier, but without the residual value others place on other brands of status symbol identifiers. It'll be gathering dust quickly as technology marches on, when the battery falters, etc. With your Rolex, there's always another mug, a 3 year old fashion piece of extinct tech...
The rose gold thing is brilliant marketing in general, like pink champagne. Impurities made it pink, but spin a good enough story and bonzer, proof that cost and value are decoupled.
So what I see from this is not something for Apple fans to feel smug about, this should be a moment of realisation. Let the scales fall from eyes. Apple is a very good mid-range tech manufacturer with an attitude of gouging it's customers. May the downvotes commence, but you know it's true deep inside...
Indeed, guess there's always a bigger, bigger mug. That said, Rolex were in the quality watch business a while before releasing this anomaly whilst in deep crisis. Launching a white elephant off the bat is different. Maybe there will be some museum/curiosity appeal driven by entirely artificial scarcity one day, much as 'White Star Line' crockery isn't sold to eat off.
The people who will buy it needn't be mugs or stupid, they just might be incredibly wealthy.
It would be stupid for me to buy one, because it would take me a few months working to earn that cash. But there are enough people on the world who collect supercars and buzz around in private jets, that would not notice £17K out of their daily spend. Then they will play with it for 5 minutes, stick it a drawer and forget it forever and not give as hit.
£500 return to New York for me. £6K first class for them. At the end of the flight we are both queuing at the same US Border Agency check. Or £300 budget Airline for me and the wife to get to Rome and back for a weekend. £20K on a private jet for them. Money is all gone at the end of the trip. Do they care? Do they need to care? Does that make them stupid because renting a private jet is as easy for them as an Indian takeaway meal for me? I say ridiculously profligate, but they are not mugs.
People need to stop looking at this watch from the perspective of their own little worlds.
Buying the top Apple watch is likened to buying a Rolex, which is the sort of thing you do to show off how much money you have lying around doing nothing else important.
The difference is that the Rolex will last you a very long time, and some people will hang on to theirs for life, or what’s left of it.
Two years, max, and you will want to replace your Apple Watch with its replacement, which has more memory, runs faster, has a few extra sensors, and a better screen.
Being seen with an old Rolex nothing compared to being seen with old tech.
The longevity of a Rolex compared to an iWatch is completely irrelevant for the very reasons the article discussed. Wasting resources proves that you have resources - Hence the old Rolls Royce in a swimming pool antics.
I have some sympathy for Bill Gates idea of a progressive tax on luxury goods - tax puts up the sticker price of a £300 handbag to £500 - so the buyer still shows off their disposable wealth but society benefits.
The longevity of a Rolex compared to an iWatch is completely irrelevant for the very reasons the article discussed. Wasting resources proves that you have resources - Hence the old Rolls Royce in a swimming pool antics.
Dave 126,
Doesn't this depend on motivation though? I've heard guys talking about buying cars because, "they're a babe-magnet." I don't recall talking to anyone who's bought a stupidly expensive watch saying that though.
The way they've sold the purchase to themselves is often because they're into nicely engineered things, they like the idea of it, and they can justify this because they're going to have the watch forever, and pass it to their kids. Or even sell it for a profit. There's also an element of "rewarding myself for working hard - now I can afford it".
There are some who buy it as an addition to their wardrobe, and I guess that pretty much is about sexual display.
But it strikes me that people do need to justify a purchase in their own minds. And quality and longevity is the big thing for the posh watch industry. But Apple are selling a $350 watch covered in gold, but not in a gold case, so therefore it's going to be worthless after 2 years. Do people with this much cash use Cash-4-Gold?
Obviously, once you've got a few tens of millions, the cost is irrelevant. And this is just another impulse purchase. But the watch comopanies do so well, because they're selling watches for £5k to people who only earn £30-£40k a year - and there's an awful lot more of them than there are millionaires.
Then again maybe Apple only want the millionaires? There's still enough of them, and it's not like these watches are costing much to make, as that's covered by the mass market production line, it's just the easy job of making the gold cases.
Whilst you, I and - I suspect - the vast majority of El Reg's readership, all agree on this, the fact is that those people who are willing and rich enough to spend $17K on the watch will not think twice about spending another $17K when v2 comes out in a year or two's time.
So you think that Apple are doing nicely by mugging people for just $17K? They're not. They're doing nicely for mugging people for $17K every couple of years, if they do it right.
Surely there is no such thing as an 'old Rolex' only vintage? I don't know any figures (and I can't be arsed to do the research) but I know there is a thriving market for vintage Rolex watches and they can command very high values. So buying a Rolex could be said to be an investment.
I cannot see that a gold iWatch is going to accrue much value over the years, as others have pointed out it may well be obsolete (hardware/software wise) in a very short amount of time. But then maybe that's part of the Veblen Goods effect, "Not only can I afford this bit of bling but I can also afford not to worry that next year it will be valueless" if so very cleaver marketing by Apple.
Anyway this recalls to me a quote from the Great Man, Douglas Adams:
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."
I'm sure Zaphod would have had three, one for each arm.
"Surely there is no such thing as an 'old Rolex' only vintage? I don't know any figures (and I can't be arsed to do the research) but I know there is a thriving market for vintage Rolex watches and they can command very high values. So buying a Rolex could be said to be an investment."
I bought my Patek Phillipe Nautilus new when it arrived on the market (1978). It is today worth the the same in real money as the day I bought it. I wore it every day for 30 years before I had the watchmakers at PP recondition it. Today I have a newer complication version, because I can, but my "Jumbo" is still my favourite wrist watch (and I have many from which to choose).
So yes, indeed, the correct choice can be financially neutral or even positive, plus you have the privilege of wearing the watch. No down sides I would say.
Most of the really posh Rolex's cost a lot more than $17k.
So having a novelty digital watch for a 1/3 of the price of the $60k Rolex you wear with your tuxedo might appeal to the kind of people who are chaufuered from their mansion to their Lear jet in their Rolls Royce.
"Well, if we're to be honest about it, it's because Apple's pretty certain there's enough people out there stupid enough to buy one to make it worthwhile."
Is it really stupid to be successful enough at life that you can afford to indulge yourself with a $17K gadget? I am sure they would call you stupid for selling your Apple shares in the late 80s that they held on to and made them rich enough to actually afford Apple hardware in the first place.
Here's one:
Steve Wozniak became rich because of Apple, and he wears an expensive, impractical watch because he wants to and because he can. It's huge. Why? Because it uses Nixie tubes to display the time. You have to like a company (actually a one-man band) that puts this testimonial on its homepage:
“If I wanted to buy a watch that guaranteed I would never get laid, I certainly wouldn't have to spend that much on it.”
—random Slashdot comment
above
“I would have loved to have invented that.”
—Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple
http://www.cathodecorner.com/nixiewatch/
The privacy policy of the Nixie Watch company is a thing of beauty. If I were looking for a $500 watch, I would consider this one just to do business with the company.
"Cathode Corner does not ever see your credit card information, much less store it. We retain your shipping information for warranty purposes only. Your information is never divulged to anyone except the letter carrier."
There's nothing wrong with blowing your cash on whatever takes your fancy. It's just that this Apple watch seems such bad value. At least you can justify a Swiss watch by saying that lots of lab-coated craftsmen have hand-built it, while smoking their pipes and yodelling. And that it'll still be useful in 2 years, and working in 10.
None of that's true of the Apple watch, which is just $350 of mass-produced mechanism shoved in $1,000 of gold.
For $17k, I could pay a special assistant to follow me round holding my phone within my eyeline - or maybe walk just in front of me with it taped to their back. Financially that makes just as much sense, as I can then do the same next year - rather than paying for the upgrade from Apple. And that's showing off even more.
Sometimes it's not just about the short term gains. Perhaps the watch-owner might want to attract a /lifelong/ mate and therefore would rather attract one of the very few who, like him/her, finds his/her Nixie watch interesting/amusing/geeky than the (probably) more frequently found ones who find his/her Apple watch "reassuringly expensive".
The real problem here is that the iWatch is like any other Apple product. It's mass market tripe cheaply produced in some Chinese factory pretending to be something it's obviously not. It's not just a matter of having money to burn. It's also a matter of taste.
There are brands for the genuinely wealthy and then there are brands for those who are not but try to put up a convincing front otherwise.
"For $17k, I could pay a special assistant to follow me round holding my phone within my eyeline - or maybe walk just in front of me with it taped to their back. Financially that makes just as much sense, as I can then do the same next year - rather than paying for the upgrade from Apple. And that's showing off even more."
I'd bet there's some pop star/"celebrity" type already looking for an addition to their entourage - one to wear the Apple watch and tell the time.
When the innards of this expensive mating call fail? At least you can still get Granddad's retirement Rolex repaired. This, on the other hand, is going to be about as repairable as a Sistim 51 (and worth about the same, plus the cost of the gold, once it develops mortal coil impairment)?
Disclaimer: No, I don't understand the luxury business.
Granddad's retirement Rolex might have sentimental value to you. That is a different kind of value to that discussed in the article.
The 'value' discussed in the article is that of showing off wealth by 'wasting' it. Y'know, like the people who like to show off by drinking a £500 magnum of champagne (though some inexpensive Cava might taste just as good to them)- it is not going to be passed on to the next generation. Cocaine and caviar, similarly.
>> Nope pre owned rolex's retain value and for the desireable ones increase just like a classic Porsche 911 increases in value <<
Just to be clear, though, there is no inherent premium value in a secondhand watch or car, no matter who makes it.
> Just to be clear, though, there is no inherent premium value in a secondhand watch or car, no matter who makes it.
Just keep telling yourself that. Swiss watches are the sort of luxury brand that Apple pretends to be. A watch enthusiast could handily school any fanboy on the subject of "resale value".
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