iWatch watch: Apple tags sales bod from luxury Swiss watch firm Apple hasn't officially announced the arrival of its iWatch, but you don't have to be Nostradamus to see what's on its way. Fanbois have now been given the the clearest indication so far that a wrist-borne computer is set to issue forth from Cupertino, following the hiring of a head honcho from Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer. …
Pruniaux would probably be the marketing genius behind the innovative TAG-Heuer advertising based on the magic formula of a sports- or film-star portrait next to or holding a watch in an intriguing fashion.
Reading notes for the sarcasm-blind:
- for "genius" read "idiot";
- for "innovative" read "clichéd";
- for "magic" read "trite";
- for "intriguing" read "awkward".
This kind of thing would be a total shift from Jobs-era iDevice marketing, where the product was the star, and the people selling it - the shiny, colourful, smiling, immaculately scrubbed people with perfect teeth and lives, who are the only kinds of people allowed to appear in Apple ads - were its supplicants.
Or possibly Cook just wants someone to hustle all the consumer jewellery outlets.
That would make sense.
Hiring some random dude to design ads makes no sense at all.
Tag Heuer are hardly a luxury brand. Their watches can be bought in any high street, and the prices top out pretty much where most of the serious watch brands start. Mass luxe, possibly -- which would explain the hire. Apple obviously need somebody who can persuade people to part with serious dosh for what is essentially a commodity watch.
http://www.tagheuer.com/int-en/movement-by-belt-watches
TAG do produce some sparkling innovations, as the above would indicate.
Suggesting, as you do, that at USD 70,000 for the V4 "the prices top out pretty much where most of the serious watch brands start", is very possibly largely inaccurate.
Philip, all luxury or mass-luxe brands have a skunk works producing interesting things. Some of them make it into production. Most don't. All of them are aimed at adding cachet to the brand.
The vast majority of Tag's watches sell in the mass-luxe market. That's why I said that "prices top out pretty much where most of the serious watch brands start" -- 99.9% of Tag's product will sell in the below five thousand pounds ($8,500 at current rates) bracket. In fact, I'd go further and say that as their products are available on the high street, most purchases will be in the sub thousand pound bracket. The V4 is to the rest of Tag's line what the F-40 is to the Ford Motor Company.
And because Tag has historically been very good at selling in the below a grand for a sports watch market is why Apple want Tag's head of marketing (although I have to agree with Ralph B about the sheer awfulness of most of Tag's advertising).
I don't think I've ever spent more than £100 on a watch. Seriously, why would you?
Given that you can buy a perfectly workable watch for around £20, why did you choose to spend 5 times more than that?
(Hint: Your answer to that question will probably also answer your own question)
I don't think that people who might buy $5,000 mechanical wristwatches took much notice of $50 plastic fashion watches. Not to knock Swatch - their basic shape is pleasingly 'watch-shaped', they are fairly slim, and I'm sure that amongst their myriad of designs are a few that are practical to read.
Unlike phones/tablets/laptops, this would be an actual use case for wireless charging - but only if it were something you might want to leave on all the time (i.e. it could some sort of useful sleep monitoring)
If it is on all the time you don't want to plug it into anything, but maybe a charging pad that doubles as a wrist rest in front of a keyboard, and in the future is built into Apple's keyboards/laptops?
Being able to charge via motion alone (as most movement watches do) would be the best solution, but it is hard to see how it could have much capability if it was so power limited. It would have to have an e-ink screen and BLE connectivity only if were powered that way, and a super low power CPU with little RAM. I suppose if it relied on an iPhone for doing any sort of real processing that might work though.
"...Will people cough up for $300 iWatch to measure the length of their jogs..."
At one time, who'd have thought that people would fork out large sums for a pair of pumps trainers, and yet avoid any form of exercise/gym/exertion?
...and yet they do!
Written as one who's used Macs since the late eighties, loves his iPhone and iPad, but reckons he'll stay with his Seiko 'cos it's the first thing his SWMBO bought him many years ago. And it still works perfectly, and does everything he asks from a watch (it tells me what time it is).
If the old square iPod nano had had Bluetooth I'd have gone the TikTok route from Lunatik.
https://www.lunatik.com/products/ipod-nano/tiktok
Want 32GB music capability with BT & various watch faces & straps.
Uninterested in other functions, of which they'll be many, no doubt.
Not a treadmill gym rat but want to see an analogue watch face when riding a mountain bike.
Have allocated £249 from my modest OAP Morale Budget for this device.
Don't expect the iWatch to be cheap as chips but there is definitely a market for the "right device".
So far nobody has hit the mark at the right price & functionality with a decent battery life.
Roll on Sept/Oct. Let's also have a 160GB iPod classic replacement at half the size, half the price & solid state storage. Dream on.........
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
