Switzerland's economy will PLUNGE after the iWatch launch
No they'll need to release the iChoc (maybe a Toblerone with rounded corners?) and the iCheese first.
The New York Times has profiled the wearables market and there's an intriguing little hint that, as a designer, Apple's Jony Ive is in fact a great marketing guru. For he seems to be thinking that the iWatch is going to be so cool that it'll entirely screw over the Swiss watch industry. This isn't, needless to say, quite what …
Switzerland is in trouble.
He means of course, once Apple release the "device for communicating to the user the chronological point in a 24 hour period worn on the wrist" they have "invented", aka patent "1-800-MEETOOWRISTWATCH-CATCHUP", granted 01-Sep-2014, their lawyers will naturally be suing anyone who copied this stunning innovation before them, since as usual they have the best judges money can buy.
And what they have in mind for those with the affront to use round corners on their cheap imitations just doesn't bear thinking about.
Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
Harry Lime in The Third Man
Erm... Switzerland´s centuries of democracy and brotherly love were supported by ahem... "outsourcing" armies all over Europe. Their crosbow equipped mercenaries were sought after by every warring king of the time. This is... they were the Rolex of Renascence armies. The Vatican still hires them for guard duties.
Oh come on, when I was in primary school in the late 80's, we would have sold our parents into slavery for a calc watch! (even if they were only 8 quid in the local paper shop for the cheapos). This was in the dark ages when us 11 year olds would go out, into the real world and play, with real friends, and the extent of fanboism deciding who was the best out of Marvell and the Beano...
"I don't think I'm the only one to see this smart watch thing as a solution looking for a problem."
Look around you. It appears people actually need to have their faces in a screen as much as others need to have a cigarette in their mouths.
Did people really have the same need to have their faces in calculators as much in the 1980s? No they didn't, poor poor comparison.
John Ive believes the iwatch and what it contains will be something people need to have on them.
Was moving a clock off the wall into the pocket, then onto the wrist, really considered cool back in the day?
The people gawking at their screens all the time are not going to be too interested: a watch is too small. Hasn't Ive noticed the phones have been getting larger rather than smaller, to allow for a decent screen. A traditional watch has a different task, it just shows one piece of information so its "screen" can be small.
"Was moving a clock off the wall into the pocket, then onto the wrist, really considered cool back in the day?"
>> Absolutely! Pocket watches were required by railroad men so that they knew whether their trains were running on time or not and by town "watchmen" to keep track of their shifts. But before that came pendant clock-watches - which were not worn to tell the time. The accuracy of their verge and foliot movements was so poor, with errors of perhaps several hours per day, that they were practically useless. They were made as jewelry and novelties for the nobility, valued for their fine ornamentation, unusual shape, or intriguing mechanism, and accurate timekeeping was of very minor importance.
Back in the day, wrist watches were almost exclusively worn by women, while men used pocket-watches. Since early watches were notoriously prone to fouling from exposure to the elements, they could only reliably be kept safe from harm if carried securely in the pocket.
But as watches became more hardened, it was clear that using pocket watches while in the heat of battle or while mounted on a horse was impractical, so officers began to strap the watches to their wrist. In fact, watches produced during the first WW were specially designed for the rigors of trench warfare, with luminous dials and unbreakable glass - and the rest is history...
...like banking.
Someone saying that Rolex is doomed because Apple is rolling out a really fancy Timex calculator watch is a little silly. The author is right in this case -- even above Rolex, there are higher end watchmakers like Patek Philippe, etc. whose watches command even higher sums. And never mind that these luxury timepieces are insanely expensive, they're also throwbacks. Mechanical watches are actually less accurate than ones with quartz movements, but they cost way more due to the workmanship. You're paying for the 15 watchmakers left in the world hunched over a table hand-assembling micro-scale mechanical watch parts..Look at a couple YouTube videos about watchmaking...I have no idea how those guys don't go insane working with such tiny, fragile metal parts. (Also, luxury watches need to be serviced periodically which is extremely expensive (and labor intensive.)
Mind you, I think buying a watch that costs as much as a car is a very strange way to blow one's money. But I guess if you're at that end of the market and you already have everything else, why not go for it?
I think the iWatch will find a place with most of the Apple faithful, but I doubt any executive is going to give up their Audemars Piguet or Rolex.
"Mind you, I think buying a watch that costs as much as a car is a very strange way to blow one's money. But I guess if you're at that end of the market and you already have everything else, why not go for it?"
Agreed and yet.....human beings are hugely status conscious creatures. And alpha males really do get more legover than the rest of us. One friend worked in SE Asia for a number of years and he said that his (real, gold) Rolex was the best investment he'd ever made.
Doesn't wear it anymore now he's married, of course.
Of course, not even when the wife's out of town.
I lived in the far east for a few years. Unless your friend looks like Wayne Rooney and Peter Beardsley's bastard son, he probably never needed the watch.
Aside from the fact that unless these ladies were expert watchmakers, they'd not be able to tell a fake Rolex from a real one anyway.
True story.
- My, my, Janine, nice Rolex. Cost a lot?
- (giggle) No, got it for a steal in Thailand. Who'd pay the full price for the real thing?
later... at the Paris Rolex service dept.
- Excuse me, my watch has stopped working. Can you fix it?
- Errr, you are aware it it s a counterfeit?
Presumably, being the type of guy that wears a Rolex, he managed to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes with knowing that the girl/woman/person wouldn't be sleeping with you if it wasn't for the watch you were wearing.
Quite apart from the obvious fact that that person is not really in it for the long term, it would seem less good in the short term.
Probably why I drive a regular car, don't replace my great phone with an expensive shiny all the time and keep the money saved in the bank so I can work less, thus spending more quality time with my partner and kids.
"Also, luxury watches need to be serviced periodically which is extremely expensive (and labor intensive)."
I read a very interesting book by Paul Fussell called "Class" which dissects the way status symbols work in the US although most of his points apply to any stratified society, i.e. any society that has ever existed. He mentions that service being expensive (because labor intensive) is actually a benefit from the status-symbol point of view. Because the watch (or other status symbol) is both expensive to obtain and to maintain - it is more difficult for the lower classes to overreach themselves. Okay, you've bought that 40 foot wooden-hulled sailboat - let's see if you afford the marina fees, the cost of sails, the upkeep for that wooden hull, or if it's going to bleed you dry.
At any rate, I kind of doubt that anyone with real money considers Apple to produce high-status goods as any good produced in the millions or tens of millions is, by their definition, pretty plebeian. So from their point of view, nothing says "low-brow" like thinking Apple is "high-brow".
But the plebes and the proles are impressed - bless their stupid and pointy little heads.
Apple gear is the "as-seen-on-film", chinese-copy, cotton version of the silk dress worn by the Famous Actress.
It looks expensive so they can charge more for it and the buyers still think it's a bargain.
True, in some ways some Apple gear is quite good but the equivalently priced non-Apple gear is, too. But other PCs and phones aren't "celebrity must-haves", they are just the everyday clothes of the rest of us so they don't have the cachet of a Mac or iDevice.
Looking like a film star by carrying a film-star's gear or wearing clothes that look like theirs is nothing new. Aspirational acquisitiveness is as old as stratified societies.
And if it keeps the money flowing it can't be all bad.
"Mind you, I think buying a watch that costs as much as a car is a very strange way to blow one's money. But I guess if you're at that end of the market and you already have everything else, why not go for it?"
There are also people who get crazy from some shiny stones and metals bound together, and they don't even tell you the time...
Watches in the upper price band don't depreciate, whereas expensive cars depreciate faster than mid-range ones.
My father had a friend who, many years ago, collected watches made by a firm called Breguet. Pension fund? I believe his heirs are still rich on the proceeds.
> I think the iWatch will find a place with most of the Apple faithful, but I doubt any executive is going to give up their Audemars Piguet or Rolex.
Anyone with a decent sense of taste and elegance will keep wearing quality timepieces. Idiots with more money than sense will buy a 250 quid iwatch. Hum. Compared to my Hamilton, I wonder how long it lasts?
"Idiots with more money than sense will buy a 250 quid iwatch"
Please post back when an iwatch can do everything a smart phone can. I want to see if you'll be wearing your Hamilton on the other wrist or whether you'll stick with a smart phone rather than look like a tool.
"Another way of putting the same thing would be to say that a Rolex isn't just a watch: it's a statement that you've got $10,000 to blow on a bracelet. The only reason they make it as a watch is so that it's recognisable as having cost $10,000, which is the whole point and purpose of the entire exercise. That it also tells the time is an irrelevance."
One of the most astute and observant statement yet made in regards to our consumerist society, and I'm IN that luxury business!
Tim is wrong that a $400 iWatch isn't a status symbol in the same way a $10K Rolex is - it's more of a status symbol.
A $10K Rolex on somebody under 40 means that daddy is/was rich.
An iWatch means you are not only at least comfortably off - it means you are high-tech/high-skill/modern techno-literate pillock.
That is more status than being the recipient of a trust fund.
"A $10K Rolex on somebody under 40 means that daddy is/was rich."
Usually, but it can also mean they're in sales or senior management. Talk to high-end salespeople in very status-conscious industries...guaranteed you'll see a lot of gold Rolexes. $10K is part of a monthly commission check for some of these folks. And salespeople don't tend to save, they blow their money on flashy toys.
"A $10K Rolex on somebody under 40 means that daddy is/was rich."
hmm. I bought my first Patek at 21 and my first Ferrari at 30. My dad didn't pay for them and I didn't have a trust fund either. I worked hard, saved my coins, and achieved a few goals. My wealth, such that it is, is the result of my effort (I am not a trader or speculator, I get paid a salary).
You comment drips of envy.
Poor people are poor for reasons other than lack of money. I suspect you are an example of this.
I'd disagree with that my friend has a couple of Breitlings, a Rolex and one from IWC, he paid for them all by himself.
I don't know if that makes it a status symbol to only those who know about watches, but the IWC is also very simple looking you probably at first glance wouldn't think its a pricey timepiece.
"A $10K Rolex on somebody under 40 means that daddy is/was rich."
Daddy was a blue collar factory worker (sheet metal), and I'm under 40. $10k is what in real money... about £6k. I can afford to go and buy the Rolex - the only reason I don't is my mrs bought me a different watch to celebrate something, and I've never really aspired to a collection of expenive watches.
Most people have a car, including the under 40s. For 6k you'd only get a Dacia Sandero in poverty spec. I'll hazard a wild guess the Rolex will outlast the Dacia. I see a lot of young people blowing £100 on drink and club entry every Friday, and there's nothing wrong with that, but those that want the Rolex could miss every other week and buy the watch after 2 years.
Maybe you should adjust your thinking a little to reflect real life?
Still don't understand why there is so much hype around it -
it might well be the most intuitive, easy to use, fantastical device ever released to date - hell it might have a battery life that lasts for a week. But - if I need to own an iPhone to use it. It's already completely pointless for me.
For people who bought into the Apple ecosystem, it'll probably be great, but not everyone has bought into the Apple ecosystem and that's where this hype - not just from Apple but from countless tech blogs too - that it will immediately take the world by storm - is just silly. It's the exact same reason Android Wear won't take the world by storm.
Ives is deluded.
Now that he has already copied all of Dieter Rams he's clutching at straws.
I doubt that this will displace any luxury product, nor does Switzerland rely on watches (or Cuckoo Clocks, or Toblerone).
I'm sceptical that it will do much better than the Newton or Pippin. But who knows how many chumps are out there.?
It is Ive, not Ives
Deluded? He was joking with colleagues, something people often do when a project is nearing completion to their satisfaction. "Switzerland is fucked".
He hasn't copied any Dieter Rams design, but rather Dieter Rams' methodology - this requires hard work, as Dieter himself will tell you.
Switzerland doesn't rely on luxury watches.... again, Ive was joking.
Seriously Mage, if you want to talk about Ive and Rams, at least look beyond Wikipedia. Here is an interview with the man himself, for starters:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8555503/Dieter-Rams-Apple-has-achieved-something-I-never-did.html
I know all about classic Braun designs. Since before I bought an Apple II (which is pre-Apple Copy Braun Era)
But spelling is what I'm worst at.
My Magery is purely in technical stuff. I have studied Dieter Rams and know that he does believe that 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'. But most deluded iFans think Apple is original and deserves their patents, of the design kind and the technology sort. Having worked in Electronics and Computers and studied the artistic side (industrial) as well as engineering design since late 1970s I regard Apple as a very successful confidence trick.
I suspect he was was only half joking.
In reality it isn't that Apple devices are luxury good, scarce Apple products are. All Apple products depreciate rapidly starting from the day of launch; owning an iPhone the day after it is launched is a huge deal, where buying that same thing two months later is nothing to write home about, and don't even get me started on the previous model.
On the other side, an old Rolex is just as valuable of a status symbol as one that was made today, and if its in very good condition, even more valuable. A well taken care-of watch would show that not only did you have enough money to buy it in the first place, but that you've also maintained enough wealth to get it properly maintained.
My grandfather, a highly skilled mechanical engineer, used to service the odd Rolex for amusement.
After WW2 quite a number of returning servicemen had them, acquired as loot from Germans. He said that the old Rolexes were not only well made but well designed, so that they were fairly easy to clean, lubricate and correct. The BBC time signal was often the busy point of his weekend as he checked all the timepieces he was adjusting.
I am told too that there were excellent, and cheap, Rolex servicepeople in Hong Kong. In the absence of real Rolex balance springs, some of them were made out of bamboo.
Apple goods are expensive precisely because people know that they're expensive; quite obviously there'll be people shunning $30 Timex timepieces because they want to be seen to be telling the time on a $400 iWatch.
1 - we still have no idea how expensive this thing will be
2 - (as I have said many times before) not all Apple gear is as overpriced as you think when you start looking at a TCO which includes software, efficiency and the lack of downtime. I can't see that for the iWatch, though, but I'm responding the general assumption, which is IMHO not based on any facts.
3 - although I *presently* find the very idea pointless, Apple may have come up with something that makes this thing useful. Let's judge this when we know what on earth they've come up with, not before. Apple was laughed at when they entered the cell phone business too...
"Apple gear is as overpriced as you think when you start looking at a TCO"
That same logic is how I ended up looking after a bunch of stupidly expensive Oracle machines that have so far cost the company millions more per year than MS-SQL boxes they replaced...
When I wanted to buy my wife a laptop of her very own as an additional birthday present she went for a MacBook. The price and the TCO were irrelevant not just because it was a gift but because she intended *me* to maintain it for her.
That meant I had to learn how to use MacOSX and how to support *her* using MacOSX.
I got a new set of skills out of the deal.
ROI? A lot. TCO? Who cares?
Those things are all relative to what you *do* with the gear. Personally, I think her MacBook was about the cheapest computer, pc, laptop, phone or watch, that I ever bought.
And that's ignoring the pleasure she got from it.
But I still wouldn't buy an iWatch.
TCO can be cut a number of ways. If you (or your organisation) is not the technical type, and you are going to rely on the manufacturer to provide support, then Apple does provide good support.
If you have technical ability and resources, then the risks and downtime of having an Apple can far exceed the alternatives. I've got a dozen HDDs lying around and could replace a failed drive in a PC laptop in 5 minutes. If an Apple SSD dies, I'm screwed until I can get to a store.
And because Apple offer so few options, most people would have to pay for a bunch of things they don't care about, in order to get what they need.
I really do like Apple. I'm currently using an iPhone. But even if they offered something that matched my needs, I couldn't buy into the desktops / laptops, because I can't rely on it not costing 2-3x my PC ownership over time.
I really do like Apple. I'm currently using an iPhone. But even if they offered something that matched my needs, I couldn't buy into the desktops / laptops, because I can't rely on it not costing 2-3x my PC ownership over time.
1 - we have all laptops and desktops under warranty (we can write off over 2 years, which matches EU warranty terms)
2 - you don't seem to consider the cost of software to get anything done, nor the time spent fighting new "features" because some jerk in Redmond decided you really ought to sponsor them again, nor the eternal "I must update" signals you get from the OS and anti-virus, and the time you spend waiting for that. Ditto for installing hardware and finding drivers.
So, for *our* use, TCO's for Apple gear work out better - that the gear looks good is a nice side benefit, but that's not why we buy it. Even the eternal arguments about being in a locked eco system depend on your point of view - the benefit is that everything works together, and we can use fully Open Source backends that support nothing but open standards, and we rather like Linux as a server platform. It's no use to us as a desktop because we need many commercial packages for our work (but not MS Office, thankfully).
Crowbarring the discussion back to the original topic, I have been around too long to pay credence to predictions - I prefer to see what they have come up with before I judge. There is a good chance it's just a Bluetooth connected extension to an iPhone (or maybe any phone) in which case I'll say "meh" and they can keep it. If they have come up with something new that actually makes sense I may consider it. But - we - do -not - know - yet, so these heated discussions in advance are IMHO a rather weird waste of time.
2. And the cost of Apple software because they decided "Nobody needs to do that" and made it completely impossible to achieve.
Or the cost of apple software due to backwards-compatibility issues, forcing you to upgrade your OSX before the software you need will run (because the APIs change so much that the softwrae house can't afford to support the older versions.)
Or the cost of forced Apple hardware upgrades because the version of OSX you must have to run the software you must have won't run on the hardware you have - even though there's no technical reason for it.
Frankly, the number of reasons to buy Apple for work-related software have been decreasing very rapidly over the last few years, as software goes multi-platform (Adobe, avid) or worse, gets castrated.
The amount of iPhones I see with cracked and broken screens suggest the TCO is low because ethey won't pay for the repair.
Someone I know just the other day, one drop, two nasty breaks at both ends of the device. It still works so it isn't getting repaired.
How much 'downtime' does even an Android device have? My Winphone is 'down' for about 30s every two months maybe, often because Orange decide to 'update' my service or I think the data stack is broken (it's always frigging Orange).
Plus about 10 minutes once or twice per year while the software is updated.
Since I don't have to buy a case to protect mine and almost everyone with an iPhone seems to have a case (to stop it being smaller and lighter?), I would suggest the TCO is insanely higher since iPhones seem to cost considerably more than similarly/better specified WinPhones in the first place.
The fact that products look similar from generation to generation is a sign of good design and forward thinking and vision.
It is the a function of a coherent design language that newer models look similar to previous generations.
The classic Porsche, Volvo, the first three generations of VW water cooled cars. The list could go on.
So sharp corners near the trackpad on and easily bent pieces near the ports on MacBooks is 'Perfect Design'? And why are they still using soft, easily scratched and warped Alumin(i)um? Everyone else has gone to sturdier and lighter Magnesium and Carbon alloys for their systems.
And why does everything have to be plain silver? Does Johnny have some kind of fetish for a plastic white Apple logo in the middle of a field of nothing but boring, plain matte silver? Did Rainbow Bright touch him in his no-no area when he was a kid?
Aluminium was for many years the least bad material for airframes, but composites are better. Small consumable electronic products benefit from a degree of flexibility, so a magnesium alloy or similar frame with a polymer or composite cladding makes the most sense. Focussing on what something looks like at the expense of functionality is a very human failing; there has been research done on our ability to take in complex ideas, and sure enough we are far more likely to make decisions based on simple rather than more complex concepts, unless it is our job to do in depth analysis.
This is a simple explanation of why BYOD is simultaneously popular with the masses and a Bad Idea.
Most Swiss watches sold are not Rolexes. They are the much cheaper watches. TAG Heur sells a massive number of watches, and their sub $1000 line sells best of all. SMH is the dominant Swiss watch house, with brands including Swatch, Omega, Longines, and Tissot, plus owning ETA and Valjoux - the main watch mechanism makers. Many of the watches sold by these brands are quartz, not mechanical, and they are not expensive. All the brands have a wide price range, not just very expensive mechanical watches. They want your money, no matter how much you have.
No doubt, the high end, luxury brands will continue. But a big question may be whether the large number of entry price (say $500 to $1000) Swiss watches will remain a solid seller in the face of smart watches. It isn't just the iWatch, that is this year's question. But in the longer term, we can be sure smart watch technology will bridge the existing technical problems that limit their utility, and acceptance in the market may mean they wipe out the entry level quality watches.
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The iWatch will be a flash in the pan for those that just have to have the latest gizmo to be 'cool'.
Those of us who live in the normal part of Earth will continue to want to own long lifed, high quality, well built, good looking and more valuable in the long term because they aren't available in Curry's/Amazon etc, watches. They don't need firmware upgrades, wifi, any kind of computer connection when you open the box just to work, and work in all time zones and climates, they don't even mind dust, rain, saltwater, heat, cold etc.
Brietling anyone?
I think the first one will have wireless charging - although not while you are wearing it which would be the only useful kind.
Daily charging for a watch - not for me - perhaps if they make it to a week, which they won't for a long time.
Was hoping these batteries running on lighter fluid would be mainstream by now.
Timex and Casio will have some slow sales months (until they make an Android/ iPhone compatible smart watch on their own).
However, there is still nothing at all commendable about "smart" watches that will do much to displace the sales of regular electronic or mechanical watches.
The Walmart range of products will not suffer at all and the higher end manufacturers will likely get a boost in sales. More of those people will want to differentiate them selves from anyone who wears a "smart watch"
> Why would you pay perhaps £400 for an iWatch when you can have a Casio ...
Not me, but pretty sure others will. And presumably they aren't acting randomly and have some reasons ? Or it wasn't a rhetorical question and you really want to know ?
Paris, coz if she does, iWatch.
If you want a watch to last forever you buy a mechanical top quality swiss made watch - it's as simple as that. J.Ive does forget electronics never last forever. How many macs older than 10 years are still functional? How many Rolex watches are functional after 10 years?
Right - if you want something for a long time - you don't invest in electronics.
My grandfathers swiss watch is still functional after he died 42 years ago!
>>If you want a watch to last forever you buy a mechanical top quality swiss made watch
Er, yes and no. Recommended maintenance on a mechanical watch is to have it at least relubricated every ~5 years. The lubricants don't last forever and they can shift to the wrong spots. Disassembling a mechanical watch and lubricating it correctly is skilled labor and costs hundreds of dollars at least.
Other things can go wrong with mechanical watches that would require expensive repair--balance shafts can break due to shock and springs can snap just due to wear.
It's true that mechanical watches can "last forever" as long as you maintain them and replace parts as necessary... the same thing can be said for computers though.
>>My grandfathers swiss watch is still functional after he died 42 years ago!
I imagine you haven't been wearing it much in those 42 years, if at all, and maybe he didn't wear it that much himself all the time. So I'm not surprised it still does something if you wind it up but it'd be a bad idea to use it. The lubrication is probably gone so if you use it, there's going to be damage to the parts that will cause the watch to break and require super expensive repairs in fairly short order.
I think the article is really good, spot on in fact, but as another poster mentioned above, will the $500 - $1000 sector of the watch market (TAGs, Tissot, low-end Longines etc) survive? I think the kind of people who buy TAGs (at least the crappy quartz ones) don't really care much about the watch itself, in the same way as a lange and sohne and pateke Philippe customers don't and as outlined in Tim's article - it's a status symbol amongst their peers. Difference is, the people at this end of the market could buy the iwatch instead. The question comes in then: has apple enough cool and exclusive cachet to attract these people? Some commentators would say not...iphones are common as muck now, even my parents now have one each. Yes it's seen by the general populace (not me though guv) as the best phone to get, but it isn't exclusive nor exotic anymore, it's just a standard thing everyone can have if they want to pay a bit more.
Then again, many people don't even have watches these days, so they probably aren't even bothered about the make of any smartwatch they buy...if they find utility for such a thing then they'll buy and if apple make it then even better, after all they make the best phones (again, not my opinion guv).
I suspect apple may do ok in this sector but it's not a surefire bet...and I completely agree with the article, above a certain level the watch is of little significance. having spoken to a fashion editor of a top UK magazine a while ago about the watch fair he attended, he said this: "there are two type of watch fan; the ones who can afford it, who couldn't care less about the movement, materials etc...typically this transaction lasts about 30 seconds, and the watch nerds who know the designers, movements etc...they usually don't buy anything". Being more in the latter camp than former, I will stick with my vintage Omega seamaster thanks...but good luck to apple, I think they'll need it.
There is a beauty to seeing how a well crafted mechanical watch movement functions. A digital watch is a totally different proposition to a mechanical movement. Different markets, horses for courses. Slightly biased as I have a watch from a small Swiss producer and the model I own is one of only 300 made.
I like TAG too. What always gets me is the intricacy of the mechanics, I had the chance to see my watch being put together, in this digital age good mechanical engineering has the power to create emotion in a way electronics and ones and zeros never do. Well for me anyway.
I love mechanical watches but you have to admit that the manufacturing tolerances for making physical things like e.g., a processor or a circuit board or a digital camera sensor or an LCD screen etc. are much higher than the gears and whatnot in a TAG or any other mechanical watch.
The innards of a $30 cell phone are much more impressive from an engineering and/or manufacturing standpoint than any Patek.
“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-two 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.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Rolex just might be in danger anyways. Rolex is not in danger from Timex because, in addition to showing you are wealthy, Rolex watches also tell the time.
But that's all they do. Whereas a smartwatch does other things in addition to telling the time.
At the moment, a smartwatch is a new product category; it's not something everyone feels they need to have, so it doesn't do things that are essential. But that might change.
At that point - when there are smartwatches out there for $29.95 instead of $299 and up - Rolex might have to make a $10,000 smartwatch instead of a $10,000 watch watch just to stay in the game at all; people don't buy luxury goods to look as though they have more money than sense.
So, yes, Rolex isn't in immediate danger (and the "neptune", which isn't tethered to a smartphone, might be more of a menace than Apple's iWatch) but it does have to look over its shoulder and make plans of some sort.
Eventually, a watch with GPS built in and a rubidium oscillator as well to keep its workhorse quartz crystal calibrated, plus full smartphone capabilities (hey, how about being able to sign up for Iridium with it) might be what some of the wealthy will spring for...
Nope! What the wealthy want is a piece of bling that is absurdly expensive and they can afford it while you can't but it also has a level of craftsmanship in it that can only be achieved by having a factory full of captive pixies. Buying an expensive iThing has not appealed to many so far and gold iThings have been available, at the end of the day no matter what the outside has plastered on to it and no matter how smart the chip inside it is a mass produced chip not a piece of rare art and craftsmanship that is hard to come by.
If I could afford a Rolex would I buy one? Absolutely, I had a basic chronograph i the '70s a thing of engineering beauty in miniature and as tough as old boots, I lost it on a holiday in France.
Now I wear daily a 40 quid Titanium watch and have two Tissots that can dive, swim, kayak and sail with me they both have bezels and tachygraphs which I use occasionally, that's about as smart as I need in a watch and I don't see an iWatch taking a tumble out of a kayak and being too happy about it nor do I need notifications about much other than dolphins at 300 metres offshore.
Do you really believe someone wearing an high end watch cares about GPS and other features in it? These are the kind of people who usually have real people taking care of their needs... or do you really believe their will drive their luxury car, boat or plane using the iWatch GPS? Or be reminded of their next First Class flight while in the exclusive airline lounge, after being brought there by a driver and with a secretary taking care of everything?
are a prestige brand for people who have to pay monthly.
Have you seen their prices if you simply wish to walk in and buy one outright? That's not the market they're going for.
To be fair, it's not an 'Apple' thing, it's a 'phone' thing. There's a frightening number of people out there whose most expensive single possession is their phone, and haven't quite grasped 24 month contracts and depreciation.
Anyway - iPhones may be lovely, but they're not prestige.
Looking at watches - well have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swatch_Group#Brands and guess where the money actually comes from.
The prestige thing is 'nice' but.. well doesn't bring in that much. Still you should try and maintain the appearance of prestige - I hear nothing but nice things about experiences people have in Apple stores, and think that's the way to go about keeping your brand valuable.
Omega asking me to send my POS 'luxury' watch to a Swatch concession in Covent Garden, where after a pile of cash they returned it to me without box/warranty card and loose in an f'in jiffy bag (and it's broken again). Well the swiss should be worried, but Apple shouldn't be aiming their sights on them.
That's how he got it. Granted, it might kick (some) digital watches, and maybe makers, into the gutter, but it won't make even the cheappo mechanical's sweat.
Because, and i'm sure that's something Apple hates, wearing a mechanical clock is in and by itself a statement. That you're not on the MEETOO bandwagon and couldn't give less a donkeys ass what the current trend of groupthink is.
Ah well, he was probably just trying to make the fanboys fell warm and fuzzy inside anyway...
Back in 2007, before the iPhone, if you took a survey asking people if they wanted to own a smartphone, maybe a few percent would say yes. Geeks and PHBs. Not ordinary people. Apple did not invent the smartphone, or invent anything truly original in the iPhone. What they did do was combine existing technologies in a novel way to make the smartphone something that a normal person would want to own.
What if they could do the same for the smart watch? What happens if people who today wear a Rolex want to wear a smart watch because it provides some type of functionality they want to have, just as many of us who had no desire whatsoever to own a smartphone before iPhone and Android couldn't imagine giving them up today? Does anyone really believe these Rolex owners are going to continue wearing their Rolexes on one wrist, and the smart watch on the other?
No, they're going to quit wearing their Rolexes. It is simply a piece of jewelry, and a way to let others know you're well off. There are other pieces of jewelry to wear, and other ways to let others know you're well off. The market for Rolex will crater if smart watches become as popular as smart phones.
Apparently Ive thinks that Apple has re-invented smart watches in the same way they reinvented the smartphone. If he's right, Rolex is in trouble, even though an Apple watch or Samsung watch will never make the same statement as a Rolex. Rich people will make that statement in other ways, with 5 carat diamond cufflinks or a Ferrari.
You wear it as a piece of jewelry. I listed both options, not trying to tag every Rolex owner as a rich show-off.
But here's the question. If someone made a device you wear on your wrist that did something that made you decide you wanted it, and you'd wear it as often as you carry your smartphone with you if not more often, would you still wear your Rolex? If so, would you keep doing it if people kept making fun of you for wearing two watches? :)
Haha, oh Ive...
The difference is, you'll have to convince people to buy your iWatch tat every few years, whereas a well made mechanical timepiece will last for almost all purposes - indefinitely, and either a ridiculous time on a battery, or forever on kinetic or solar absorbing technology. When your iWatch runs out, people will be asking about it, but you'll only be able to show them a blank screen, as if you have some kind of lifeless electronic tumour on your arm, unless you hastily take it off and stuff it in your pocket in shame.
If you want a piece of tat that will be outdated in a year, iWatch is for you. If you want a watch that is well built, timeless, classic, and will tell you the time, faithfully, at a glance, forever, then you want a Swiss watch (or for the less well-heeled, a Casio digital watch, everyone has a soft spot for those!).
Rolex is not listed but might be worth 20 - 30 bn dollars, Apple is worth nearly 600 bn dollars.
Although cooperation using swiss self winding to power iGadget and Rolex quality and pricing might keep apple as an iwant and drag Rolex etc. into the 21st cent.
I'm waiting for the ihat that uses the heat from my head as a power supply for my isee (like google glass but cooler/better/expensive)
I know of a British watch maker who currently sells COSC-certified chronometers for less than £700 incl VAT; they built such a solid following over the last few years that they ended up able to launch their own movement in the last year and have ownership of more of the product.
For the iWatch to rock the BIG Swiss boats, Apple would need:
1) An Apple-designed COSC-certified chronometer movement that can power iWatch electronics (somewhat possible - need electronic engineer types to guesstimate how much electrical power a '5-7 day reserve' movement can generate)
2) A sensible UI, durable miniature electronics and a small retina-quality display (very possible)
3) A large supply of Sapphire glass to deliver high quality durable devices (already have this)
I would actually consider this as a companion to my current timepiece (#143/200 - COSC certified Chronometer) as it'd be a quality quirky addition - remember their anticlockwise watches from some convention ages ago? http://www.digitalintrovert.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/l-640-480-426ec39a-88d3-4546-a73d-42ea8db88eac.jpeg
>>1) An Apple-designed COSC-certified chronometer movement that can power iWatch electronics (somewhat possible - need electronic engineer types to guesstimate how much electrical power a '5-7 day reserve' movement can generate)
Nowhere close, unfortunately. A Seiko "kinetic" watch uses a mechanical rotor to charge a battery to power a quartz movement and it's barely enough. You have to wear it for 12 hours to get 24 hours of charge.
A typical quartz movement will run for a few (lets say 3) years on a ~200 mAh watch battery. So if my math is right, the movement uses 0.0076 mA per hour (?).
So that means Seiko's rotor can generate 0.015 mA per hour.
Now look at a smartwatch that lasts (very optimistically) 2 days on a ~300 mAh battery. Power usage of that is 6.25 mA per hour.
So you would have to wear a rotor-powered smartwatch for about 2 weeks straight to get one hour of use out of it. :)
Quote "Another way of putting the same thing would be to say that a Rolex isn't just a watch: it's a statement that you've got $10,000 to blow on a bracelet. "
Quite honestly people who buy a Rolex are simply not going to buy a piece of plastic tat no matter who makes it!
I would like to complain loudly about the negative attitudes to Chinese knock-off the author has expressed.
I own a $3 Chinese Rolex, and as I sit here - at 3:40pm on the 13th of June 1967, I can tell you there are every bit as as good as the real thing.
OK seriously; I have a millionaire friend who owns a real Rolex AND a Chinese knock-off; he wears the knock-off most of the time because it KEEPS better time than the real thing.
If a Rolex is so good, why didnt his last ex wife want it as part of her £5.5 million divorce settlement??
Swiss watches weren't sunk by;
a) Japanese (Seiko, Citizen, Casio).
b) Trendy plastic watches. Swatches actually made in Switzerland.
c) Digital watches.
d) Electronic analogue-face watches.
e) People who don't wear a watch because their phone has a clock.
If anything, the appearance of electronics has upped the prestige of mechanical watches -- allowing the Swiss to charge premium prices.
I remember when the digital watch was going to kill the Swiss watch industry back in the 70s. The Swiss moved double-quick and brought out the Swatch and any fears were averted.
I can't see this watch lasting more than a year before it's passed over and we're back to the traditional timepeices, i.e. our mobile phones.
Anyway, if he works for Apple shouldn't he be called Tim iVe?
"I can't see this watch lasting more than a year before it's passed over and we're back to the traditional timepeices, i.e. our mobile phones."
Another one missing the point. We'll eventually have technology embedded into our bodies and you'll still be holding a smart phone up to your face?
Ever wondered why clocks, depth gauges and altimeters all evolved to the wrist?
Yes, it will give you the time, and plenty of Rolex owners may well end up owning one, but surely it's an adjunct, not a replacement, for a dress watch? I'm certainly keeping an eye on iWatch and the new Motorola 360, but buying neither would cause me to throw my automatic in the bin, or stop me from buying another automatic.
I may have bought into the Apple ecosystem (Mac, iPhone, iPad) but the chances of me replacing my Rolex (15 years old, bought with Y2K/dotcom boom overtime) with an iWatch are about zero. In fact the very few times the shiny isn't on my wrist I have a plain black Swatch to tell me the time. Which reminds me, the shiny needs to go for an all expenses paid holiday/service in the near future.
Given that my iPhone is more-or-less a dumbphone more often than not I'm probably not the target for a smartwatch. Though with all this new health stuff maybe companies like Garmin might be looking over their shoulder?
The moment a smart-watch can receive texts, phone calls, play MP3s and Navigate via GPS among basic tasks like telling the time, weather forecast, altimeter, calendar, then my phone is out of my pocket and into the bin. I can't wait to see whereabouts people will be wearing their Rolex jewellery though, my guess is, not on the other arm.
Sure, maybe a 5" smartwatch.... face it, some devices are bounded by their own phisycal dimensions. Unless Ive redesign your wrist and forearm, there's little you can do in a small screen.
Glasses have a better chance to offer the services you are talking about in a convenient way. You can access info even if your hands are busy, and with the proper "screen" size.
For example if I'm skiing, there's no way I could use a wrist GPS or whatever...
you may end up "doing a Ratner".
Paris and a Rolex - a timeless picture.
http://www.erelyx.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Paris-Hilton-Rolex-Daytona-Gold-Image-9.jpg
A similar picture of Paris and an iWatch - would be dated as soon as the next version comes out, and not something fanboys and girls would aspire to
Much in the same way as I can't wait to get piles as I further approach older age. No doubt I'll be able to chart my approaching health decline and general unfitness with some spangly new iWatch app and track the passing days towards my ultimate demise as it digitally ticks away...... colour me excited.
.... or am I just being a little too Victor Meldrew.
There's nothing wrong with Johnny Ive having the confidence that an iwatch will evolve to replace a smart phone, which is where almost everyone here is missing the point.
A rolex watch might be a luxury item to show off with, but you're not going to wear a rolex on one wrist and a smart watch on the other.
Try looking up "Nick Hayek iwatch". Big boss of Swatch group. Has some interesting things to say: the 'no competition' argument that Tim lays out here. Also that it could even open up new markets in the "don't need nuffin on my wrist I got a Smartphone" generation. And also that quite a lot of the technology that goes into these smart watches is supplied/invented by watch makers.
And that he doesn't wear a watch at night.
But in a way Rolex is a cheap watch, people with real money don't buy Rolexes unless they want something expendable to tell the time. A neighbor who worked for a niche Horologist told me that her best ever day's sales was 90,000 CHF for ONE watch (it was a slow day apparently) and a service for said timepiece was around 4,000 CHF, winding and resetting the time was close to 1000 CHF.
A colleague of mine also told be of a Diplomat who was "sent back to the capital" because he's spent over 3 million USD on watches with the money he'd defrauded. They didn't find a single Rolex in his apartment.
Rolex is the Samsung of the Watch world. People buy them but if you want a real watch you buy something very few people have heard of.
OK, let's get into a pissing match on who can claim that the most expensive watch is actually "cheap".
The crossover point comes when more money doesn't buy you more accurate, more reliable, more durable telling of the time. My guesstimate is that this is around the £700-1000 mark. It's like cars; the Porsche 911 is probably the most expensive car that you can sensibly use as everyday transport, as "supercars" tend to be somewhat erratic, the production volumes not being enough to iron the bugs out.
It's possible that the unwashed masses are finally waking up to the con that has been carried out on them and that the era of bling is drawing to an end. The Fabergé egg reached its apex of elaboration and cost shortly before the Tsar and his family got murdered. But there will always be a demand for stuff that is not cheap but does its job superbly well. Currently the development cycle is so short and so fast that small electronic goods have a shelf life of around a year or so. There is a long way to go before the "superbly well" level is reached.
As someone who has sported a Patek on my wrist for many decades, I offer this true story.
A friend of mine asked me to pick him up a AAA quality Rolex Submariner copy in Asia. These are quite excellent copies and not at all cheap. It takes a well trained eye to spot the difference. I decided to wear it for a few days, never having owned even one Rolex in my adult life.
At least a dozen people commented on my Rolex, some that I had "moved up" in the watch world. Now, as someone who wears a Patek Perpetual Calendar Chronograph (amongst others), this is utterly hilarious. No one before has ever commented on my watches, other than those who themselves have a professional or other particular interest in them.
Really expensive watches go more or less unnoticed by the unwashed masses. A diamond crusted Rolex Presidential is expensive bling, rather than an expensive timepiece, so it gets noticed, but 99.9% of the unwashed, would not know a top tier watch if it struck them in the forhead, and my personal experience aligns with this statement.
Interestingly, Porsches and Rolexes have some similarities.
Rolex customer groups:
Pimps.
Stock brokers.
Jacques Couteau, Kim Bonington et. al.
Porsche customer groups:
Pimps.
Stock Brokers.
Race car drivers.
The first two in each group fund the existence of the product for the benefit of the third who are able to appreciate and value the quality.
A portent of things to come? An ominous storm building up on the eve of the iWatch (?) launch over Geneva and the Vallée de Joux (the heartland of the Swiss horology industry). You can just about see Lac Leman but the Jet d'Eau was turned off.
In my teens I saw an article about a professional diving watch made by Tag. It was cast from a solid block of titanium and looked the dogs dangly bits. Of course, there was no price and it was a limited run but it grabbed my imagination enough to want a Tag watch at some point.
Fast forward the best part of twenty years and my wife's grandma passed away leaving my wife a little money.
By now I had been in a position to buy one for myself for some time but never got around to it. Anyway, my wife took the time to use the money she had to buy one for me and unbeknown to her, the one she so carefully chose was basically a reproduction of the professional diving watch - it was almost identical but cast from steel not titanium.
I was actually quite surprised to see that in the intervening time between then and now the value of it has risen - by quite a bit.
Anyway, I couldn't give a flying toss what Apple or others produce in this area because for me I have the perfect watch with the perfect back story.
The high quality Swiss watch will see its demise now it loses its space.
In a few years smart watches interacting with google glass like devices will replace the current mobile phone format.
The mechanical master pieces will share their fate with cars, high end stereo equipment and camera's... it is something for the 40+ yo, and the 20-30 yo do not have a desire for it anymore.
Rolex? Schmolex! £10K on a watch? no ta, would rather spend it on something more worthwhile.
Apple Watch - lovely gimmick, but a bit pointless - screen too small to do anything meaningful (so people will still have to use their iPhone) and will largely be bought a) by fanbois or, b) by people showing off or c) by nerds.
So you can send your pulse to another user.... really? I mean, really???
BUT the main thing that will kill it is the stupidly short battery life. Yes I know that most people take their watches off at night (I don't) but to be seriously useful, you would operate it frequently during the day, which means a battery life of less than one working day (if not straight away within a short period of charging/recharging). So most of the time you would leave it switched off.
...which is exactly what I did at the proud age of 10 when my parents spent a small fortune on an LED watch which you had to press a button to make work. Friends and family thought this was cool and would show them it, by pressing the little button. And then the batteries died... LCD watches then came out and have dominated the digital watch market since.
So until they sort out better batteries, Smart Watches will be a short lived (and expensive) curiosity that will gather dust.... just like my LED watch :-(