Leaked apple watch prices

[Wicky]

If they were the same movement - like an unbranded, unfinished loose-parts 7750 bought off eBay - this would be valid, but what IWC put in its 7750-powered watches was significantly better equipped, finished and balanced than the bottom-end version you'd find in a £300 watch.

I'm talking ETA 7750's in both cases, from an ETA factory. If the Apple pricing doesn't make sense, neither does this.

Although I can't think of any new £300 watches with 7750s in them that aren't well used or fakes...?

https://www.uhr.info/products/de/Chronographen-von-UHR/UHR-651.html?PHPSESSID=rm8t25tq8f4cpv3c5i0liv5qp5

[gamingdave]

Do you really think that a bunch of watch fans are Apples target market?

Oh and I suspect that those of you that prefer to wear your watches on the wrong (right) wrist,,, will be fine, just turn it upside down, just like a mobile or tablet the screen will orientate, or alternatively adjust the screen in settings.

What's to say that when version 2 comes to market you don't just change the movement, keeping the same bracelet strap combo...?

I'm not an Apple fan, I've never bought into queuing around the block to pay over the odds for a phone, tablet or laptop, don't misunderstand I'm not knocking the product or those that buy them, but if smart watches were such a bad idea Apple wouldn't go there.
60 years ago IBM thought there would someday be a computer in every city, 25 years ago only business users had mobile phones and they were the size of house bricks.
Things change.

Not seen them suggest anywhere that the watch is wearable upside down with a flipped screen and controls, and suspect if it did it would have been mentioned.

I think the possibility that Apple will replace the innards when v2 comes out is minimal. They may stick with the same strap connection for a while, but that will be it.

But I do think smart watches are a smart idea. We all know that the wrist is a better place for timekeeping than the pocket, so why shouldn't other pieces of quick information be well suited to the wrist. I think Apple have the best looking, and most practically sized, smart watch on the market. But alas it isn't for me as an Android user (I do own an iPhone 3GS but this isn't supported anymore).

[andrew]

I'm talking ETA 7750's in both cases, from an ETA factory. If the Apple pricing doesn't make sense, neither does this.

https://www.uhr.info/products/de/Chronographen-von-UHR/UHR-651.html?PHPSESSID=rm8t25tq8f4cpv3c5i0liv5qp5

That is very cheap, cheaper than I thought even an UHR was, but it is totally unfinished and timekeeping may be a bit of a crap shoot. There still is very little comparison between the innards of two differently priced Apple watches, which are identical in every way, and an UHR and an IWC with the same basic movement. In both cases the expensive version asks you to pay a premium for the case, but in the case of the mechanical watch, you get measurable and visible improvements in terms of timekeeping and finish, even if you may not value those improvements given how labour intensive they are.

As others have mentioned, the fact that the gold Apple will cost "ten kay" is enough to drive demand. Like luxury watches whose pricing often makes little sense I agree, it will sell like hot cakes - due to a very special economic phenomenon :).

[Packer]

I'm not going to spend 12k but £500 for a fairly nifty cool-looking watch that's wearable, functional and different to everything else is certainly something I will explore. As someone interested in watches it seems a bit of a no-brainer, don't really understand the hatred :)

+1

The prices are a bit high for me to bite at the moment, but I'm tempted to try one at some point.

[rfrazier]

Not seen them suggest anywhere that the watch is wearable upside down with a flipped screen and controls, and suspect if it did it would have been mentioned.

I think the possibility that Apple will replace the innards when v2 comes out is minimal. They may stick with the same strap connection for a while, but that will be it.

But I do think smart watches are a smart idea. We all know that the wrist is a better place for timekeeping than the pocket, so why shouldn't other pieces of quick information be well suited to the wrist. I think Apple have the best looking, and most practically sized, smart watch on the market. But alas it isn't for me as an Android user (I do own an iPhone 3GS but this isn't supported anymore).

Amongst other things (such as not having Apple stuff, and liking mechanical stuff) I would miss the 3D nature and texture of the dial and hands. I suspect that someday there will be an illusion of 3d, however.

Best wishes,
Bob

[gamingdave]

I agree Bob, and could imagine myself with a real traditional watch on the left, and a smart on the right. Or better still a smart one on the underside of my wrist attached to the same strap as my traditional watch.

[Broussard]

Not seen them suggest anywhere that the watch is wearable upside down with a flipped screen and controls, and suspect if it did it would have been mentioned.

It was mentioned yesterday - and there have also been some specfic articles online.

[Rolthai32]

I know it's difficult for mechanical watch enthusiast to get excited by new fangled tech but lets put it into context. The Apple Watch is amongst the first of its kind. Look at some of the other early versions of new tech – the Apple watch isn't that bad.







Look at how far things have come in such a short time. I don't want an Apple watch anymore than I wanted one of the first digital cameras, or mobile phones. But I have both now, and so at some point I and many more of us will have a smart watch.

This one was cheap

[gamingdave]

It was mentioned yesterday - and there have also been some specfic articles online.

Good to hear, it's a fairly vital feature really. I didn't watch the whole presentation, just bits when something was compiling, so must have missed it.

[geek0]

Only problem is those 12-18h are far from luxury...and that is what the "luxury bait" is gonna hold off... I say it's gonna fail big time... This is a product Jobs would not have come to market at that point of maturity..

[72bpm]

Report in the Times says will last up to 18 hours.
Will this be compatible with iPhone/Ipad/Ipod charger or will I have to lug 2 chargers?
I am sure some guy in the far east will come up with a converter.
If I had 10K to spare sure as hell WON'T be buying an Iwatch.
Most likely a GO Senator Perpetual Calendar!!!

[ctafield]

18 hours of very specific usage. Can't recall exactly what, but it's something like X number of times checking the time, Y times using apps, 30 minutes of music etc.

- - - Updated - - -

18 hours of very specific usage. Can't recall exactly what, but it's something like X number of times checking the time, Y times using apps, 30 minutes of music etc.

[rfrazier]

18 hours of very specific usage. Can't recall exactly what, but it's something like X number of times checking the time, Y times using apps, 30 minutes of music etc.

- - - Updated - - -

18 hours of very specific usage. Can't recall exactly what, but it's something like X number of times checking the time, Y times using apps, 30 minutes of music etc.

From the Telegraph (which they say they got from the small print on the Apple website).
Apple Watch battery ....

Reserve Mode (power save) = 72 hours
Test mode = 48
Time announced at conference = 18
Health Monitoring = 7
Music = 6.5
Phone = 3

Best wishes,
Bob

[Ozyjohn]

China is way ahead of the yanks on this one, both in price and concept.

[RobDad]

Hmm. I see a big issue here. Most iPhone users I see on the train are young, and the guys don't wear a watch whilst the girls wear a cheap Argos job or an ironic gold coloured Casio. They spend money on phones, holidays and fake tan to keep up with their mates (they've given up on the thought of buying a house in London) and watches just don't figure. Then you get the older iPhone user who is happy with his phone in his pocket and a traditional watch on his wrist. I genuinely think that if someone like Casio entered the smart watch market you'd very quickly get a myriad of styles, all 200m wr and shock proof, around £200 and then the youngsters might go for it. I'm also a bit confused about the 'luxury' label anything iPhone seems to still have attached. Show me a McDonald's in London and most tables will be full of diners clutching iphones!

[jeg5263]

I don't need a watch that does what my android phone does better just my opinion though

[rfrazier]

Deleted. Changed my mind.
RLF

[studly]

Apple is nothing without Steve Jobs.

The decline is nigh.

[toohuge]

The worst part of all this in my opinion will be Apple fans taking everything that Apple announces as gospel. So we will hear everyone talking about sapphire crystal as if it's the latest and most high tech screen material and of course, people will be asking why anyone needs a water proof watch.. :D

[rfrazier]

A very good proportion of iPhones in the USA are subsidized by carriers, who get their money back in their monthly tariffs. This won't be so with the iWatch, I assume, although there has been speculation that they might be subsidised by health insurance companies. So, this is likely to be a gadget for which people pay the full amount. I don't know what effect this will have on the number of people buying them.

Best wishes,
Bob

[miguelh34]

A very good proportion of iPhones in the USA are subsidized by carriers, who get their money back in their monthly tariffs. This won't be so with the iWatch, I assume, although there has been speculation that they might be subsidised by health insurance companies. So, this is likely to be a gadget for which people pay the full amount. I don't know what effect this will have on the number of people buying them.

Best wishes,
Bob

Got to agree how many iphones would sell from £550 with out the subsidy. I think they will sell a few of the sports models, but the more expensive steel models will be a hard sell for £850.

[Kaiser]

Amongst other things (such as not having Apple stuff, and liking mechanical stuff) I would miss the 3D nature and texture of the dial and hands. I suspect that someday there will be an illusion of 3d, however.

Best wishes,
Bob

This flat screen stuff is the coming thing, take a look at higher end vehicles like BMW's and you will see that the instrument panel is a flat screen now. Looks a little strange at first, but you do get used to it.

On the iWatch side I suspect that Apple will at some point offer them as a package with a new Phone, get an iPhone 7 and get the watch at a discount. Just a thought.

[Packer]

Yeah I was quite surprised that the steel version on the steel bracelet is three times the price of the aluminium one on rubber... I didn't realise steel was so valuable! I went from a "maybe" to a "no" when I saw that.

[andrew]

Got to agree how many iphones would sell from £550 with out the subsidy. I think they will sell a few of the sports models, but the more expensive steel models will be a hard sell for £850.

The pull is strong; new iPhones come out every six month or so, or nine, certainly more frequently than once a year, and contracts are usually two years long - so I suspect a lot of iPhone owners are stumping up the cash to buy a new one off-contract and then eBaying the old one.

I'm sure the cheapest one will sell very quickly to heavy Apple buyers, as a toy if nothing else.

[Kaiser]

Hmm. I see a big issue here. Most iPhone users I see on the train are young, and the guys don't wear a watch whilst the girls wear a cheap Argos job or an ironic gold coloured Casio. They spend money on phones, holidays and fake tan to keep up with their mates (they've given up on the thought of buying a house in London) and watches just don't figure. Then you get the older iPhone user who is happy with his phone in his pocket and a traditional watch on his wrist. I genuinely think that if someone like Casio entered the smart watch market you'd very quickly get a myriad of styles, all 200m wr and shock proof, around £200 and then the youngsters might go for it. I'm also a bit confused about the 'luxury' label anything iPhone seems to still have attached. Show me a McDonald's in London and most tables will be full of diners clutching iphones!

Good point about young people not wearing wrist watches. Does make you wonder what Apple is thinking about hear, they are generally on target when it comes to reading trends. I work in an office that has a mix of young and old people in it, me at 56 being the oldest there. What I see is that anyone under 30 generally does not wear a watch, they have a phone they use to keep track of time. The people of around my age all of wrist watches, and most of them mechanical as well. One of the younger guys did have an Android watch for a while but stopped wearing it due to issues with poor battery life. If he used it a great deal it was just a few hours at best. The battery life is the weakness in what is to me a good idea, I suspect that there will be future generations of the iWatch that will do better when it comes to battery life, if Apple does not get that sorted the iWatch will not be a success in my opinion.

[smalleyboy1]

I saw something on the net yesterday saying the battery would be replaceable to overcome the problems of batteries dying after so many charges and the watch would be upgradeable. I think it was suggested that you could keep the case and upgrade the internal module eventually as well as software updates.

Not for me though.

[PhiloStan]

Smart watches (and phones) don't appeal much to me simply because of how fast technology advances. It becomes disposable and outdated too quickly.

Battery life isn't even an issue for me, but if it were and it could last for a week at the moment, something "better" will be around in the next few months.

[2012]

Prices goes up to 20k for gold/gold model

click

After I read about 12h battery life I couldn't care less.

They say never say never - but not in my lifetime in any event....

[number2]

Smartwatches that mirror the look of the Apple Watch's hardware and software are being advertised on China's most popular online shopping service.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31832108


An interesting article which if anything highlights how cheap theses things should actually be, and what kind of margins Apple operate on.

[Dave+63]

This chap writes in The Telegraph that the iWatch will have the Swiss watch industry quaking in its boots: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/c...nd-market.html

Interesting article. Apparently Japan hardly makes any watches anymore!

[Huertecilla]

people will be asking why anyone needs a water proof watch.. :D

Which is a very good question. You don't really.

[andrew]

Which is a very good question. You don't really.

You're speaking for everyone, then ;)

People will be asking what else we don't "need" I suppose. Do you need an iPhone, for example?

[Huertecilla]

Do you need an iPhone, for example?

Nope, don't have one.
Nor any other smart phone.
Mine is stupid, is good at phone calls, bounces off a concrete floor no harm done and is 'water resist' on par with an F-91W.
Those two, the phone and watch represent what I need to keep functioning normally in modern society.

I have way more luxury watches because I like them. Most not all that WR and when they are it is because it came with the model I liked.

I do not have a smarter phone because I enjoy, need the lack of the extra features and think the things very uncool. I prefer my 'tool phone'

[rfrazier]

This flat screen stuff is the coming thing, take a look at higher end vehicles like BMW's and you will see that the instrument panel is a flat screen now. Looks a little strange at first, but you do get used to it.

On the iWatch side I suspect that Apple will at some point offer them as a package with a new Phone, get an iPhone 7 and get the watch at a discount. Just a thought.

Thanks for posting this. Your claim about flat screens has been distracting,
in a good way, since I read it, both with respect to watches and with respect
to user interfaces in general. I suspect that there are experts in user
interfaces on the forum (UX folks), but I'm not one of them. However, I'm
still willing to have a go at thinking about it.

Flat screen as a goal, or flat screen as the only screen output we have
available? We live in a world of at least 4D (space+time). Our screens, at
the moment, can adequately represent 2D of space and the 1D of time. Of
course screen makers are trying to get a representation of the 3rd spacial
dimension, with varing success. (One way might be to have a screen with
depth.) The 3rd dimension not only makes things more `life like' but can
increase information density dramatically. So, given the state of play, when
we use screens for output, it doesn't surprise me that it is flat and
it represents things as flat.

In the car you mention, which I've never actually seen, having not been in
many cars except taxis for a couple of decades, the significant move, I would
guess, is from mechanical measuring to electronic measuring. Once you have
electronic measuring in place, it is more expensive and much less efficient to
convert it to special purpose dials. Best to use a general purpose display
with software control. Given the information being displayed, it isn't even
clear that you would have a reduction in information density. Indeed, it
might increase. It may still be useful to have the display in analogue form,
however.

For all I know, it might be best in the long run to stop trying to emulate 4D
analgoue displays on screens, and develop a new model for screen displays.
However, I'm not sure about this. I've been using a phone with Android
Lollipop, which implements Google's Material Design. It is flat in some ways,
but not in others. Depth, or trying to represent it with certain cues, still
has some importance. An aside. The version of Lollipop I'm using,
Cyanogenmod 12/Lollipop, is not ultra stable, although it has been improving
rapidly. I tried going back to the previous Cynaogenmod 11/KitKat, which is
ultra stable, but I couldn't stick it out. The Material Design interface is
so very good that I'm willing to put up with using the less stable Lollipop.

Since you set me off on this, I've also been thinking about other aspects of
user interfaces, especially input, such as using real knobs rather then menus
or virtual knobs, but I won't bore you with that. I'll get on to watches.

It seems to me that, if anything, the 3rd spacial dimension has been getting
more and more prominent in high end mechanical watches. For example, textured
dials are more available and more varied. The increase in the use of the 3rd
spacial dimension is, I suspect, is a result of a number of things. One is
that with modern machining methods it is easier. The capital outlay for this
is pretty high, so it also distinguishes the `big boys' from others. But, an
important reason is that texture can add aesthetic value.

So, having a flat watch front (flat dial and hands) with certain visual cues
might not result in a loss of information, it does lose aesthetic value (of
one sort), from my point of view. There is a reason that even
electronic watches often have dials using the 3rd spacial dimension.

It seems an open question to me whether a flat display can have other
aesthetically good making properties as a result of being flat that a display
using the 3rd spacial dimension can't have. If it is a general purpose, but
small screen, t certainly can be novel more easily, for example.

Best wishes,
Bob

[Broussard]

(Read but not quoted)

Best wishes,
Bob

Bob - fascinating subject. I'm also very interested in the UI, especially haptic feedback (or the Taptic Engine as Apple seem to be calling it). It would be interesting to see how far you could take it in the direction you describe.

[rfrazier]

Bob - fascinating subject. I'm also very interested in the UI, especially haptic feedback (or the Taptic Engine as Apple seem to be calling it). It would be interesting to see how far you could take it in the direction you describe.

Thanks. Interesting read!

Best wishes,
Bob

[thenikjones]

The pull is strong; new iPhones come out every six month or so, or nine, certainly more frequently than once a year, and contracts are usually two years long .

No, since 2007 when it first came out, there has been one release per year. When the 4s came out it was actually a 15 month cycle rather than 12. For the last 2 years they have released multiple models, but it has been once (June, now September) a year.

[bigweb]

Thanks. Interesting read!

Best wishes,
Bob

Typical Apple haptic feedback has been used on android smartphones for years but Apple does it ,calls it 'Taptic' and it's some big thing!

[Broussard]

Typical Apple haptic feedback has been used on android smartphones for years but Apple does it ,calls it 'Taptic' and it's some big thing!

Apologies - finally seen an Apple Watch with the back off. The Taptic Engine looks just the same as any other linear acctuator.

Sigh.

Not to this degree. I'm not just talking about vibrating alarms and notifications.

I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more information about haptics at the Spring Froward event. But then, there was a general lack of info, to be honest. It was all pricing...

[rfrazier]

Typical Apple haptic feedback has been used on android smartphones for years but Apple does it ,calls it 'Taptic' and it's some big thing!

Vibrations and haptic feedback are the first things I turn off when I set up a phone. I also have a very, very minimal notification alarm. One short, low ping. Even my phone ringtone wouldn't wake the dead. ;)

Best wishes,
Bob

[chrisparker]

Smartwatches that mirror the look of the Apple Watch's hardware and software are being advertised on China's most popular online shopping service.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31832108


An interesting article which if anything highlights how cheap theses things should actually be, and what kind of margins Apple operate on.

Yet still nowhere close to Swiss watch industry margins vs their Chinese clone counter parts.

Are you suggesting Apple watches 'should actually be' the same price as their fakes?

[bigweb]

Amusing

https://youtu.be/oL1xf_X0W2s