[k-mcgrady]

>> "Watches? Tried that."

I don't understand how people think they've tried the watch and failed. They've put out ONE version. The first iPod was Mac only and therefore didn't sell very well. When the iPhone launched you had to buy the device outright - no subsidy and it was lacking features that other phones had for quite a while. It was a few versions before it really took off. I think people shrugging off the watch are being incredibly short sighted (and I say this as someone who had one and sold it). It's not perfect for a mass market now but it can be. The software changes in watchOS 3 are really going to help towards that but in the long term this thing could become essential to your health and from interviews Tim Cook has done in the past it sounds like that's the direction they want to go once they've got the basic software and form factor down.

[ktRolster]

FWIW the apple watch sold fairly well: http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-watch-with-sizable-sales-c...

Expectations of course are ridiculously high.

[geomark]

My impression is that the watch sold mainly because of Apple branding not because it solved a real problem or opened up an entire new market. People are hoping/expecting Apple's next big thing to become a viral hit lke the iPhone. The watch isn't that.

[zghst]

People bought it because they thought it solved an issue. Apple branding around other products have not made them successful (Apple Maps 2012, Ping, MobileMe, Newton, etc.)

[curt15]

But services have never been a core strength of Apple. They've always been at most "good enough". On the other hand, Apple has built up an enviable reputation for delivering well planned and executed physical devices with highly polished user interfaces. See also https://stratechery.com/2016/its-a-tesla/

[zepto]

The watch is selling well and continuing to grow at a rate greater than the iPhone did over the same period.

[aetherson]

What's your source?

[coldtea]

>I don't understand how people think they've tried the watch and failed. They've put out ONE version. The first iPod was Mac only and therefore didn't sell very well. When the iPhone launched you had to buy the device outright - no subsidy and it was lacking features that other phones had for quite a while. It was a few versions before it really took off.

Besides, this one version of the watch, outsold all competitor smart-watches 10 to 1 or more...

[kkhire]

inherent problem with the watch is that it's not a standalone device, its an extension of the phone.

but you're right, there's alot of revisionist history when it comes to apple product success during Jobs era. iPhone didn't become this massive product til 2010 when the 4 was released. that device changed everything for them

[freyr]

> iPhone didn't become this massive product til 2010 when the 4 was released

If we ignore the iPhone 3G, which was the top-selling mobile phone of 2008. Revisionist history indeed.

The original 2007 iPhone was hugely successful out of the gate within the smartphone category, which it shaped and then dominated for the next few years.

2010 was a tipping point for people abandoning feature phones for smartphones, and there wasn't yet a comparable Android competitor. But the seeds were sown years earlier.

[k-mcgrady]

>> "If we ignore the iPhone 3G, which was the top-selling mobile phone of 2008. Revisionist history indeed."

>> "The original 2007 iPhone was hugely successful out of the gate within the smartphone category"

And the Apple Watch is by far the best selling smartwatch. The market just isn't that big.

I think the 3GS was when I started seeing iPhone's everywhere in the UK at least and that was definitely the first really solid device where there weren't glaring feature omissions and performance problems. The market had also come to accept the high phone prices smartphones ushered in by that point too. Everyone I knew had a great PAYG deal back then so convincing them to go to a contract and pay 3-5x what they were used to took a few versions. I think with watchOS 3.0 the software is now at that point and we're just waiting on the hardware to offer something really compelling (which I think will be health related).

[freyr]

> And the Apple Watch is by far the best selling smartwatch. The market just isn't that big.

Right. The fact that the smartwatch market is currently small doesn't exclude the possibility that it will grow huge, as happened with the smartphone market.

But if we want to continue with the analogy, there are other key differences between the Apple Watch and the early iPhone. I'll point out two.

First, even with the first-gen iPhone's feature omissions (its most commonly cited feature omission? No physical keyboard), the iPhone made the immense utility of the smartphone immediately obvious to most people who used it. Many people loved it. By contrast, the reaction to smartwatches from early adopters ranges mostly from cool to lukewarm.

Second, the first iPhone differentiated itself by nailing features that mattered most to most people. Compared to its leading competitors, the iPhone has 8 hours talk time vs 5 hours, 4+ GB memory vs 64 MB, 2 MP camera vs 1.3 MP, Wi-Fi vs no Wi-Fi, twice the screen size, built-in iPod functionality, etc. Nothing really came close in terms of its core features. The glaring feature omissions people complained about (no memory card slot, no physical keyboard (!), no third-party apps, no copy & paste) either turned out to be inconsequential or were obvious ways to make a great product even better. By contrast, the Apple Watch failed to identify key features that make it categorically better than the competition, and people are scratching their heads trying to think of "glaring omissions" that could make the smartwatch more essential.

The Apple Watch might have a future yet, but comparing it to the iPhone really doesn't work out in the Watch's favor.

[k-mcgrady]

Agreed. I think they will be able to make it more and more standalone as the technology for that becomes available (battery life is probably the main reason they can't now). I see it as similar to the iPod being Mac only at the start.

[digi_owl]

Nah, the iPod thing was managerial, not technical.

[k-mcgrady]

It was both. You could only manage it using a Mac and developing iTunes for Windows was a technical roadblock. With the Watch you can only manage it using iOS and opening it up to other phones or making it work standalone is technical.

[swang]

i would say it was always a massive success from the beginning. maybe that's arguable. but to say iphone finally hit its mark with the iphone 4 is calling it a bit late.

[digi_owl]

But MSM was hyping it all the way.

[saurik]

(When the iPhone was first released the price actually was subsidized by AT&T, who got rather screwed by it because it was based on a "trust our security" model, and people would take it home and put it on T-Mobile. It is absolutely true that the first iPhone sucked vs. a normal phone, though. It wasn't until iPhoneOS 3 and the iPhone 3G[S] that the device started getting good.)