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Tim Cook has made a bold claim about the predicted success of his company’s Apple Watch line, saying that in the near future people will be baffled by the notion that they didn’t adorn their wrists with one of Apple’s premium smartwatches.
In an interview on CNBC’s Mad Money (via The Verge), Cook compared the predicted trajectory of the Apple Watch to the iPhone and iPod, saying: “In a few years, we will look back and people will say, ‘How could I have ever thought about not wearing this watch?’ Because it’s doing so much for you. And then it will all of a sudden be an overnight success.”
The Apple CEO continued: “We are going to give you things that you can’t live without. That you just don’t know you need today.”
I am very aware that Silicon Valley figureheads have a habit of coating all of their output in a thick layer of hyperbole, with Apple arguably more guilty of this than anyone else. But I also feel that this statement is unequivocally incorrect, and that whatever improvements Apple chooses to make to its Watch further down the line, the notion that the device will even approach the vitality of the iPhone is one that’s based upon the notion that Apple as a brand carries Apple products to success, and not the other way round.
One need only look at Apple’s own product line to see what impact the iPhone has had not only on the tech industry, but on Apple’s other devices, too. The iPod used to be a vital piece of technology for music lovers, but its usefulness was eradicated by the smartphone’s ability to successfully perform its key function. While smartwatches offer a neat and more style-focused alternate method of accessing apps found on your other mobile devices, the point remains that mostly all of their features can still be found on your other mobile devices.
People answering calls using their Apple Watch is a future no one should want to be a part of.
Tim Cook saying that soon we’ll ask ourselves “How have we lived without the Apple Watch?” suggests that in the next few years, their smartwatches will prove to be as ubiquitous as smartphones. Considering that in order to do so, Apple would need to offer us a valid reason to use the Watch as an alternative to our existing devices rather than a device that supplements them, this doesn’t seem likely. For the foreseeable future, the Apple Watch will remain a good-looking gadget for those with disposable income, and it severely overestimates the inherent efficacy of the smartwatch to argue otherwise.
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We don’t even know how much the first iteration of the Apple Watch has sold, aside from Apple’s vague admission that the device has matched its projected targets. This is because, in the company’s financial reports, the Apple Watch is lumped in among the company’s “other products,” which include Beats headphones and Apple TV. Considering the Watch was advertised much more intensely than those other products, with it being touted as Apple’s next major product line prior to its release, it’s understandable that this raises suspicions in regards to just how well the Watch has performed for Apple financially.
But regardless of the validity of Apple’s claims that the Watch is performing well, despite the device seemingly having experienced an elongated sales slump as evidenced by the company’s relatively motionless holiday profits report, a season which was predicted to be dramatically bolstered by the release of the Watch, it still doesn’t detract from the fact that Apple itself has positioned it as one of its lesser products. That is not a hopeful sign for a device that we’ll supposedly one day be unable to live without.
It’s inarguable that in its current state, the Apple Watch is definitely not a vital technology. It is a well-designed, if entirely superfluous piece of tech that performs the functions of your mobile on a less intuitive, smaller scale. However, I cannot see there ever being a time when it usurps any tech that you currently carry in your pocket, no matter how powerful Apple as a brand may be. Sure, this is a company that has confidently attempted to sell a stylus as a formative technology, but even by Apple’s standards, this is a grandiose statement for Tim Cook to make.
