"Analysts" Predict Flop As "Kids Aren't Whining" To Get Apple Watch

by Andy Faust

May 11, 2015

The Apple Watch may be one of the nicest, if not the nicest, smartwatch yet, but it seems more like a niche product than a must-have product.

That’s how the analysts at UBS see the Apple Watch, and the firm summed up this concern with one line in its recent report:

“We also worry because our kids aren’t whining to get one,” the report says.

I’m not surprised that the “analysts” at UBS are looking to their young children for help with their jobs.

That said, it’s an interesting observation, but one that is readily explained away. Children are largely visual learners and players, and while they clearly covet iPhone and iPad for all the fun, animated, bold stuff both platforms can do, the intended use case of Apple Watch puts that product right outside their scope of expected value. It’s not good for gaming, it’s not good for watching movies and shows, it’s not good for YouTube, it’s not good for reading interactive picture books, and it’s not good for looking through photos. You can’t even browse the Internet on one! What little kid would have any use at all for Apple Watch as the device sits atop wrists right now?

Still, I think that’s bound to change, at least as that little kid grows up a bit and starts caring about their connected social presence via whatever networks and messaging protocols are trendy by then. Abdel has argued that Apple Watch is effectively iPod 2.0, and he’s right. But it’s not iPod touch 2.0, and if Apple wants to keep that family alive, all it has to do is allow Apple Watch to pair up with its colorful members. Parents might not want to buy their youngsters iPhones and pay that substantial monthly bill, but I can see Apple Watch pushing up iPod sales when the latter might otherwise be pushing up daisies. (I think there’s a lot of practicality in opening up iPad to Apple Watch, too. But that’s less of an age-related issue and more of a general compatibility/app-parity thing.)

Apple Watch is an adult device. It helps folks who have relationships to maintain, obligations to live up to, meetings and appointments to keep, bills to pay, groceries to buy, garage doors to close, homes to lock, and kids to take care of.

Sometimes, those kids’ opinions aren’t all that reliable when it comes to predicting grown-up demand for grown-up products.

How many first-graders are super duper excited for the 2016 Toyota Camry?