"Techies" Aren't Taking To Apple Watch
It looks like Apple might have to work harder to woo early-adopters. In its second annual poll of 101 tech insiders, The Atlantic found that only around a quarter of them had purchased the Apple Watch.
Some had pretty harsh words for the smartwatch, which hit stores in April. DataSift CEO Nick Halstead told The Atlantic that it’s the “worst device Apple has ever made” and that he “really tried to like it” but couldn’t find a place for it in his life.
Overall, 74 percent of the “executives, innovators, and thinkers” in the Silicon Valley Insiders Poll said that they did not buy the Apple Watch.
Polls. Bleh.
Silicon Valley “executives, innovators, and thinkers” — whatever the heck those latter two mean — probably aren’t Apple’s target audience. There aren’t that many of them, after all, and I’d venture that a huge percentage of those people couldn’t care less about wearable devices. Consumer electronics and computing are pretty sweeping markets, after all.
As for Apple Watch being what Nick Halstead says it is, I think he’s partly right: Apple Watch is the worst first-gen mobile product the company has released in the last 15 years or so. They’ve made a lot of unmitigated garbage in other arenas between then and now, though. Still, that doesn’t mean the thing a failure. I’d argue the opposite is true. And in a few years, if Apple’s goals pan out, this deep health monitor will be a genuine game-changer in the world’s largest consumer industry. It’s already the best fitness device I’ve ever owned.
Now for the poll’s almighty extrapolations: If these tech insiders are buying Apple Watch at a rate of one in four, that translates pretty well to public adoption. That’s a quarter of the US population, or roughly 80 million people. Factor in the EU, China, India, and Russia, and you’ve got a mega blockbuster. Of course, the world won’t adopt Cupertino’s wearable at anywhere near a 25 percent clip, but even so, the device seems to be off to the very start Apple expected.
For what it’s worth, in the previous five months, I’ve seen exactly two other people wearing an Apple Watch here in south Florida. But in the last two days, I’ve seen seven folks sporting them. It’s catching on.
I’m starting to feel less lonely.