Analyst Explains Why Apple Watch Will Flop Regardless Of Units Sold
Mark Wilson, Fast Company Design:
Current reports say the Apple Watch could burn out in times as short as 2.5 hours before needing a recharge. Best-case scenarios (you know, when you use it a lot less), might stretch its life to 19 hours. But a loyal user of the Apple Watch would be forced to take it off and recharge it four times during a workday. That’s absurd. …
Battery is just one notch against the Apple Watch’s widespread adoption. The other is the chicken-or-egg problem of infrastructure. Does Apple sell the watches first, or do they create the most optimal watch experience first? Nowhere is this issue more clear than in comparing what Apple is doing to Disney’s smartwatch-enabled fantasyland, Disney World.
I guess when Apple said that this time, it’s personal, Wilson really took it to heart. The guy plain doesn’t like the thing. It offends his sensibilities because it’s just so boring, or something. His solution, of course, is to hype Apple Watch’s non-existent battery “problem” with ridiculous claims that “a loyal user” (whatever that means) “would be forced to take it off and recharge it four times during a workday” when he knows full well that those 2.5-hour estimates are based on constant, active, full-sensor, fully-engaged, eyeballs-to-the-wall, screen-on, heavy use. Apple obviously doesn’t expect anybody to spend two and a half hours per day with face firmly fixed to wrist. Best to leave that bit out, though, since it tends to bust up the doom-and-gloom narrative rather immediately.
I’m also amused (bemused?) by the philosophical “problem” presented in the second verse of the lamentations above, where Wilson similarly misrepresents the histories of every other blockbuster Apple product to date. Remember how iPhone had a 3G radio and full third-party app support from day one? Remember the first-generation MacBook Air’s multiple USB ports? Remember the FaceTime cameras in the original iPad? Me neither. And then (because why not?) Wilson compares Apple Watch to some Disney Land service.
The real issue I have with Wilson’s argument, though, is the premise itself: He claims Apple Watch “is going to flop” even if it “were to sell 50 or 100 million units.” He must have gone to the same school of statistics as this genius.