"Apple Inc. Co-Founder Steve Wozniak: Apple Watch Will Flop"

Clickbait is always amusing.

Some people are merely gullible. Others, like Anna Peel at ValueWalk, are just plain liars. Only yesterday, I read the above shocking headline on the first page of Google news results for “Apple Watch.” And while it’s no longer a top result, it stayed up long enough to peddle its slanderous nonsense to a wide audience.

Naturally, Steve Wozniak said no such thing, even telling the Australian Financial Review — which conducted the interview in question — that he intends to purchase Apple Watch Sport first to see if it sticks as part of his desired daily routine. If it does, Woz says he might even buy the $10,000-plus Edition edition. He never makes mention of whether or not he thinks the product (at any tier) will sell at whatever pace Apple might expect, and any suggestion of “flop” — much less the actual word itself — never came out of the old engineer’s happy smile. Here’s what did:

Mr Wozniak meanwhile said he had keenly watched the recent launch of Apple’s first smartwatches, but was waiting to judge whether they would be worth permanent wrist space. He said he had previously tried other smartwatches, like the Samsung Galaxy Gear, but discarded them once the novelty had worn off.

He said the crucial factor would be whether an app emerged that made it hugely advantageous to wear the watch all the time. He said Apple Pay on his iPhone had proven very useful, when he had found places to use it, and he imagined it would be even better with a watch.

However when the devices go on sale on April 24, Mr Wozniak said he would be buying the entry level Apple Watch Sport, rather than plunging in with the most expensive models.

“If you buy the really high-priced ones, the jewellery ones, then you’re not buying a smartwatch that has a bunch of apps … Like a Rolex watch, you’re buying if for prestige and a label and a symbol of who you are,” Mr Wozniak said.

“The fact is the difference between a $10,000 watch and a $17,000 dollar watch is only the band, and for an engineer like me I don’t live in that world, that’s not my world.”

Mr Wozniak said he wasn’t criticising people who wanted to buy the Apple Watch Edition, which will start at $14,000 in Australia, and said it appeared to be a nice watch, worth the sum of its expensive parts.

“I’m just not going to buy it for jewellery’s sake until I know it’s something I’m going to want around me and on me and use every single day continually as a permanent part of my life,” he said. “Then maybe I’d consider looking into getting the nicer jewellery version.”

So, yeah, I guess that means “flop.”

Even if it sells 100 million units.