Presumably it is possible to write a piece about the Apple Watch that does not make bombastic, over-the-top statements about its doom based on virtually nothing but the feelings of certain members of the technology punditry corps, but why would you?
Writing for the Forbes contributor network and helper monkey retirement community, Gene Marks explains “Why The Apple Watch Debut Is Worse For Apple Than Glass Was For Google” (no link, but a tip o’ the antlers to Ty Belisle)
Gene, honey, don’t.
This is certainly not Marks’s first time getting thrown from a sheep at the Forbes small animal rodeo.
As bad as Marks’s Apple commentary is, it should be noted that it’s not the worst thing Marks has written. Imagine, if you will, a white, middle-aged man writing a piece entitled—and the Macalope is not making this up—“If I Were A Poor Black Kid.”
Spoiler: He would work hard. Poor black kids can’t thank you enough, Gene.
Do you know anyone, specifically anyone not in the tech industry, connected to Apple or a gadget geek, who owns an Apple Watch?
NEW PRODUCT CATEGORY ONLY SELLING TO PEOPLE WHO BUY NEW PRODUCT CATEGORIES.
I don’t. I’m sure these people exist. But with all the publicity and fanfare I would’ve expected to see the Apple Watch everywhere.
Everywhere. Apple Watches all up and down people’s arms, on their legs, on their pets’ legs.
It’s been out for not quite three months in heavily constrained supplies and it only works with an iPhone. In other words, are you literally high right now? Because you shouldn’t operate heavy machinery if you are. Or, apparently, a keyboard, either.
Something just doesn’t seem right.
That’s for sure.
And that something seems to be sales.
Oh, that’s not what the Macalope was thinking.
Ever since the early days of its launch, no one has been able to predict with any accuracy the sales of the Apple Watch. But the numbers (and the user reviews) are now just starting to come in.
Actually, no! They aren’t! Those Slice numbers the Macalope is sure you’re about to quote (and he does) are nigh meaningless and exist solely to promote Slice.
To be fair, it’s only been a few months since the product was launched and the company hasn’t released official numbers yet. And even the iPhone, which debuted in 2007, didn’t really explode until the appearance of Apple’s App Store a year later…
You can almost smell the big “but.”
But there seems to be a groundswell of disappointment…
This “groundswell of disappointment” is precisely as palpable as Antennagate was.
Here’s the thing: If you think the Apple Watch is a failure then you have to believe that smartwatches are a failure as a category because the Apple Watch has trounced sales of all other smartwatches. But no one wants to write that piece because links exist to be baited.
It’s very reminiscent of a similar product release just a few years back, isn’t it?
No! It is not. Apple sold more Watches in a weekend than Google shipped Glasses during its whole run. And all without anyone getting punched in the nose (or wrist) for wearing one.
They are both pioneer products in a growing Internet of Things world.
I KNOW MANY TECHNOLOGY CATCH PHRASES. DO NOT TEST ME ON THIS.
And they’re expensive–Google Glass was priced at $1,500 and the Apple Watch costs at least $349…
[Long, blank stare into the camera. Math no longer has any meaning. The universe falls apart, atom by atom, as the mathematical constants that once held it together vanish in a wisp. The only thing remaining is the Macalope and the camera he continues to stare into, forever.]
But the similarities end there. The Apple Watch launch is not like Google Glass.
Oh, good, finally we’re reaching some level of san…
It is potentially much, much worse.
Blaldaflakdjflakdjfalkdjf
For starters, the Apple Watch is a full-blown product, whereas Google Glass was just an experiment.
Uh-huh, so which one should you have had to pay more for, the full-blown product or the experiment?
Glass was not initially billed as an “experiment.” It was billed as a beta. It was only after it was taken off the market that Google started calling it an “experiment.”
But let us now go to the last word in the Apple Watch’s success or failure:
The Apple Watch is not making people or companies quicker, better or wiser. “I don’t get it,” my 21-year-old son (and tech enthusiast) said to me over the weekend.
Please hold your laughter until all the laugher-containing quotes have been copied and pasted.
“Why would I spend all that money for an Apple Watch when I already have an iPhone?”
Yes, his son does not even own an Apple Watch. A million of the slowest, most sarcastic golf claps.
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Are you kidding?
What did Marks manage to get to span to the second page of this oeuvre? His sig line. It does not matter what spans on to page two, all that matters is that the piece spans to more than one page.
Mission accomplished.