It’s pure arrogance for Silicon Valley to imagine that it can make wearables cool by hiring a few fashion people, putting the product on a runway, or throwing money at “collaborations” with brands. This is a new game they’re trying to play, one with different rules. The rollout of the Apple Watch would look much different if it were orchestrated by a brand like Chanel. Instead of being released at $350, it would hit stores with a price tag in the thousands. Consumers would clamor to get their hands on one, only to be stymied by limited runs, which would further stoke desire. Only after a few years of artificial scarcity would it enjoy wider release.
Obnoxious? Maybe. But to do cool right, brands have to jettison tech world values like accessibility and utopianism. Cool isn’t fair. You can’t have it both ways.
We’ll see how it goes. The Apple Watch will sell pretty well early on – but I have no idea how well it will do in the long term. Most wearables end up inn drawers, uncharged, forgotten. Time will tell if the Apple Watch will be any different.
If they took years to get a wider release, somebody else would just do it and the potential market for the original product would be gone.
Imagine if they did that with the iPhone — it was copied quickly and passable versions available within a couple years
Instead of being released at $350, it would hit stores with a price tag in the thousands. Consumers would clamor to get their hands on one, only to be stymied by limited runs, which would further stoke desire. Only after a few years of artificial scarcity would it enjoy wider release.
Isn’t that exactly what Apple has traditionally done… excessive prices, artificial scarcity?
The author is obviously a moron:
a) Electronic devices must be sold in huge volumes to justify the development cost.
b) People expect their multi-thousand dollar watches to last many years.
c) Watches are jewellery. They are not consumer electronics.
Releasing a new fashion watch involves little more than designing a new case. In fact many watch companies simply outsource the entire manufacturing and design process. [The movements are standard sized components and just drop in.]
Edited 2015-02-17 01:13 UTC
I have to admit that I don’t understand fashion either. I mean, when it comes to computers, if there’s a certain rule or limitation as to how things work, there’s generally a specific reason why, and it usually has to do with backwards compatibility.
But with fashion, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why things are set up the way they are. For example, I understand that it’s unfashionable to wear brown shoes with a black belt. (Or is it black shoes with a brown belt – I don’t f-king remember.) But why/how was this rule set up? Were there a bunch of fashion czars that all sat in a meeting and decided this is how it was going to be? Did it come to a vote in which everyone participated in? And if so, why wasn’t I notified?
This essay by Paul Graham will give you several precious insights about how fashion works, and why is it so pervasive
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
I really can’t recommend it enough
If you have a black belt, I’d say you can wear whatever color shoes you want to (thank you, thank, I’ll be here all night).
It’s not just you. Fashion is basically the same as politics, but even more irrational, catty, and hopelessly skewed in terms of perception vs. reality. And when it comes to technology & other tools with actual, practical purposes, fashionability is nothing more than a crutch for lazy/mediocre designers.
Apple’s competition is this space of wearables isn’t LG or Samsung in my view, it’s the established watch makers, Swatch in particular. They have a long history of following and making the fashion in wristwear. Fashion ‘works’ by being able to move and change quickly. This is not something Apple traditionally has done. They undoubtedly release sought after products, but you are expected to conform to Them, not find the iPhone that expresses You. Its a fundamental difference in thinking that we will have to see if apple (or others) can overcome
I’m pretty happy the tech world is nothing like the fashion world.
This. The absurd part is that, by implying that it’s a bad thing that technology isn’t more like fashion, the author betrays a much worse ignorance of how the technology world works. And given that there’s actual practical reasons for the way the technology world operates & the directions that it takes (unlike fashion), that’s a much worse failing that not understanding how fashion works.
In other words, it’s like bragging that the local convenience store makes a better microwaved hot dog than a 5 star restaurant – being “able” to understand fashion is hardly something to be proud of.
I used to be happy the car world was nothing like the tech world. Sadly, now we have hybrid batteries degrading over time (affecting resale value), security systems being hacked by some punk with a smartphone, and all this self-driving “autonomous” crap!!
I hope you are being sarcastic … not sure …
My colleague drives a ten year old prius. The batteries in it are fine.
I’m not a hybrid fan myself due to the complexity and weight that this technology brings. Pure electric on the other hand is simple and elegant. HOWEVER … my opinion doesn’t matter very much to the market. Hybrids are selling, and guess what. People love them … and for good reason. Turns out almost all of them are pretty good cars!
As for hacking a car with a cell phone … are you really that dense?
In order to “hack” a car, you must interface with the port that is specially designed to allow you access to the ecu for diagnostics. It’s called the OBD-II system, or “OnBoard Diagnostics” port.
You can “hack” it in the same way your garage “hacks” it.
I “hack” the DTCs off my car every week with my android phone and my 10$ 1337 h4x0r OBD dongle and a 5$ play store app.
IMHO, autonomous cars will be a blessing.
I’m a car guy. My daily driver is a supercharged lotus elise. i _REALLY_ like driving.
BUTTS
Accidents happen, and truth be told … much less of them would happen if people could commute autonomously.
I am for autonomous cars, as long as they don’t make it mandatory. If they do, i will avenge my tribe of the gearheads and kill every single government official with a spoon.
In short … it’s 2015 … and that number can only go up. I suggest you keep an open mind.
It’s quite remarkable that the author’s definition of cool is something ludicrously expensive whose scarcity is artificial. Which translates more or less to: to be cool you must be a moron with more money on your hands than brains. Thanks, but no thanks.
And that’s why the Apple watch is going to fail (along with the Applemobile, if they’re actually stupid enough to release it). In the technology world, focusing on “fashionability” is a differentiator – even though it adds no practical value, the combination with Apple’s infla… I mean “premium” prices is enough to succeed with the mindless “if it costs more, it must be better” crowd.
But in automobiles & fashion accessories/jewelry? Apple is now entering a market with many well-established players, who already have a lock on the “if it’s more expensive, it must be better” demographic – in some cases, for decades before Apple ever even existed.
“The rollout of the Apple Watch would look much different if it were orchestrated by a brand like Chanel. Instead of being released at $350, it would hit stores with a price tag in the thousands. Consumers would clamor to get their hands on one, only to be stymied by limited runs, which would further stoke desire. Only after a few years of artificial scarcity would it enjoy wider release.”
I find myself reminded of every iPhone release…
The ‘ultra exclusive’ iPhone. Each one is individually numbered. Only one billion ever made.
What if there’s no room at the “inn”?
‘Ba-dum-ching’
I’ve never ventured into fashionville. I feel more comfortable up in the mountains in my log cabin, wearing nothing but a tshirt and boxers.
As i wade through the sea of empty beercans … savoring the smell of ongoing fermentation … i wonder …
Isn’t this fashion woman just pissed off because the tech world is now doing what they have been doing for ages?
Is she really seriously going on about a little thing you clip on your handbag … who the f–k cares?
Anyway, they can set fire to her and her ego for all i care.
Edited 2015-02-18 08:43 UTC
Zara, Desigual, H&M have thousands os SKUs. They don’t bother baptise their products, because they are all different. Apple sells very few different items, they all look similar, and they all have catchy names. In general, if a product is given a name, then it is probably something serialized and unified for the masses, not something that you have and almost nobody else does.
America has an alergy to variety. Burger King, Apple, Levis, the great american brands slap consumers with product lines that are ten items long, then try to make customers believe that they wanted nothing else. But they convince you that dressing like everybody else makes you different, a rebel!
I don’t see fashion divas queuing to all wear the same Apple watch, no matter how tackily bathed in gold and Swarowski glass they sell it. High fashion is about uniqueness. But even popular fashion is about uniqueness, like H&M, Zara, Desigual or Swatch have noticed, while Apple and Levis have failed to.
Edited 2015-02-18 10:48 UTC