This is a new challenge for Apple; can it turn a piece of technology into a massively desired fashion accessory? And can the Apple Watch stand up against its competition, from low-end quartz watches to high-end Rolexes? To answer these and many other questions, we put the Apple Watch in the hands of a mechanical watchmaker, the exact type of person Apple is trying to make obsolete.
John Tarantino is the founder and CEO of Martenero, one of the few mechanical watch companies based in the US. Martenero sells customizable mechanical watches built in New York City for around $500, a price point that undersells the quality of its timepieces. The Verge sat down with Tarantino (and a 42mm Apple Watch with a leather loop) to discuss his initial thoughts on the Apple Watch as a watchmaker and its potential impact on the mechanical watch market, and to find out if he will purchase one.
A very insightful response to the Apple Watch – and let’s face it, all current smartwatches.
[Citation needed]. Apple have said no such thing. This is media spin, and spending a moment to think would dissuade you from that idea.
The Apple watch appeals to 30-something successful IT people and millionaire playboys.
It’s a watch to geek out about or to not be seen without. It is not a practical watch in the slightest.
Creating a market of the kind of people who have enough disposable cash for a impractical watch that will only last three years before it’s obsolete, it borderline genius marketing.
The only Apple watches from now that we be around in 20 years, let alone 100 will be in museums, not on people’s wrists.
Traditional watch makers have absolutely nothing to fear other than fear itself. Over-reacting to the Apple watch and — woe-betide — trying to copy it is what will spell doom.
Pfft! Neither is a high end wrist watch. If you want a practical watch, you don’t spend money on a mechanical watch. You buy an el chepo watch. Like the seiko quartz comparison proves, people don’t buy these fancy watches just because they tell time. They pay for the aesthetics of it.
Traditional watchmaker do have something to fear… technology _might_ improve for example so that battery charges last over day, design’s might improve over that clunky square boxy look. In 20 or 100 years time i expect things to have improved so a large extent.
Just think 10 years ago we had this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3mXtGKIOyUTh
All they are is gimmicks and folk keep buying in to it. Who’s the idiots? The folk that fawn over this shit, or the greedy bastards that make the shit? Bit of both methinks!
These people like something I’m not interested in! Therefore, they are idiots! That’ll show ‘m how smart and intelligent I am!
You just boiled the very essence of this site’s comment section down to three sentences. I salute you.
Edited 2015-04-27 21:15 UTC
Sorry, this is a tangent, but that contraction grated on me.. especially as you were trying to prove a point about intelligence with bad grammar.
“That’ll show em how smart and intelligent I am!”
Em is a contraction of the Middle English word hem, which is derived from the Old English him (sometimes heom, depends on which dialect), which is the dative form of “them” but became to be used as the accusative. All the modern English pronouns are pretty much different from Old English as a lot of them seem to have been borrowed from Norse, or maybe it was that the literary versions didn’t match the spoken. No one really knows.
The most important point – “em” is not slang, nor is it a contraction of “them” as is often claimed. It is actually an archaic pronoun. English has lots of these awful exceptions and corruptions. Willy-nilly (will he, n’ill he – i.e. “if he likes it or not”), and all the “mine/an” vs “my/a” corruption (a nadder vs an adder, an apron vs a napron, an umpire vs a numpire, a norange vs an orange…)
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think Apple Watches are a pretty neat idea…”
“I wouldn’t say I consider it a threat” — that’s pretty much the exact thing a Nokia executive told me about the iPhone during a meeting in Berlin with the KOffice developers. Nokia was working on Maemo, wanted an office app, and we were going to deliver the open source core. We asked about their reaction to the iPhone, and they didn’t consider it a threat. I’m not sure of the year, probably late 2009, early 2010.
I’m trying REALLY hard to think of a scenario where the smart watch market could compete with the mechanical watch market. EVEN IF in five years the Apple Watch:
…was as thin as a mechanical watch…
…had the same external asthetics as a mechanical watch…
…had a battery that could last a month (or even a week)…
…then it would STILL have the problem modern smartphone face, in that it will only have software support for a few years, and a year or two after that ends the internal hardware will start failing.
A smart watch is a piece of modern functional technology. A mechanical watch is a piece of art will last a lifetime.
I know very little about smart watches and mechanical watches, but from what I can tell the two markets just don’t overlap. They’re just so different.
I see it as being like a piano vs a sample-based synthesizer. Although they continue to get closer as the technology matures, synths will probably never have the exact ‘feel’ of an acoustic piano. Plus, you have to replace it every so often if you want to stay current with modern tech, whereas a well-made piano will probably outlast its owner. On the other hand, synths can do a crapton of things that pianos can’t.
My point is that it basically comes down to what you’re looking for. Do you want something with as much functionality as possible, or do you want something to show off? Of course, there’s probably a bit of overlap between these two, and that’s where these products compete with each other. But for the most part, I think they attract different types of people.
I myself have absolutely no interest in a mechanical watch; I’ll go out and spend $20 on a cheap, digital watch and just replace it every few years. Of course, that’s probably more than a mechanical one over time, but odds are I’d lose a mechanical watch 3x over the same period of time
Well a mechanical watch is really more of a print of a piece of art. Unless you happen to have one that is truly one of a kind and 100% hand made.
Only if you believe the BS from the Swiss watch companies.
All mechanical watches under $50K are mass produced. There isn’t really a lot of difference in quality between a $200 Seiko or Orient automatic and a $5000 Rolex,
A $20 quartz will go for decades with no more than a battery change every 2-3 years. A Swiss mechanical watch will probably need a $500-1000 service every five years.
Actually, not too many decades lifespan for a quartz watch movement.
Actually, a mechanical watch can last generations if it has been serviced at regular intervals; once every 5 to 10 years, depending on who you believe and what you watch experience is.
Due to effects such as electromigration, the lifespan of a semiconductor-based quartz movement is compromised due to the way the semiconductor works; i.e. those electrons moving around-and-around in the same semiconductor gradually lead to damaging of the semiconductor (after “many” years). I read a few comments over the years where watchmakers, through experience, give a maximum lifespan for a quartz movement at about 25 years. This agrees with the following example …
——————————
From:
https://vintagewatchco.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/why-do-mechanical-wa…
“The microelectronics degraded in just a 20 year period, rendering this particular watch into a pretty brick. And it was a gorgeous watch too. It’s only flaw was the limitations of electronics when it comes to withstanding father time.”
——————————
My friend’s Tissot quartz chronograph movement lasted for about 10 years; circuit board defect ?
I would think servicing a highly priced mechanical piece (e.g. > $10,000) should not be an issue.
Lower price, but decent, mechanicals like Orient/Seiko/etc. are another matter.
Just wear them for about 10 years, then decide to keep, sell, or take up the hobby of servicing watches yourself.
This actually mirrors my view fairly well:
I’d want something more unique in terms of craftsmanship. Millions of these will be produced by factory line workers working for the cheapest bidder, it just doesn’t pass muster by me. It’s not to say Apple can’t sell good products, but in a market full of other mass produced products, Apple’s own mass produced products are not terribly special. “I’m one in a hundred, baby!”
Mechanical watches?
For the life of me, I will never understand the affinity for mechanical watches. I’ve never liked them. I want my watch to be as accurate as possible – it’s the 21st century, after all. I also find it a hassle with watches that need winding. For me, there’s only one type of watch and that’s quartz.
In short, I find the interest in mechanical watches mystifying.
Well, my quartz-powered watch still has mechanical hands. I’ve always viewed the category of mechanical watches to include quartz watches. Am I a bit off track with this view?
If it came down to just reading the time, we’d be regarding our phone as our watch. No need to wear something on our wrist. OTOH, real fans of mechanical watches are many people who appreciate (freak out ?) at the interesting/reliable timepiece technology that humans have developed over the last few centuries; giving us reasonably priced watches with accuracy up to +/- 30 seconds per day. If a circuit board for a quartz watch goes out of production (say after 20 years) then that quartz watch is no more. In the mechanical watch scenario, gears/lubricant/jewels/etc. are around “forever” and with enough hobbyist-like perseverance you could even learn how to service/calibrate a mechanical watch yourself. How long would a circuit board last for? I’d like to think for around 15 to ~20 years. Still, my friend’s year 2000 model quartz Tissot chronograph (~$1000) had stopped working after about 10 years; authorised Tissot service centre determined that the circuit board had “died” and the remedy would be to drop in a new circuit board movement.
How nice, how production line ready, how BORING !
What would happen if the circuit board was not available any more? Also, due to depreciation of low end watch pricing over last 10 years, the replacement cost for the circuit board rivals the cost of a decent automatic piece from Japan.
I do collect manual wind, automatic and quartz watches (mostly in the sub-$400 price point; I think watches are interesting but over-priced, even the luxury swiss mechanical/quartz pieces). My 1970’s 44 mm Orient Sea King 3-Star (serviced) is a classic retro piece with adequate accuracy up to (+/- ~15s per day) and is serving me well for a piece that is over 40 years old. Often this cannot be said for many quartz models with circuit board movements being out of production.
You can have a very accurate atomic clock watch on your wrist but what’s the point, unless you require a chronograph (stop watch ?) and need to time things. The losses/gains from mechanicals are relatively minimal and would not cause a person to “miss the bus”.
I love giving life to any of my manual wind watches.
That 20 seconds of winding keeps reminding me about the relationship between the watch and me,… we both need each other; i.e. the watch needs to be wound (or needs supply of a power source) and the human needs to read the time. What’s the hassle with winding, it’s only a minimal task done every ~ 2 days.
If someone considers the internals of a mechanical watch, e.g. when viewing a working manual wind movement through the exhibition/glass caseback, it makes them think.
When someone considers the internals of a quartz, they soon move on to other things since there is very little “character” in the “workings” of a quartz watch.
This is very obvious after having pulled apart quartz and mechanical watches.
For me at least, the interest in mechanical watches stems from the appreciation of the human endeavor to solve a once-upon-a-time difficult problem, to solve it well, and to keep solving it better.
There’s a reason why we had the quartz crisis.
People realized it was a joke to pay too much money for a a battery-powered watch on your wrist, a watch being more like an everyday item and much much much less about a working machine/invention showcasing humanity’s ingenuity.
For this and other reasons, I will be very surprised if the Apple watch “picks up” to a great extent.
Honestly, time from the Apple watch or time from an iPhone …….
What’s the difference ?
“If a circuit board for a quartz watch goes out of production (say after 20 years) then that quartz watch is no more. In the mechanical watch scenario, gears/lubricant/jewels/etc. are around “forever” and with enough hobbyist-like perseverance you could even learn how to service/calibrate a mechanical watch yourself.”
It is a myth.
All watch movements come in standard sizes. In the vast majority of cases you can buy a quartz movement to fit for less than $20. They even make them for 100 year old pocket watches.
In theory mechanical watches can always be repaired. In reality they will eventually have so much general wear and damage that the movement becomes totally unserviceable. It is rare for a mechanical watch to survive more than 50 years of daily wear without significant accuracy issues.
Edited 2015-04-28 10:19 UTC
No so.
I’ll address your 2nd point first.
As evidence by my serviced 40 year old automatic Orient Sea King and my 1970’s/1980’s manual winds (e.g. swiss Elgin, Vostok Amphibia 200m USSR model), these watches perform well (like “new”) for ages nearing 40 to 50 years old. The servicing of a watch (say at least once in 10 years) ensures that the movement is freshly lubricated, avoiding any build up of fine wear-related metallic particles in the long term. The watch movement operates like an oscillator with a preset frequency, and attention to detail like the balance assembly, etc. ensures that these mechanical watches can sustain their decent accuracy (as evidenced by my own vintage/classic time pieces).
I remember reading an article about an omega watch someone inherited from their father. The watch was not serviced for about 25 years. During the service, the watchmaker found the movement to be dry (i.e. oil “used up” supposedly from evaporation/wear/etc. related effects; modern synthetic oils for watches are much better now) and that the only other issue was that one particular gear wheel had been distorted (presumably due to lack of lubrication). The wheel was replaced, mainspring/balance checked, the movement was cleaned, oiled, re-timed, and then the final watch was working like new.
My own experiences and that of others would indicate too much over-emphasis on the “so much general wear and damage” scenario (a myth ?), especially due to the advantages offered by watch servicing.
For your first point, I am aware of the broad range of low-cost replacement quartz movements. However, my friends luxury/sports quartz chronograph Tissot ETA movement (that died after ~10 years) has a replacement cost of about $150 (the Tissot service centre were charging $230 for installment of new movement (parts + labour)). My issue with the quartz technology is that you are reliant on semiconductor technology that, for a “dead watch”, is not “fixable” at home and possibly must be sourced from the original supplier especially where the watch is a bit exotic. At least with a mechanical piece you can inspect/disassemble the movement and identify the problem part (e.g. fractured mainspring, damaged balance assembly, etc.) and then order a replacement for the specific part(s) (not necessarily from the original manufacturer) or salvage the parts from another used/broken/etc. watch. This can be expected to happen now or many years/decades/centuries (?) in the future due to the simplicity of the parts found in a mechanical watch; circuit boards on the other hand are a bit more “exotic”, not as simply made.
~10 years life for a mid-range quartz ETA movement is not good enough, especially in that it is unfixable and where a mechanical movement would be fixable.
Parts for a mechanical watch are more simpler,generic and customisable (e.g. an experienced watchmaker is able to make all parts for construction of a mechanical watch). Making a semiconductor-based circuit board is another more complicated scenario.
My view is skewed towards the engineer/tinkerer attitude in me and the hobbyist-like appreciation of mechanical time pieces.
Still, there’s enough want for both quartz and mechanical watches to co-exist in society.
Well, I know with traditional watches, you don’t have to worry about accidentally buying an X-Box One with it.
https://youtu.be/8e7PVhdP8EE
I don’t see any ‘smart’watch as being a competition to any kind of traditional watch. Also, at this point in their functionality, usability, usefulness and battery life I have to work very hard in convincing myself that they are anything more than the newest tech toy. Of course, this might change sometime during the next 5-10 years – which might seem a long time, but you have to take into account not only the progress of the tech required for building better ‘smart’watches, but also the time required for companies to let a certain product line run out, to build the next generation, etc. Currently, my main problem is, that if I want a portable small smart comm.device then I already have my phone, and these ‘smart’watches don’t provide that much extra functionality to convince me to throw away a watch and use them instead. Build quality and design/style in themselves are not enough in this case, since we already have them – and better – in watches.
So I do agree with the watch guy that ‘right this second I wouldn’t say I consider it a threat’, but I’d say that second will last many years.
There are hundreds of ‘watchmakers’ like Montrero around.
Most of these watchmakers are nothing more than marketing comanies. They contract out the entire design and manufacture process to Hong Kong. They use generic off the shelf parts, $5 Chinese movements and cases that are blatant ripoffs of famous brands.
This link
http://dappered.com/2014/04/in-review-the-martenero-automatic-ace/
indicates Martenero uses the Japanese Miyota movement.
Miyota’s are fine, but I think better value would be found in a sub-$100 Parnis homage piece; e.g. manual wind 3497/3498 movement.
Someone going for a $5.00 movement, if they know it, should sit in the corner and seriously contemplate their actions. Quality new mechanical Seagull (Chinese), Vostok (Russian), etc. movements begin at about $50 price-point.
I’m fine with homage-inspired cases (e.g. inspired from Rolex Submariner) as long as the watch has “quality” parts. One of my “Seiko 5 Sports” watches is a good reproduction of the Rolex submariner watch that Sean Connery help make famous in that James Bond movie. The seiko is nice especially at the $110 (used, 1 year old) price I got it for. I don’t play the brand name game with watches, I consider bang-for-buck and quality/genre details and also being skewed toward mechanical, especially manual wind, pieces. Paying several thousand dollars for a quartz movement watch ….. abit of a joke in my book.