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Report: Apple Watch Preorders Almost 1 Million On First Day In the US
An anonymous reader writes The launch of the Apple Watch has got off to a good start, with an estimated 1 million pre-orders in the U.S. on Friday. "According to Slice's Sunday report, which is based on e-receipt data obtained directly from consumers, 957,000 people preordered the Watch on Friday, with 62% purchasing the cheapest variant, the Apple Watch Sport. On average, each buyer ordered 1.3 watches and spent $503.83 per watch."
Obligatory xkcd
Guys, the joke is over! 800,000 fake Apple Watch orders wasn't funny the first time!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I'll admit i was originally apprehensive of getting out of bed at all today until i remembered, with the help of my scheduling butler, the arrival of apples newest wristwatch. Perusing my collection of rare finds from Rolex this morning in the yachts liesure room, as I certainly couldnt bare the shame of being seen in public without a standard timepiece, I chose to dress down as I'd be among the city folk today. Stepping off my yacht and into my helicopter, I could hardly contain my anticipation and as soon as I arrived and my driver was upon the tarmac, I made haste toward the perignon and reclined albeit only subtly in the hand stitched leater seating of the Bentley (im told the city people mostly confine themselves to Bentley and i shouldnt wish to casue a stir.) Finally, after what seemed an eternity of film and caviar I arrived at the Apple store, gazed longingly at the line, and tool delivery of my very own Apple watch from my travel liason. And wouldnt you know, theyre quite a steal at only ten thousand dollars.
now ive heard tell of people saying theyre quite a bit more after "tax" but I assure you ive no concept of what that may be in relation to the product. Perhaps some unsavoury orientals have swindled you good folk, and purloined your earned cash for the song of this "tax."
Good people go to bed earlier.
I haven't worn a (wrist) watch for decades When you have to do frequent hand washing (in the last 35 years I have been employed in the meat industry, food industry, childcare and elder care) its not worth the hassle. Of course I gave up Apple in 1988
I kept forgetting my cell phone so I decided to stop wearing a wrist watch and started to use the phone to keep track of time. Between chencking the time, receiving e-mails, SMS'es and phone calls, browsing the net, playing games or reading e-books when I'm bored it's been years since I left the house without me noticing I had forgotten the damn cellphone within a few minutes.
I wear a cheap, waterproof, digital, rubberised, lasts-forever watch that costs an absolute pittance. It shows time and date on the front screen, which is my biggest buying point of them.
It gets in the way whenever I'm digging into a PC, so I take it off.
My ex and my girlfriend tried, when they first met me, to buy me "nice" watches as expensive presents. I never wore either, but I did at least explain why.
Sorry, a fancy watch is an old status-symbol. And whenever I do forget my watch, I just use my phone. I'd be a million times more lost without my phone than without my watch. Why I'd want my watch to talk to my phone, I can't fathom.
Anyone buying this watch is an idiot. It's like buying a flat bed trailer and a car. And using the flat bed trailer to transport the car everywhere.
You already have a damned smartphone. All the functionality is there without the extra $350 expendature.
The funny part about your argument here is people still buy flat-bed trailers...to haul cars around.
That said, a fool and their money are soon parted. The odd part about this is likely 75% of the people buying an Apple watch probably haven't worn any watch for years because they have a smartphone in their pocket. Go figure.
I can think of several applications I'd have for a smart watch, but I don't think any of the current offerings meet my needs in terms of build quality or battery life. But if millions of people start wearing apple watches, investments into the technology will be made and in a few years there'll be a cheap, high-quality Android watch for me to buy.
So, thank you early adopters.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
News flash..... Digital watches have existed for decades, Hipsters have been cringing for a long time now about them and lamenting about how the mechanical movements are far superior and make their records sound better.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I haven't worn a (wrist) watch for decades When you have to do frequent hand washing (in the last 35 years I have been employed in the meat industry, food industry, childcare and elder care) its not worth the hassle. Of course I gave up Apple in 1988
You likely represent the minority in your age bracket.
The younger generation that never knew life without a smartphone, never understood the value of wearing a wristwatch.
What will really blow your mind is that is now the same individual lining up to pay someone else $500 for the luxury of wearing one.
Talk about brand power.
Neither had I. Until last July, when my wife gave me an Android smartwatch for my birthday (suck it Apple ... you are not an innovator of smart watches).
Since then, I've worn it every day. I know, what's the big deal about taking your phone out of your pocket.
Well ...
When your hands are covered with mortar dust, and your phone rings. it's pretty convenient.
When you are expecting a call but want to go swimming, it's pretty nice to have a watch that's waterproof for swimming.
When you are driving down the highway and want to get a picture of something, it's pretty convenient. (Oh wait .. the iWatch doesn't have a camera). And it's not distracted driving when all you have to do point your hand in the general direction, and say 'shoot'.
When you want to shut off that damn alarm about turning off the pool equipment, and your phone is in the house.(Pool timer broke, so I direct wired it until I order another one.)
When you don't have to carry your phone around the house all day in your pocket because if someone calls you, you can answer using your watch.
When you need to set a timer to remind you to check the water boiling for tea, it's pretty convenient to not take the phone out of your pocket.
When you can't find your phone and your watch can set off the ring tone.
Oh .. and it tells the time too.
Notice I didn't say anything about the fitness apps. I used them for awhile, then noticed that they really sucked down the battery. Then I realized that I don't need a watch to tell me how far I've walked today BECAUSE IT JUST ISN'T THAT FREAKIN IMPORTANT! My scale tells me every morning if I'm not exercising enough or eating too much.
Is it worth $300? Depends on how much $300 is worth to you. I didn't think it was worth that much, but my wife felt it would make a great birthday present since I was always looking at it but refused to spend the money. Now that I've used it for 9 months, I'd say it was worth every dime. I've learned to discount anyone that says something isn't worth the money, because they only know whether or not it's worth it to them. And since they have never had one, they have no idea what they are talking about.
If I had an Apple phone, I might buy the iWatch. It's definitely not enough to get me to switch from Android. (Has Apple innovated two windows on their iPads yet??? How about multiple users.) Mine has definitely been worth the $300. Isn't. that's cheaper than the iWatch? And it has a camera. And can use standard watch bands.
But I won't be buying the latest Samsung phone either. Why would I buy a phone that I can't swap out the battery or use an SSD card.
If I wanted that, I'd spend more money and buy an iPhone.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
With a smart watch you do not have to take your phone out of your pocket every time you want "check the time"/"see who is calling(ignore,answer)"/"check a text, respond to text"/"look at a notification". While raking leaves yesterday, I was able to play music(Google Play radio) from my phone and control it with the watch, if I didn't like the song I used the watch to go to the next song. So much more convenient than pulling the phone out each time. I also use the watch as a trusted device so I don't have to enter a code each time. If I forget the phone, the watch alerts me when I am out of range.
The Apple watch is still stupid. Too expensive and the battery life is short. I get ~7 days out my pebble.
Dude, the Pebble sucks. Get yourself a real smartwatch.
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Smartwatches were the #1 most returned tech item of 2014. Some models were as much as 60% returned! They're absolutely despised by anyone who has used one. I'm one of newegg's product testers and I tested the 2nd generation of Samsung smartwatches. I and everyone gave it a horrible review then I sold it. But this time around, it's Apple fans buying the product. So who will win in this epic battle of Apple false superiority and arrogant smugness versus the strong urge to return their useless, annoying product.
I wear a cheap, waterproof, digital, rubberised, lasts-forever watch that costs an absolute pittance. It shows time and date on the front screen, which is my biggest buying point of them.
Which is NOT why anyone would buy a smartwatch. If all you want is a simple chronometer then buy a simple chronometer. Odds are you have one already. The various new smartwatches are something different. Think of them as a small sensor package combined with a data logger and some basic smartphone features. The use cases are different and the target audience is different. It's like comparing a smartphone to an old basic cell phone. The smartphone is a computer that happens to make phone calls. The old phone is phone and little else. Different devices with overlapping but different use cases.
I have no use at all for Apple's watch but I can see some people who might find it fits their life. I also have no use for a simple watch since there are almost always at least 2-3 clocks within eye shot or easily accessible in my daily life. I honestly cannot fathom why most people would ever need or want to wear a simple wristwatch unless they are doing something like running.
The comments in this thread, I mean.
Seriously - we are talking about new technology - a new gadget to play with. We could be talking about the interface, comparing it to other smart watches, discussing possible future apps that would make sense in this context. But no - it's from Apple, so let's all talk about how we don't want a watch.
Personally I think the success of the watch highly depends on the interface. Other smart watches have been hard to navigate, and I am not entirely sure I believe Apple has cracked the code on the. If they have, this could be a really cool device. If not, I don't think we will see too many generations of it.
-- A good compromise leaves everyone mad. --Calvin and Hobbes
People keep missing the point of these things. These are not practical devices like an iPhone that just happens to also be sleek and fashionable. These are fashion items first and foremost (a universally acceptable jewelry item for both men and women) that also happen to have some clever tech-related features. No one buys an Apple watch so they can tell the time. They're buying it so they can show off something interesting and fashionable on their wrist.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
25 year old son Hey dad, do you have a watch I can borrow?
Father I have a watch in my top drawer, but the battery ran out.
22 year old son That's okay. I'm going to bar tonight, I don't need the watch to actually tell time.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
When you need to set a timer to remind you to check the water boiling for tea, it's pretty convenient to not take the phone out of your pocket.
I say this as an Englishman: er, what? My normal process for making the tea is:
1. put slightly over a mug's worth of water in a kettle.
2. switch on kettle
3. fiddle with phone while kettle boils (about a minute).
4. keep fiddling with phone because I'm only half way through a game of whatever by the time it's boiled.
5. re-boil kettle because it went cold because I was fiddling with my phone for too long because the time to boil is too short.
6. Fiddle with phone while kettle boils.
7. goto 4: note this is generally an asymptotic series and generally converges at t < infinity
8. pour water in cup.
9. pour in the tiniest drop of milk
10. extract tea bag.
11. walk to wherever I was going to drink tea with phone in one hand and tea in the other, still playing the game because I'm not quite finished.
12. spill hot tea on hand.
13. curse.
14. attempt to finish game.
15. get tea on screen.
16. screen doesn't work while wet so this usually ends the process.
I'm not really sure where the reminder comes in, because the time taken to boil is so short. Plus it's obvious when it's done because a 3kw kettle is noisy as hell when it boils.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Question is, who is smuggiest.. the people buying Apple watches, or people saying they are too smart for that.
The younger generation that never knew life without a smartphone, never understood the value of wearing a wristwatch.
Older chronometer watches did nothing but tell time. A useful feature but kind of pointless if you have clocks all around you. Plenty of young people see the value in them, they just don't see the point in wearing one 24/7.
What will really blow your mind is that is now the same individual lining up to pay someone else $500 for the luxury of wearing one. Talk about brand power.
The various smartwatches are NOT the same thing as your old Timex wristwatch. They do a lot more than just tell time. Your argument is akin to comparing a basic flip-phone that just makes phone calls to a modern smartphone. The use cases overlap but they are NOT the same thing and will not be used for the same purposes. These new watches have a sensor package, data logging, pager/smartphone features and more plus of course they can tell time. You may or may not have a use for Apple's watch (I do not) but plenty of people clearly do. Apple's reputation for delivering useful products helps get folks to think about it but if the device isn't actually genuinely useful/interesting and doesn't work well then sales will drop like an anvil.
I think the Apple Watch will sell fairly well if the functionality is there. I don't think it will be as big a blockbuster as the iPad or iPhone but I think enough people will find it interesting/useful enough to be a nice business line for Apple.
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-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
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Well what is the 25 year old son supposed to do?
well without the calendar function on the watch, he lost track of his age.
Respond, no maybe not but some people might need to see what the messages are. I have software monitoring many servers and they send out txt messages if anything strange is detected. Some are notices and some are critical alerts that do need to responded to right away.
Smartwatches were the #1 most returned tech item of 2014.
If true all that means is that those particular smartwatches were absolute rubbish. And I don't doubt that many of them were bad. Being first to market isn't necessarily an advantage because everyone else gets to learn from your mistakes. There were smartphones before Apple introduced the iPhone but pretty much every meaningful smartphone afterwards is clearly influenced by the iPhone. Just because other companies produced a junk product doesn't mean Apple's will automatically suck. Apple's got a pretty good track record but they have had their share of dud products too. Only time will tell on this one.
But this time around, it's Apple fans buying the product. So who will win in this epic battle of Apple false superiority and arrogant smugness versus the strong urge to return their useless, annoying product.
So you think that the product is crap despite the fact that you've never laid a finger on one and thus couldn't possibly know. Curious argument you have there. Personally I prefer to actually try a device before declaring it to be crap. Maybe it is crap but you sure as hell don't know.
I've got to admit that initially, I was *not* excited by the Apple watch announcement at all. Like a lot of people, I was thinking, "Stupid! Most people don't wear watches anymore. The smartphone is what KILLED them for many of us!" I thought the prices were insanely high for the fancier models, and it's little more than a "remote display/control for the phone" anyway.
I'm also aware of the Android watches that came first, and one of my best friends uses one. It has its good points, but I never felt it was anything I'd use myself.
But as it turns out, Apple's online ordering for the new watch went live on the day of our anniversary, so my wife offered to get me one as a gift. (Frankly, I wasn't willing to stay awake until 3AM to place an order, but the "hype machine" did at least convince me to browse Apple's site before I went to bed, just to see what configurations they had. I mentioned to my wife that if I was going to get one, I'd probably do the space grey with a black sport band -- as it was the only one I thought looked any good without spending crazy prices for the upscale editions.) Turns out she DID stay up until 3AM and ordered that one for me.
So now, as I wait my 4-6 weeks for delivery, I've been doing more research to find out exactly what this thing will and won't be able to do for me. And as the long-term reviews come out from people who got to use one for a week or more, it sounds promising. Unlike the initial reports that the Apple Watch would basically "do nothing but tell the time" when it wasn't paired up with your phone in your pocket? I'm finding out that's not quite so. For starters, it apparently has 2GB of storage in it for music. So you can use it as a music player with a pair of bluetooth earbuds without your phone anywhere around. It's also smart enough to pair to your phone via your wi-fi network, as well as via low power bluetooth. So you can walk around your house or office and the watch will be fully functional, even though your phone was left on your desk or nightstand.
Additionally, reports are coming out that as long as the watch is on a wi-fi network, you can send and receive iMessages on it without the need of a paired phone.
Then there's the fitness tracker aspect of it. My workplace just started a program where everyone gets a free FitBit and there's a website you can log into to compete with co-workers for who walked the most in a day or a week, etc. etc. It's part of the overall "wellness program". Great, but I really dislike my new FitBit. Because it lacks any GPS functionality, it's too "brain dead" to realize when I'm in a car, on the metro, in a plane, etc. etc. -- so any vibrations that happen get counted as steps taken. It can literally be 50% off on counting your steps! The Apple Watch and iPhone combo makes a far more powerful fitness tracker than FitBit.
So yeah, the Apple Watch is definitely not a "need", but simply a "want". And many people may not want it at all. That's fine. But I think I'm forced to rethink my original opinion that this was generally going to be a bad idea for Apple. What it may do is re-kindle the interest in wearing a watch around, because it finally gives people some reasons why they should consider doing so, EVEN THOUGH they carry a smartphone already.
Just wait until Apple comes out with a digital towel.
Much like a nice pair of off-the-rack-yet-properly-fitted slacks, a shirt correctly sized, and a decent pair of clean shoes, a modest watch says a lot about you as a grown man both professionally and personally. It's telling to me that several women have tried to steer you towards this, and yet you've disregarded them because for you it's part of some "status symbol" thing. No dude, it just means you're a grown man who knows how to take care of himself and takes a degree of pride in himself and appearance.
Anyone who wears pants is an idiot.
I need them to hold my smartphone.
I agree. I think there although there are lots of people in America without money, there is also quite a few people with ample spending money. A graduate from a good university in a field with good jobs could easily earn $75,000 a year. Let's assume that the person is married to somebody who also went to school and can earn $75,000 a year. Together, they make $150,000 a year. That's a lot of money. Unless you are living in extremely expensive areas like Manhattan or San Francisco (in which case the two people will probably be making $200,000-$300,000 combined), then you should have plenty of money to spend on whatever you want.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Question is, who is smuggiest.
Probably the people who post links to wikipedia or XKCD.
I'm just tired of all the people who buy or don't buy things based on how they think other people will think about them. If you want one, get one. If you don't, don't. Who cares either way? I'm sure Apple is laughing all the way to the bank with their meager $500M in online sales in a single day.
I don't know, but it works for me.
8. pour water in cup.
9. pour in the tiniest drop of milk
10. extract tea bag.
You're not an Englishman, you're an animal.
Those steps should read:
pour water in cup.
wait for 4 minutes.
extract tea bag.
add milk.
Only an animal lets the milk and the teabag meet. And an Englishman lets the tea brew. What you have there is slightly milky water with a bit of brown dye in it.
I'm buying the cheaper one so I can gold plate it myself to upgrade it to $17K version so I can show it off to people who would then believe me to be a vastly superior human being than them. That can be my legacy. Here lies a dude who owned a $17K watch. He is so F'ing cool.