Apple Watch seems a little hard to succeed

Guide: MarketWatch columnist Pleti (THERESE Poletti) believes that although Apple is a powerful and magical company, but their smart watch products may not be smooth sailing, competition from other players is certainly a challenge, and let consumers believe that smart watches for their own useful , is the hardest.

The following is the full text of Pleti's comments:

In the near term, Apple Watch is arguably the undisputed focus of science and technology, a product that will be the protagonist of a special event on March 9, a media feast that is already on the horizon-and, sadly, Apple Watch is unlikely to achieve much immediate success.

The launch of the smart watch marks Apple's AAPL into a new product category, a coveted market for Wall Street and the biggest step Apple has taken since chief executive Tim Cook. However, it would take a while for the product to really fly, creating a sales performance such as the iphone (74.5 million sold in the last quarter and a record).

Apple's Monday conference in San Francisco is expected to showcase several features of Apple's watch, but, according to the Wall Street Journal's report last month, there are some expectations, particularly health-monitoring, that have been dashed.

This is a delicate new market, with the main players being the same name from a start-up company in Palo, Calif., and Samsung's Gear series. Last month, Pebble announced that their shipments had reached 1 million. They have also recently started another round of Kickstarter through the Pebble to get funding to develop new products such as time, Pebble time Steelcompany and a new software interface, which is expected to be launched this July. They have now received 16 million of dollars in bookings and have set a record in Kickstarter.

Apple's new product has won a design award before it started selling in April, but even so, how many consumers will need the watch remains a mystery. Forrester, a market-research firm, conducted a survey at the end of last year and concluded that although the watch does have a real opportunity in the market, "it must overcome the consumer's retention mentality".

In the sample interview, a female consumer's response is fairly representative: "I think the smartphone has met all my needs." ”

Even so, Forrester expects Apple watch to surpass all other smart watches and fitness trackers in 2015 years.

"Consumers have bought more than 260 million ipads and an iphone more than a year, and Apple will be able to easily complete our projected 10 million sales by convincing a tiny fraction of the fruit powder." James McQuivey, a Forrester analyst, Macqueville, "but our expectations are not accurate now because we don't have the details of the various features, battery endurance, and the country listings." ”

Other rivals ' smart watches will continue to expand, and Apple is likely to face the most serious threat, at least in design, from Swiss watch makers, who have begun to move into high-end target markets. Last week, rapaciousness, Apache and the nation's biggest Swiss giants teamed up in San Francisco to announce a joint effort and showcase some beautifully designed smart watches based on the MotionX smart watch platform that is expected to be available in the coming months. These watches have a battery life of at least two years.

The Swiss watch communicates with the iphone or Android phone via wireless bluetooth and relies on sensors in the table to gather information and determine whether it is active or sleep mode. However, these Swiss watches are traditionally hands dials, rather than digital touch screens that can be typed into text messages or otherwise manipulated. These watches are designed in accordance with the requirements of the classic section, can be used for many years.

Fullpower Technologies of Santa Cruz, Calif., is also involved in the project, which is responsible for designing apps, firmware and cloud infrastructure, and the company's chief executive, Philippe Kahn, stressed: "This is not the kind of Kleenex that you can throw away anytime." ”

The topic of smart watch "beauty pageant" is interesting, but the real key is probably the consumer's pragmatic thinking, that is, what can we do with smart watches?

"It's up to the software," said Tero Kuittinen, executive director of the New York strategy consultancy, Frank N. Magid Associates. I know that many people are now analyzing how these watches work, but ultimately the ultimate attraction of the product comes from the software interface. ”

For many people, smart watches seem like an answer to a problem. It's a tricky problem, but Apple is a special company, and if anyone can persuade consumers to buy the product they don't even know they need, it's definitely not Apple. It's just that it can't happen overnight. (Jin)