Conjecture indeed. If either company comes up with a shocking new use that brings the watch outside the realm of being merely a display extension with additional sensors, then I could see it taking off. Monitoring vital stats, showing running pace, etc., don't meet that criteria, but I certainly can't rule out that something new and big will come along. For Apple's sake, let's hope that's the case, as investors have built in the expectation of huge upside from the watch.
As for pricing, it's conjecture, too. Just as the masses moved from spending four figures per desktop/laptop a decade ago to an ASP of a few hundred dollars now, I believe that as smartphones mature and the rate of improvement slows, something similar will happen with pricing. It's my guess. Five years ago, the gap between a $200-$400 phone and a $800-$1000 phone was enormous. Today, a cheaper phone certainly lacks the latest and greatest, but can get you most of the performance and features. Paying twice as much gets you a little more, not a lot more. So I just don't see consumers jumping all over the opportunity to pay $1,200 for a pair of devices that doesn't do much more than a single $400 device.
Your conclusions are really only conjecture. Your conjecture on what an Apple wearable device would offer in functionality appears to be based on what exists to date. It isn 't clear what your conjecture on pricing is based on... |
