Apple Watch proves that high-end is not a selling point, but meeting demand is the only way to do it.
September 23rd, it is probably the only eye-catching new product at the Apple launch conference this year - Apple Watch Ultra, which will be launched offline soon.
, as the first product to obtain the "Ultra" suffix, has been recently unblocked for Apple Watch Ultra, which focuses on outdoor and professional sports people. The media teacher gave this "second-expensive" watch a good score: longer battery life, easier to use buttons, and better sound effects, winning applause from trialers.
However, the lack of more detailed outdoor data and navigation also made the media have given the perception that "Garmin's life cannot be broken."
Apple Watch Ultra｜MKBHD
In the history of Apple Watch is one of the rare "slow-hot" products.
It is not like iPhone or iPad. It has reached its peak and swept the world after its debut. Before its release, Apple Watch had aroused great expectations, but it was actually a tragic fate after its release. The early sales performance was not ideal, and many products and design ideas were proven to be unfeasible. In the eight years since its birth, Apple Watch has "feeled the stones across the river."
But persistence still paid off. Based on core functions, Apple Watch finally embarked on a very strong growth curve in the era when " smart watch " is no longer novel. Now, Apple's wearable device business has surpassed iPad and Mac to become the company's "third pillar". The newly released Apple Watch Ultra hopes to use extreme outdoor sports as the entry point to hit the high-end again and open the next chapter of Apple Watch.
What have Apple Watch done in the past 8 years? What did you do right? Standing at the intersection of fate, what experience has the new generation of Ultra watch learned and what future will it face?
born with a silver spoon
In the fall of 2014, Apple set the venue of the press conference at the Flint Center near the company's headquarters.
This venue has a very special meaning for Apple. In 1984, Jobs released the first generation of Macintosh computers here. In the late 1990s, after he returned to Apple, he released the first generation of iMac computers here.
So when Apple chose to hold the press conference in the Flint Center again on the 30th anniversary of Macintosh's birth, everyone is looking forward to what kind of "mileage product" they will bring.
Everything is for the debut of the Apple Watch.
The Apple Watch demonstration venue built by Apple back then | Lavoz News
The first generation of Apple Watch was released, which may be the highest-spec and most expensive release in Apple's history. It was not only chosen to be held in Flint Center, a location of special significance; it was not only for strict confidentiality, but also for the launch time was six months ahead of the supply chain to prevent leaks from information; its most luxurious thing was that Apple temporarily built a nearly perfect pure white tent next to the launch venue, as the starting experience area for Apple Watch.
Later, Apple employees recalled that the then chief design officer Jony Ive and the company's management had a big dispute over the tent. Although Ive finally got what he wanted and moved away more than 20 trees at the cost of $25 million, Ive also told the people around him that this was the first time he felt "unsupported" within Apple, and became the starting point for the crack between Ive and the management later.
This is the grand, luxurious, but not so harmonious birth ceremony of the Apple Watch.
The first generation Apple Watch Edition, using 18K gold to create a watch case｜Apple
Since its birth, Apple Watch is a product with "luxury" attributes. On the one hand, watches, especially mechanical watches, have always been an important category of luxury goods; on the other hand, this is also related to Jony Ive's personal preferences. There are rumors that Ive wanted to leave Apple back then, and the management led by Cook agreed to his idea of making a "luxury gold watch", so he chose to stay and became the chief design officer for another 5 years.
The "Gold Watch" Edition line, one of the three product lines of the first generation of Apple Watch, has implemented the luxury idea to the extreme. The watch case is made of 18K pure gold and costs up to 120,000 yuan. Edition was later proved to be a complete failure, leaving behind a bunch of unsold stocks, but it still injected the Apple Watch with a gene of "luxury". After
, Apple has successively launched watch cases made of expensive materials such as ceramics and titanium alloys, which are 1-2 times more expensive than basic watches. In addition, Apple also cooperated with Hermes to launch a joint watch model, which is also expensive, but it is no longer as outrageous as the 120,000 gold watch.
According to a report by market research firm IDC, the average selling price of Apple Watch is about $448, which is only a little bit higher than the price of the basic aluminum watch from $399-429. This means that not many users choose more expensive stainless steel, titanium alloy watches, and Hermes co-branded watches. The failure of the luxury Apple Watch is not surprising. No matter what expensive materials Apple uses to create the case, this is a " electronic watch " that is updated and upgraded every year. The upgrade of case materials has led to a sharp increase in price, but it has not brought about an increase in functions and user experience.
From this perspective, Apple Watch Ultra is the first time Apple has tried to "sell features" on high-end watches. Although Ultra uses a titanium alloy case, it is just to reduce the weight of the watch and ensure strength, and no longer have the "luxury style". It supports higher levels of waterproof and dustproof, equipped with a depth gauge, a water thermometer, and a better screen and battery life. Apple positioned Ultra in three extreme sports scenes: mountaineering, adventure and diving. We hope that outdoor players will be willing to pay a higher premium for this watch.
But the challenge facing Ultra still exists: it is just a watch anyway.
is just a "watch"
Before the birth of Apple Watch, the concept of "smart watch" was no longer novel. It not only appears in the imagination of various science fiction works, but also manufacturers have launched some products, but they are not revolutionary. So people are looking forward to Apple, hoping that it can recreate an iPhone-style miracle and "reinvent" a smartwatch.
The secret to iPhone success is that it is not just a mobile phone, but also a "computer" that can be held in your hands, and it is the next generation of computing devices. Through the iOS system, the App Store and the mobile Internet, the iPhone has become a real "smartphone". Its features are no longer defined by Apple, but are allowed to be created by developers.
So, in the first few years of the Apple Watch, it borrowed a lot of iPhone product ideas and tried to become a "iPhone worn on your hands".
Apple Watch The graffiti function that was first featured in the early days｜Cult of Mac
For example, in the early days, Apple believed that the Apple Watch should be a "communication device" and developed a set of exclusive communication functions for it, which can call out the friend list with one click and send graffiti and heartbeat. Later, Apple also added cellular network and walkie-talkie functions to the Apple Watch. Even if the iPhone is not around, you can use your watch to receive calls, send and receive text messages, and voice messages.
Like iPhone, Apple Watch also has its own App Store, which can run third-party apps. Although most of the early watchOS apps were just "extensions" of the mobile version: third-party apps can display information and push notifications on watches, and can also implement simple functions, such as retrieving Alipay payment code. Later, some relatively independent watch apps appeared, , but there has not been a truly popular killer app so far.
8 years later, most people realize that Apple Watch is unlikely to become the "next iPhone" . Its screen is too small and worn on the wrist, which greatly limits the possibility of interaction, and you can't play it like you do with your phone. Moreover, the volume also limits the performance of the chip, heat dissipation, and the volume of the battery, making it difficult to run "heavy load" applications.
Apple itself is in a dilemma. Currently, there are not many functions that the Apple Watch development kit can achieve, and developers can use limited creativity. But if it is too open, it may put too much pressure on the Watch's hardware, increasing the probability of various failures, and some functions may also be abused. The underlying restrictions such as
doomed the fate of Apple Watch is only a watch or an iPhone peripheral. So in the later stage, Apple no longer emphasized the concept of watchOS. The iteration speed of development kits has slowed down a lot, and it is more about developing functions on its own. Including the diving software equipped by Ultra this time, it was also jointly developed by Apple and professional diving equipment manufacturer Oceanic. It has been working closely since the software and hardware design stage, which is very rare in Apple's history.
The diving software equipped with Apple Watch Ultra was jointly developed by Apple and Oceanic｜Apple
However, it is precisely because Apple faced this problem earlier that it did not allow Apple Watch to go all the way to "become an iPhone" that the Apple Watch has successfully risen.
sensor on wrist
Apple focuses on another core feature of Apple Watch, health.
monitors health through smart watches, and is not a concept pioneered by Apple. As early as around 2010, manufacturers such as Fitbit and Jawbone had already made smart bracelets with built-in sensors to help users monitor their movements. In the summer of 2014, Xiaomi launched the first generation of Xiaomi bracelet , which can also realize exercise and sleep monitoring.
But Apple still has its own ideas. In 2013, Apple equipped with an M7 coprocessor on the newly released iPhone 5s. This processor is very similar to the Apple Watch chip in design, which can monitor user activities and calculate how many steps you take every day, and has extremely low power consumption, which will hardly affect the battery life of the phone. What the
M7 coprocessor does is no different from the smart bracelet, but because it is built into the iPhone, the user scale of is expanded from the 100,000 level of smart bracelet to the 100,000 level of iPhone.
Soon, "Step Record" became a standard feature of smartphones, and also gave birth to applications such as WeChat Sports and Ant Forest, socializing and gamifying sports data. Long before the mobile phone can take a step count, the saying "take ten thousand steps a day and stay healthy" was popular, but few ordinary people would buy a bracelet to monitor. It was not until the mobile phone could be realized that "Puncture" entered the era of universal popularity.
In 2013, Apple released the M7 coprocessor, giving the iPhone a "step-calculation" function｜Apple
Based on the iPhone's "step-calculation function", Apple Watch deepened and refined the exercise record: it can not only record your steps, calorie consumption, exercise time, and standing time, but also record detailed exercise performance for different exercise types. These complex exercise data are converted into the daily "three rings" goals. The watch will encourage you to stand up every hour, exercise for 30 minutes a day, and consume the calories and goals you set. On the surface of
, step counting with iPhone and recording motion with Apple Watch seems to be two repetitive functions. But in fact, it is the iPhone's "step-counting" that has made many users accept the "monitoring movement". When they have the idea and want to quantify and record the movement in more detail, the Apple Watch becomes the best choice for "further".
On the iOS 16 launched this year, Apple also launched the "sports ring" function for iPhone users.Apple will convert the number of steps recorded on the iPhone into calorie goals, encouraging users to exercise more and achieve their goals. Of course, this could eventually lure them to buy a piece of Apple Watch to unlock richer, detailed motion recording capabilities. On
iOS 16, Apple grafted the iPhone's "step count" function with the Apple Watch's "sports ring" concept | Apple
Apple Watch has not become a "next generation computing device", it is just a watch. But this watch is also a "health sensor" on your wrist, which can monitor your exercise, heart rate, body temperature, sleep...
, and it is really useful: There are some medical insurance companies in the United States that will give away Apple Watch for free to customers, encouraging customers to exercise more and stay healthy. Follow-up survey showed that after receiving the Apple Watch, customers' overall exercise volume increased by 51% compared to before.
cuts into a segmented scenario, and Apple has discovered a healthy market of tens of billions of dollars.
Ultra's "high-end mission"
Review of the development history of Apple Watch, the whole process is full of twists and turns.
It failed to become the "next generation computing platform" and could not even "work independently" from the iPhone. Most people today prefer to regard the Apple Watch as an extension and supplement to the iPhone functions and a part of the iPhone ecosystem.
But even if it is just a part of the iPhone, the Apple Watch has proved that the scale of this market is larger than expected.
Since 2017, the "wearable device" business of Apple Watch has always been the strongest growing sector in Apple's business line. For four consecutive years, sales have achieved a compound growth of more than 30%. It was not until the past year that sales growth began to slow down because the AirPods and Apple Watch lacked substantial functional upgrades. In the latest quarter, there has been a year-on-year decline.
Today's Apple Watch is already Apple's most important "second growth curve" and shoulders the responsibility of supporting revenue.
So at this press conference in September, Apple released the new AirPods Pro, and the Apple Watch Ultra, which represents the Apple Watch truly impacts the high-end Apple Watch Ultra.
Some people believe that Apple Watch Ultra is targeting professional outdoor equipment vendors represented by Garmin. Of course, the two will compete, , but the real power of Apple Watch still lies in how it "converts" billion iPhone users, pushing them out of their homes, participate in outdoor sports, and make a big cake.
Just like when the Apple Watch was born 8 years ago, Fitbit had been in the business of sports bracelets, but no one could have thought that this market could grow to a scale of tens of billions of dollars.
If you want to ask, what experience and lessons did Apple Watch leave to the industry? It simply proves that a product must be based on practical needs to be established. Even apples do not have the ability to turn stones into gold as they please. We must be patient and find that demand point through constant trial and error.
and Apple Watch Ultra is Apple's "acceptance" of previous luxury attempts, and it is also the next chapter of its continuous attempts.
