Apple has unveiled its much anticipated smartwatch, going on sale in the UK priced at £479 for its main model and a lower £299 for a slimmed down ‘sports’ version. But does it have a ‘killer app’ that will get consumers to invest in a watch tethered to their smartphone? Only time will tell…
Apple CEO Tim Cook has claimed the company’s new smartwatch is the “most advanced timepiece ever created”, as he revealed more details about the technology giant’s latest device.
The device will go on sale in the US, Britain and China on 24 April, with preorders taken from 10 April.
The main Apple Watch will start at £479 and go up to £519. The Sport incarnation of the device will start at £299 for the 38mm face, and the 42mm version is £339.
The high end model, a limited edition 18 carat gold watch, will set you back at least £8,000 with prices rising to £13,500 – a revelation that drew gasps from the crowd that gathered for the announcement.
Despite the high price for some of the models, many industry experts are predicting the Apple Watch will be a success.
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Key features
Users will also be able to receive calls with a built-in speaker and microphone. They can add the date of your next meeting or check your heart rate.
A technology called Digital Touch will allow Apple Watches to connect to one another, meaning you can get a friend’s attention by tapping on your watch.
The Apple Watch, which Cook said will last for 18 hours on a typical day, tracks daily movements and reminds users if they have been sitting down for too long.
People will be able to view photos, control music and receive notifications that they currently get on an iPhone – such as news alerts and social media updates.
Apple announced a rage of apps that will be available for the Apple Watch – from requesting an Uber, checking in to your American Airlines flight, booking a bike for your Equinox class to remotely controlling your Honeywell Lyric thermostat while away.
Popular apps such as Instagram, MLB.com At Bat, Nike+ Running, OpenTable, Shazam, Twitter, WeChat and more will also be available on Apple Watch.
Competition- Will rivals fall or thrive on the ‘Apple effect’?
Of course, Apple is not the first major technology firm to launch a smartwatch. The Pebble and Sony Smartwatch have been around for a few years with new updates coming soon. Samsung launched its Tizen-powered Galaxy Gear range in 2013 and Google’s Android Wear operating system went live last year, with the likes of Moto and LG offering their range of smart timepieces based on that operating system.
Sales of smartwatches have been slow, but Apple has a strong track record for creating high demand for new products- such as smartphones, tablets and its iTunes music store. Whether this will result in it eating into rival sales or growing demand across the market will be a crucial factor in the coming year.
Apple is poised to face stiff competition from Samsung as in the case of smartphones. The South Korean electronics giant is the clear leader in the market with sales of about 1.2 million units in 2014.
Pebble is the second on the list with 700,000 units sold during the year, followed by Fitbit that sold 600,000 smartwatches. Sony, Lenovo, LG and Garmin are the other leading players in the smartwatch market with sales of 400,000 and above.
Given below is a Statista chart that shows the top 10 smartwatch manufacturers by unit sales in 2014.
Source: Statista
Watch this video from Bloomberg covering key highlights from the event:
Industry opinion- mixed reviews
Industry watchers are keen to see if Apple’s version will be the tipping point for the smartwatch market, which has proved sluggish so far.
There was similar scepticism when Apple launched the iPad in 2010, but the company has gone on to sell millions of the tablets and its popularity has shaken up the PC market.
The Apple Watch will be the first new device the company has launched without co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in 2011.
Every watch will have different faces and different configurations to choose from, including traditional and digital faces.
John Newbold, Creative Director at 383, commented o the launch: “Today’s Apple Watch keynote showed Tim Cook’s vision of customers expressing themselves in fun and playful ways with emojis and heartbeats. However, after the novelty of a new wrist device has worn off, it’s the usefulness of the Apple Watch that will make or break it. Today’s event provided glimpses of what those useful experiences might look like – from making a payment, to storing flight information or hailing an Uber.
“But, as much as these examples provide hints at why customers will buy the Apple Watch, examples of whether it will remain on wrists in the long term were certainly a little thin on the ground. The keynote lacked that ‘killer’ app demo that many customers would have been waiting for, instead showing logical evolutions of Apple’s payment and passbook technologies. For brands looking to build apps then, the next few months will be about delivering useful customer experiences that make pulling a phone out of a pocket redundant,” Newbold warned.