TECHNOLOGY
Apple Watch Sales Declining
And the sky is falling, too
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Oh, my. Once again, Apple is on the verge of death. This is due to declining sales of the Apple Watch, which is estimated by some to be responsible for as much as 3% of Apple’s income.
It gets worse. Other digital watch sellers have seen increasing sales. This is probably because Apple has not been adding new watch features while competitors are catching up.
Truly, these factors are a sharp knife in Apple’s heart. It has been said that if Apple doesn’t introduce something substantially new soon — like true AI capabilities or breakthrough health tech — it could lose market dominance in wearables, particularly outside the iPhone base.
Ahh, Apple, we hardly knew thee.
My fault
Hmmph. I suppose I am to blame. Not for all of it, of course, but in all the years since the first Apple Watch, I have only owned four models. I could have bought more often, but the watches were doing everything I wanted them to do. New features arrived, but none were important to me. So, I contributed to Apple’s demise.
I wear an Ultra 2 currently. It does everything I want. I’ll be surprised if this year’s watches offer me any reason to give it up.
That’s me. I’m told by various pundits that there are also people who bought Apple watches, but have given them up entirely. One of the reasons cited is that the watch was annoying them.
Annoying?
I was surprised. But the pundit explained that most people don’t know how to trim notifications to be only those they want to see or to shut off Stand notifications for those who seldom do such an odd thing.
I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if those people could just tell their watch to cut that out?” Which they could if we ever get the promised Smart Siri.
Another thing mentioned was that people like mechanical watches. Why, I have no clue, but some do. I wondered if Apple could make an Apple Watch that looks like a mechanical watch but can do everything else if you want?
That watch should have all features shut off by default. No alarms, no timers, no notifications. Nothing. Turn on what you want. The People’s Watch!
Or not
Or, Apple could decide that, like the iPod, products eventually reach a point where there’s too much competition to bother with. Move on to the next thing and let the saturated market go.
I don’t think the Watch is there quite yet, but it could be getting closer.
