
Apple Watch Alert: Is Now the Time to Buy Yours?
NEW YORK (MainStreet) — A year into the Apple Watch and two facts remain stark: nobody has a clue how many units are actually selling, and consumers remain sharply divided between those who call it a crucial convenience in a world of too many messages, emails alerts and those who dismiss it as a $400+ redundancy that needs a late model iPhone (another $600+) to do anything useful.
Apple (AAPL) - Get Report has also recently introduced its first big Apple Watch operating system update that, supposedly, lets apps run faster. Is it time to buy? Especially since there's a flood of financially oriented Apple Watch apps, from Citi, Redfin, Mint, brokerages others.
Should you hop aboard (or maybe try to persuade a loving relative how to remember you at the holidays)? Below we hear from fanboys and antagonists.
Phoenix personal injury lawyer James Goodnow squarely counts himself in the ardent fan court, in large measure, because the Apple Watch can silently deliver alerts and updates. His law firm even has a code where if ten silent taps are sent to a Watch that means SOS, all hands on deck. But the beauty of the Watch, said Goodnow, is a steady stream of info tumbles in and there’s no noise to raise the ire of a judge (some of whom cite lawyers for contempt over a ringing phone). Goodnow said he likes Apple Watches so much his firm has equipped four clients with them in a pilot program. “I can stay aware of what’s happening without checking my phone every minute,” he said.
Lance Vaughn, CEO at mobile app developer CabForward, joined in singing Apple Watch’s praises: "I haven't worn a watch in probably 20 years, but my Apple Watch has become a downright necessity for my very busy worklife. I don't wear it on weekends, though, so one could make the argument that unless your career has you juggling a lot of tasks and incoming messages and reminders, the Apple Watch may in fact be nothing more than a fashion statement.”
Don’t immediately rush out and throw lots of money at an Apple clerk, however. Tom Coughlin, IEEE senior member, offered caution.
“Considering the expectation that this first version of the Apple Watch will probably be obsolete within about three years, it would make sense to not invest much beyond the basic version unless you really need to make a statement,” he said. Coughlin is right and touched on a paradigm shift. When most of us have bought expensive watches, we bought them to use forever. Apple Watch is different; it’s technology. Where is that iPad 3 you bought at release in March 2012. Right, you have no idea what closet it is stuffed in. The same will happen to the Apple Watch which puts it in a different category from traditional watches.
There also are outright naysayers about Apple Watch. Elizabeth O’Dowd, mobility editor at Solutions Review, dismissed the product.
“I think that [smartwatches are] a little stupid; they serve no real purpose, have very few viable features, and no matter what these smartwatch vendors try, they're ugly,” she said. O’Dowd has a point: the Apple Watch does little that the iPhone 6 or 6S can’t do and the question is - is that enough to warrant the price paid for what will almost surely be pricey but short-lived technology?
And the OS update did nothing to cure the one Apple Watch failing that has triggered annoyance, even from fans, since the device’s introduction. It still needs a nightly charge and there’s no end in sight.
But keep it charged, and a user is bombarded with a smorgasbord of updates on everything from the weather to changes of airport gates and, at least for some users, the Apple Watch seems to have hit a bonanza of usefulness. The key, fans said, is load it up with the apps you want and only the apps you want (because you don’t want alerts on topics of scant interest).
Bottomline: for those who feel a need to always be connected and want an info stream less conspicuous than continually eyeballing a smartphone, an Apple Watch is a good option. Good enough to become as ubiquitous as the iPhone? That answer will emerge in the next few years.
For now, the real question is: will smartwatches kill off mechanical watches? Jonathan Geller, editor-in-chief of the Boy Genius Report, thinks just maybe.
“Millennials and future generations' interest in watches will continue to decrease as technology continues to evolve,” he said. Geller added this moneymaking tip: “Keep the mechanical watches already in possession. As the mechanical wristwatch phases out, the collectible value will rise within the next 10-25 years.”
This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held TK positions in the stocks mentioned.








