The iPhone 6's sales also fell 80% after launch, yet it's a smashing success for Apple. This is how Apple product launches have been for a long time. Simply put, there are a massive amount of preorders and the marketing is geared to push this.
It's easy to jump on the Apple Watch hate train, but an article with a headline like that and a log scale graph to prove it's points isn't exactly unbiased.
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On another note, while I'm not a smartwatch owner myself, I've heard some interesting opinions that have shifted my views of them. The primary complaint about Smartwatches is that they are "overpriced gimmicks with no real useful functionality" and nobody needs one. Well sure, nobody needs one, but there are times when having one is convenient and clearly an advantage over not having one. They're mostly fringe cases like using a GPS while biking, or checking a text surreptitiously without pulling out your phone, but there are plenty of these cases. Happy smartwatch owners aren't saying "this thing changed my life", they're saying "it's nice to have around sometimes, so yeah I'll keep using it". Once affordability, form factor, and (especially) battery life hit a sweet spot, and it's inevitable that it will happen, then there will be little reason not to wear a smartwatch given the choice.
Tablets hit market saturation because of the same line of thought. Very few people need a tablet, but they're nice to have around sometimes. We laugh now, but if an oversized iPhone can catch on, watches can too.
A linear scale would have made that plunge look even worse. I was much more irritated that the graph was an animation -- I can actually understand that the horizontal axis shows time, thank you very much...
The iPhone 6's sales also fell 80% after launch, yet it's a smashing success for Apple. This is how Apple product launches have been for a long time. Simply put, there are a massive amount of preorders and the marketing is geared to push this.
It's easy to jump on the Apple Watch hate train, but an article with a headline like that and a log scale graph to prove it's points isn't exactly unbiased.
----------------------------------------------
On another note, while I'm not a smartwatch owner myself, I've heard some interesting opinions that have shifted my views of them. The primary complaint about Smartwatches is that they are "overpriced gimmicks with no real useful functionality" and nobody needs one. Well sure, nobody needs one, but there are times when having one is convenient and clearly an advantage over not having one. They're mostly fringe cases like using a GPS while biking, or checking a text surreptitiously without pulling out your phone, but there are plenty of these cases. Happy smartwatch owners aren't saying "this thing changed my life", they're saying "it's nice to have around sometimes, so yeah I'll keep using it". Once affordability, form factor, and (especially) battery life hit a sweet spot, and it's inevitable that it will happen, then there will be little reason not to wear a smartwatch given the choice.
Tablets hit market saturation because of the same line of thought. Very few people need a tablet, but they're nice to have around sometimes. We laugh now, but if an oversized iPhone can catch on, watches can too.
A linear scale would have made that plunge look even worse. I was much more irritated that the graph was an animation -- I can actually understand that the horizontal axis shows time, thank you very much...
Like when I'm in class! :D