As a full fledged Apple guy I’m sure many are wondering why I’m not considering the purchase of an Apple Watch. As an original Macintosh 128k purchaser in 1984 its not as if I’m adverse to new Apple products. I stood in line to grab my first iPad and again when the iPad 2 was released. I did wait several months for my current phone contract to end before picking up an iPhone but I had several excuses, not the least of which I was working for Nokia at the time.
I’m really anxious to see one live and hear from someone about their experience with it. I have a couple of friends that did order them so I expect to hear interesting stories.
Anyway, here are my reasons for not buying an Apple Watch immediately:
- I’m not a jewelry wearing kind of guy. I don’t wear watches, rings, baubles, necklaces, etc., and haven’t since leaving the Marine Corp. While there I had to wear my ID tags and wore a watch to ensure I would never be late. Almost as soon as I left all that crap went into my a drawer.
- I don’t need what it provides. Right now, the trifecta of features appear to be health monitoring, glances of events like meetings and mail and incoming phone calls, as well as notifications. I suppose if my job required that I stay on top of those things and respond ASAP then it might make sense, but since I don’t attend meetings, or get many phone calls, and very few notifications, it doesn’t appear I’ll be missing a thing.
- It’s a 1.0 release. Nuff said! The watches are gorgeous but I’m sorry, they just aren’t slim enough for my taste (see first point above). They look overly large and bulky and while visually appealing the thought of wearing something that large on my wrist doesn’t interest me at all. I’ll wait and see what the 2.0 and 3.0 versions are like before I jump onto the bandwagon. They’ll have worked out most of the kinks by then, just as they did with the iPhone 3GS.
- They’re expensive. For someone who has no desire to wear something on my wrist and no need for the Apple Watch capabilities, spending $400+ dollars for even the cheapest one just seems, well excessive. Don’t get me wrong, for the amount of hardware and software design and sophisticated features offered on the device its actually a steal and if I thouht I needed one I’d have ordered one all ready. But since I don’t (see second point above) then its a moot issue.
- It’s a new uncertain market. I love the fact that Apple is trying to open up an entirely new market for themselves and I hope they are extremely successful with it. If it comes anywhere close to iPhone sales the top end Apple Watch Edition ($10-17K in cost) will bring in billions of profit over the next decade. That should cause their share price to rise and my IRA portfolio to grow larger as well. And yes, for full disclosure I do own shares in Apple since I consider them the best run company in the world.
And that’s it. If in the future my situation changes and buying an Apple Watch sounds reasonable I’ll be online ordering one before I can change my mind.
