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New Ceramic and Titanium Apple Watch Models Uncovered in watchOS 6 Beta
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Almost no consumer electronics are “great investments”. People buy these purely because they have the disposable income to buy something they enjoy. Some people think it’s worth the extra money for a fancier looking smart watch (or for the sapphire casing) that they wear every day.
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my guess is there will be almost nothing to entice series 4 owners to upgrade. It will be an incremental upgrade that is more for series 2 owners looking to upgrade. I also bet the series 4 is discontinued and series 3 stays as the entry model so there’s a bigger difference between entry and flagship models.
That comparison is so flawed: It’s not an investment, but a purchase of a tech tool. The Apple Watch - despite its name - can do so much more than those Rolex and Omega watches. To put it differently: why spend so much money on a „high end“ watch, when the $30 Casio watch tells the time as well? Perhaps because of looks or “status”?
And you could be in for an unpleasant surprise if you opt for a Rolex or Omega as an investment: Chances are that no one is interested anymore in that low-tech in a couple of years. Who is still interested in the high-end pocket watches of some decades ago?
So your “investment” may have as little (sale) value in the future as the Apple watches from the same purchase year, only that the Apple Watch served way more functionality to their owners than mere mechanical watches (calendar, moon phases etc. notwithstanding).
And to bring the hate-loved car analogy: People still buy new and expensive cars all of the time, despite the value loss - when leaving the car dealer premises - already being higher than the purchase cost of the high end Apple Watch. After 10 years or so your once shiny car is worth only a fraction of its purchase cost. And those cost were much higher than $1.300 ...
Exactly. Also, where is the difference to spending 1000 bucks on an iPhone? It‘s all (high) tech, and tech will always become obsolete at some point in the future. That‘s why the comparisons with Rolex etc are completely beside the point. A Rolex is not a computer and functionally very primitive. The only similarity is that it‘s also worn on the wrist.
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Except that if you have the watch, you can leave the card at home..
It’s so funny how people are like “why would anyone spend hundreds of dollars extra for titanium?”
Newslfash! People buy what they want. People have disposable income. If someone wants to buy a titanium or ceramic watch whyyy do you care?!
I’ve never seen so many naysayers in my life Lol.
Newslfash! People buy what they want. People have disposable income. If someone wants to buy a titanium or ceramic watch whyyy do you care?!
I’ve never seen so many naysayers in my life Lol.
That's why the investment in Japan Display. It's not OLED, but microLED.
People said the same of Series 3 over Series 2, when in fact S3 was quite a substantial upgrade.
They're consistently wrong in this forum about Apple failures.
I was a stainless steel guy for the series 0 and series 2 but I’m thinking of just going with aluminum for the series 5, which I’m going to get to finally retire my series 2. I actually prefer the matte finish of the aluminum. I just wish Apple would spend the extra money to put the sapphire crystal glass on it like they have on the SS model. I’m clumsy and bang my wrist into stuff often. I know that Ion-X Glass is going to get all scratched up.
Maybe I’ll see how much the titanium is and splurge.
Maybe I’ll see how much the titanium is and splurge.
Will we ever see the return of the 18K gold Apple watch? Probably not.
Probably too expensive considering it is outdated a few years down the road.
Probably too expensive considering it is outdated a few years down the road.
I like the titituim as thst get my attention a little bit because of my nickel sensitivity does liking what I can wear. I can handle stainless most of the time but I have reactee with it full time against me on some.
Ceramic is sadly out of the question for me due to the fact that it often times has nickel on the outside due to the coatings used when they are making them in the models
Ceramic is sadly out of the question for me due to the fact that it often times has nickel on the outside due to the coatings used when they are making them in the models
The point is that some people want and can afford to buy high end casings. Even if it’s disposable in the long run it’s still nice to have. Why not buy a higher end one if you have enough disposable income?
The profits they make on those premium models must be insane. I did some research some time ago if the titanium cost is really that much higher than aluminium and I realized the cost might be like 4-8x higher for the same part, but the question is: how much really cost to make for example that aluminium Watch casing (material and machining). Is it like $10-15? So a titanium casing one would be max $100? And I guess they will sell it for like 3x the price of the aluminium Apple Watch. I understand that main goal of most businesses is to make profits, but oh boy, this is "a gold mine".
The casing changes with the tech and modularity will introduce bulk, especially since everything needs to be water proof. It’s why the modular phone concept never made it to market. I’m not sure it’s practical to make anything other than the band be exchangeable.
CON-SIS-TENT-LY
It’s wild. AirPods... Fail. iPhone... Fail.
Idk. Billions in profit every quarter doesn’t seem like a fail to me.
Nobody who buys Apple watches think it’s an investment. People buy it for the same reason people want stainless steel and glass instead of plastic on phones or leather seats on cars.
Basically because most "investments" of that sort tend to lose value if they are actually used. A 50-year-old Rolex in mint condition has some value, but if the thing shows 50 years worth of wear-and-tear the resale value is pretty low, though sentimental value may be high. Fine timepieces fall into the category of jewelry. For utility there are plenty of inexpensive ways to get the time of day.
Same arguments can be made for cars. No need to buy more than the base model economy car, as it gets people from place to place the same as a luxury car. Both the economy car and the luxury car depreciate in value over time. The principle difference is that the resale value for luxury cars in good condition tends to be better because of people who want to be seen in a luxury car but can't afford a new one. However, "collectible value" for a luxury car still depends almost entirely upon condition. Anything less than "concours condition" (an expensive proposition in its own right) and the vehicle has very little value.
Personal vanity is a factor in many of our purchasing decisions. Many of us spend as much as our vanity allows - nicer hotel rooms, nicer cars, upscale retailers, name-brand commodity goods.... One can argue that there is real value folded into the higher-priced goods, but "better" and "nicer" are still things that make us feel good about ourselves. Essentially, all debates of this sort are veiled (and not-so-veiled) discussions of vanity, greed, etc.
I never understood why so many people bought Blood Diamonds and it took an eon for even the king of blood diamonds, now is going full on moissanite diamonds.
But you have “reasons”.
Take it you have the aluminium sport model not the stainless steel? Only the latter has sapphire glass display.
[doublepost=1566065225][/doublepost]I’d be interested in the Ti case (matte darker metal look, lightweight and hypoallergenic)...as long as it isn’t a ridiculous price. Wishful thinking I know!
From an engineering standpoint... If the case and internal layout did not change from year-to-year, then sure, you could drop a 2020 logic board into a 2016 watch. However, in order to accommodate new capabilities, change appearance/style, etc., the case and internal layout do change. Therefore, they'd have to engineer a 2016-compatible logic board with 2020 components. Since the likely parts & labor cost for such an upgrade would come close to 50% of the cost of a new, base-model (aluminum) Watch, the upgrade would not appeal to the vast majority of Watch owners... only those with expensive cases might be tempted, which means the amortized cost of engineering would push the parts cost up. And it's likely that just a fraction of those who purchased the "expensive" model would care about upgrading. If they had the disposable income for the expensive model in the first place, they're probably also going to prefer having the new look rather than the old style.
Basically, this leaves us with the same people who actually did take advantage of modularity in traditional desktop PCs. Truth is, most PC owners never upgrade CPUs, RAM, HDs, etc. They all paid a premium for the sockets, user-friendly cases, card slots, drive cages, etc., but never used them.
