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This is really one of the few products you would never buy as a first gen, let alone the gold model.

I bought a first gen and was pretty pleased with it. I kept it until the battery died (which was way sooner that it had to be. Glad I didn't buy the gold one! (And really, MacRumors is just trolling us with this headline :))

I think the main thing with Apple Watch is that you kind of had to have one to understand what it could do for you. I still alternate between it and my dress watches. There's a lot of convenience associated with Apple Watch if you're all in on the Apple ecosystem.
 
'Obsolete' as a designation, but never obsolete as the spark that persists to today in the current Series, helping people manage their lives & health (and even saving some). ❤️⌚️
 
Welp, at least you can still sell the gold parts for scrap money!

the gold was a custom alloy/version (not sure what the proper term is) that was unique to Apple, so idk if you can do that and get as much as you think
 
I think the main thing with Apple Watch is that you kind of had to have one to understand what it could do for you. I still alternate between it and my dress watches. There's a lot of convenience associated with Apple Watch if you're all in on the Apple ecosystem.
None of my watches need to be put on a charger, non of them nags me even more than email and text messages and other notifications on my phone and computer do already. Had to change the battery on my Timex once. The others are either solar or self-winding.
 
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People with A LOT more disposable income than you or me. A set of tires for the Bugatti Veyron is $41,544, for instance.

Yeah, that's the way I always look at these things. I can't remember what I paid for my S0, but I'm guessing it was in the $400 range. Are there people who have 40 times more disposable income than I do? Yes. So no surprise if they sold some of these.

Same logic applies to any luxury item. Including tires, apparently...
 
The $17,000 gold model that they gave away to a few select celebrities and probably sold none of at retail.
Oh they definitely sold them at retail and I remember buyers posting about getting one here.

I think a lot of people assumed at the time that the guts would be upgradable as the tech improved, but turns out it was definitely not designed that way.

In the end I'd expect people who dropped $17k on a first-gen Apple Watch to have money to burn, so as long as they got a couple of years out of showing it off as an elite status symbol, then putting it in their collection, I'm sure they'll be just fine.
 
I wonder if legendary singer Beyoncé still uses hers...

Screen_Shot_2015-04-20_at_5.42.08_PM.0.0.1429566185.png
 
If you melted the watch down, how much actual gold do you think you could extract?
 
I think a lot of people assumed at the time that the guts would be upgradable as the tech improved, but turns out it was definitely not designed that way.

I can't imagine anyone buying one made that assumption. There is zero precedent for such a thing. I think some people struggling to wrap their head around the price told themselves that was the only way it made sense-- but I'd expect people shelling out for one could afford to not care...
 
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The Jony Ive Experience, ladies and gentlemen.
I am curious to see what he does with OpenAI. This is going to be the kind of thing that shows how much he was/wasn't phoning it in for his last few years at Apple.
 
That brings back some memories. I got the Series 0 on launch and it held out until I upgraded to the 3. Went to 5, 7, and now 8. I gave that original one to my little brother and he got another 2 years or so out of it.
 
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I guess enough time has passed for me to tell this story. When the first Apple Watch was released, I was an Inventory Control Specialist at an Apple Store. We weren't flagship, so we didn't keep any gold Apple Watches in stock, but every Apple Store back-of-house had to be retrofitted with a small floor safe (bolted to the ground) just in case, for instance, somebody returned one. Yeah, it was insane. We never had to use it, but OH THE CURSING about the hundred times somebody banged their toe into that immovable object!

Near the holidays that year we did have a nice lady come into our store to buy a gold Apple Watch as a surprise for her husband. Since we didn't have them in stock, we had her buy it on the store portal on a demo iMac and have it shipped to her home. The store got credit for that sale, and it made our P&L for the month look fabulous.
 
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