A short time after the Apple Watch launches, probably when the first sales estimates come in from the analysts, I expect to see stories along the lines of 'the Apple Watch has failed'. It is likely that these will tie in with reviews from the leading geekerati who'll place the Apple Watch in comparison reviews against the functionality of the Pebble, the accessible nature of a favoured Android Wear device, and the utility and ubiquity of the Casio F-91W.
All of these articles will be factually correct. I'll agree with the conclusions of all of them. And it will be hard, logically, to argue against the written premises that the Apple Watch has somehow failed. In a world of snap judgements, I'm pretty confident on this call. I'm also confident that it will be the wrong judgement to make.
Apple has had failures before. It has had products that have come off the stage to meet an eager audience only to be written off as a failure scant months later. And while that label may fit in the first few months you can be sure that the Apple Watch is going to follow the same trajectory to success as other failed Apple product lines towards a long and successful life.
The Failed 5C
Arguably Apple's biggest 'failure' is the iPhone 5C. It has been branded a poor design choice by Apple, not in fitting with the company, and was not what analysts and commentators had expected. At the time everyone in the media expected a cut-price budget iPhone to boost sales, instead Apple replaced the iPhone 5 with the iPhone 5C for a lower bill of material but still following the consistent pricing pattern.
The iPhone 5C solved a different problem to the one the markets expected to be answered, so it was marked up as a failure almost immediately. I wrote this last year, nine months after the launch of the iPhone 5C:
The iPhone 5C made a huge amount of sense when it was launched, and it continues to be a strong seller in Apple’s portfolio. Apple has also addressed the carrier subsidy issue by making the iPhone 5C 8 GB variant. There’s no question in my mind that the 5C was the right thing to do, and it is nowhere near the ‘failure’ that the media continues to label it.
The question for me is this. Why could Apple not get this story out through the usual press channels? Why has the myth of the 5C being a failure taken root? Apple quickly lost control of the public narrative, and while the iPhone 5C continues to sell amazingly well, it still has the smell of failure around it.
By June 2014, the iPhone 5C had sold twenty-four million handsets. The number sold now will be much higher, possibly approaching forty million handsets. If the Apple Watch can fail as spectacularly as the 5C, bring it on.
Next Page: The failure of the iPad Air, the original iPhone, and the upcoming failure of the Apple Watch...
The Failed iPad Air
How about the newest iteration of the iPad? Forbes' Mark Rogowsky looked at the critique around Apple's handful of improvements to its tablet. Apple's long-term view was that the longevity of the tablets were selling points, so of course sales figures were going to be lower. The press critique was looking at the wrong measure of success.
As for jolts, Apple probably would love to sell more iPads. But what the narrative of those last three articles fails to fully capture is that for all its ability to tap into customer wants and needs, Apple doesn’t control the universe. It’s been so successful selling iPads — the total to date is actually now past 240 million as Tim Cook announced last quarter’s 225 million figure yesterday — that the majority of people who want one already have one. And those iPads are mostly still working, and mostly still useful.
Forget the cumulative sales, Cupertino still sold over sixty-four million units during 2014. Is that the sort of failure we can expect for the Apple Watch? Bring it on.
The Failed iPhone
Perhaps we should go right back to the very first iPhone. Just as the smartwatch market has solidified around a vision, so the smartphone market was confident in what the public wanted. The iPhone had the confidence to push its own argument against the established view, and very few people credited them with a chance. Matthew Lyon, for Bloomberg:
Don't let that fool you into thinking that it matters. The big competitors in the mobile-phone industry such as Nokia Oyj and Motorola Inc. won't be whispering nervously into their clamshells over a new threat to their business. The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks. In terms of its impact on the industry, the iPhone is less relevant.
I'll leave you with this gem. One year after the announcement and four months into the iPhones retail life, this was the view of Barry Gilbert, then-vice president of Strategy Analytics’ BuyerTRAX:
The iPhone was originally viewed as a niche product. But its design, features and functionality are turning out to have broad appeal.
Is that the same niche product label being prepared for the Apple Watch? Bring it on.
The Failed Apple Watch?
Tim Cook and Apple will have internal goals for the Apple Watch. I'm sure that sales will be a component of the goals, but user education, ecosystem growth, perception, and real-world feedback from millions of users will be even more important than the profit from the first generation hardware.
The snap measurement of sales, user uptake, app counts, or customer satisfaction after the first month, are going to be devoured by the geekerati and the slightest flaw will be magnified into "Tim's folly" - which will be ignored by Apple. I've no doubt that Jony Ive will have Apple Watch 2 around his wrist when he knows nobody is looking, and Apple Watch 3 is on his drawing board. Apple is making a strong statement entering the wearables market, the prize is years away, and that's where the company is aiming.
So go ahead, get ready to call the Apple Watch a failure. Start writing the drafts now, because you know the arguments already.
Just remember this. Every 'failure' of an Apple product has been followed by record levels of sales and success. Do I expect the Apple Watch to follow the same pattern and be seen as a failure this summer? Do I expect the Apple Watch to be a financial and commercial success, to shake up and mature the wearables market, and to create a new product category that will bring new life to consumer electronics?
To all of those I say yes, yes I do. Bring on the failure, because I can't wait to see it emerge victorious on the other side.
