If there’s one thing we know it’s that open always wins and, therefore, Apple always loses. Eeeyup. Every time.
“Google Could Beat Apple At Fashion—Just Like It Did Phones”
Uhhh… can you define “beat” in the context of phones? Because that would probably be hysterical.
Yes, every day there are more Android phones sold than iPhones. We heard this. It was in all the papers. Apple, however, still somehow manages to take most of the profit in the smartphone business.
So, if that’s getting beaten, then beat the Macalope like a trussed-up Craigslist advertiser.
OK, that came out weird. But, still, please beat the Macalope into incredible profit. He would like that.
While the Apple Watch has made its way to Vogue and Beyonce’s Instagram, it’s Google’s Android Wear that’s quickly catching on with designers at large.
Alas, it is not catching on with customers. It probably doesn’t help when fashion watch makers use your platform to make passive-aggressive watches you can “trade up” later for a “real” (read: non-smart) watch.
Much like in the smartphone market, Google has a lot of partners working on Android Wear watches. So far not many people are buying them. But… choice! Everyone loves choice. They also love Apple products. It’s a quandary.
Right now, Apple is selling more Watches than all Android Wear manufacturers combined. But maybe it’s true that, in the long run, this market will follow the same trajectory as the smartphone market: Android will take all the market share and Apple will take all the profit. Hashbrown winning.
Meanwhile, Apple still has one watch, made by Apple.
In scores of metal, color, band and face combinations but, yeah, it’s basically the same watch.
If you’d like, you can buy a band from other designers like Hermes. But the hardware? The aesthetic? The watch itself? That comes from Apple.
Have you seen some of these Android Wear watches? They have all the appeal of a nondescript cylinder strapped to your wrist. Because that’s literally what they are.
Each strategy has benefitted each company in its own way.
Apple’s way is the way that gets money. Android’s way is more like doing things for free “for the exposure”.
Android devices are produced by dozens of manufacturers, each breaking their backs to produce, market, and compete to sell Google devices.
If Samsung’s marketing team broke their backs on that creepy skiing ad for the Galaxy Gear, their backs must be made out Pringles.
But who are you going to believe, your lying eyes or the vapid quotes of Google’s VP of Android Wear?
“One of the other things we realized when we started Android Wear was, when you think about things people wear, they have really diverse styles. It isn’t the case that one style fits all, in any clothing or accessory or other kind of apparel,” David Singleton, VP of Android Wear, says. “A lot of our DNA working on Android has always been to create an ecosystem of partners to work together to create something bigger than the sum of its parts, and that’s what we’re trying to do here.”
Is this an ad?
Now that Android Wear is almost two years old, we’re beginning to see the fruits of the open Android strategy in wooing the fashion world.
Because it’s really starting to read like an ad.
”Watches and jewelry are a part of my design DNA…” Michael Kors says.
If people say “DNA” enough times, it means they’re automatically cool and hip and you want to buy their stuff. That’s just science.
And what gets concerning about the viability of Apple’s strategy—if we really are to consider it a fashion company now—is how its closed approach not only will limit overall adoption of the Apple Watch…
The approach that’s currently leading the market, that approach.
…but limit the extent to which Apple can keep afloat in the sheer depth of wearables to come.
You could almost say we’ll be… up to our necks in wearables.
And, uh, there will also be smarthats. So, above the neck as well.
In this regard, Android Wear is poised to become the only viable OS not just for the fashion industry’s smartwatches, but for the entire fashion industry at large.
Has anyone ever gone wrong in making sweeping statements about how Apple will be unable to compete in the future? Seems like maybe somebody must have at some point but… that’s probably a pretty rock-solid place to stake your ground.
And when the core components of smart garments become so cheap that there’s little difference between a pair of Levi’s and a pair of smart Levi’s, Apple will need to decide whether to finally open iOS, or whether it can sell enough mock black turtlenecks that it won’t matter.
Commodities! All products eventually commoditize and people always just go for the cheapest option which is why Apple doesn’t sell products anymore and, in fact, went out of business years ago.
Look, just because reality is being stubborn in catching up to the predictions of pundits, that’s not their problem.