Apple's strap-on will set you back just '$5,000' – what a BARGAIN!

Only 20 years? According to those Pathetique Phillipe ads you alwasy see in the Economist, you don't buy a watch for yourself, you look after it for your children. Although it doesn't say if you can break it in half to share between two...

Obviously one should really have inherited one from ones father. Surely there can't be that many loathsome prolls whose parents failed to give them the proper start in life with the inheritence of a multi-thousand pound watch. Then again, you'd really need parents considerate enough to die around your 18th birthday, as it's going to be awkward to insist your father's around to tell you the time until he dies when you're in your 60s.

You know, I'm not sure they've thought this through...

20 years for a watch costing from about £200-250... of course someone will chime in that they have had the same Timex since they were a kit and it's all they need - but very little like this lasts 20 years of daily use. Even Rolex, Patek and other high end watches typically need servicing which greatly increases their total cost over 20 years.

Over a perdiod of 20 years that watch will keep it's value, even gain value in some cases..

The iPhone will be worth next to nothing. The iPhone is not jewellery it is just a minor fashion item.

Re: Gold-plated?

Rolexes aren't hand-made. The vast majority of work involved in their construction is automated, with a small amount of hand-finishing/assembly. The reason they cost so much is that Rolex has now a well- (and expensively-) advertised brand image and people are willing to pay high amounts. There's not much relation of their cost to the cost of manufacture - they're a classic example of Veblen goods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

Working conditions in Switzerland are certainly way better though, and wages much higher.

Re: Gold-plated?

So moving Chinese jobs to the USA helps the Chinese workers how?

The working conditions / pay may not be the same you enjoy in the US but it may still be better for them than the other option which may be near-enough-subsistence farming?

Re: Gold-plated?

Lots of expensive things don't last as long as cheaper ones. I'd wager a 500k supercar will last far less time than an old Ford Focus.

It's for the super rich, if they have enough money this counts as disposable income then good for them, let them buy it.

Re: Gold-plated?

are Apple going to make all their Watches the same size

Noooo, it's Apple we're talking about here. They'll probably make the next generation of cases a few millimetres different in size, so you'll have to buy a new one. Of course you'll have the option to take your expensive, ephemeral slab into the nearest Genius Bar and have it recycled for you.

Re: Gold-plated?

Actually, they're NOT, except in the sense that it won't fly to pieces.

I had a Rolex for a while - and old one (70s) almost literally fell into my hands along with a lot of mostly junk. I got it refurbished into running order, which cost several hundred dollars. I was going to sell it then, but I liked the way it looked (it was not super-fancy, but very distinguished looking) so I wore it almost daily for a year. By the end of that year it started having trouble keeping time, and sometimes needed a vigorous shake to free up the self-winding mechanism so it would run if it completely ran down since I last wore it (I mean like jump up and down shake, not the usual light wrist movement that is all you normally need for a self-winder).

Assuming that the previous jeweler had done a crappy job, I took it to a much better jeweler, who I told the story, and they said that automatic movements require a lot of regular maintenance. A year or two between major amounts of (expensive) tinkering is about average for a regularly-worn Rolex.

So I sold it, and when I'm not wearing a pebble these days, I have an eco-drive citizen which has worked perfectly for years without refurbishing.

I'm not saying the Rolex wasn't a great watch, it was (just putting it up to your ear and hearing the distinctive sound they make is hypnotic), but having one is a lot like having a vintage car - it will be in the shop a lot and let you down much more often than your daily driver.

Re: Gold-plated?

"What I want to know is, what happens to the gold case? Or are Apple going to make all their Watches the same size - so that you can just pop it out, and update to the next model?"

As Dr Phil would say, relative past behaviour is a good indicator of future behaviour. Going on Apple's past, it hasn't happened before, so not likely to happen now.

I would hope however, that they have a good workable strategy on firmware upgrades. It's likely the functionality in future won't be in the first version of firmware.

Which raises another question: Current phones don't have 8 core CPUs for kicks you know. We're pushing significantly more out of our phones today than we did in the last 5-10 years... How are they going to increase functionality without an engine replacement? Are the gold watch users of 10 years in the future going to be happy with the same relative horsepower of today?

All this may be moot though, Apple's battery replacement policy has been less then stellar - are they going to allow battery changes after a few years on the $5K gold watch, or are they going to let the third-party Chinese market take care of it?

Re: Gold-plated?

What a perfect example of a false conclusion drawn from an irrelevant observation. A valid comparison would begin from the observation that the Rolex will do exactly the same thing, day after day, until it fails after becoming unrepairable, and so will the Apple Watch. Such a comparison examines the same characteristic on both. Unfortunately the parent post goes on to fault the Apple product for an unrelated reason -- because a better version enters the market in a relatively short time -- which speaks to poor reasoning skills (or a preconceived outcome), not to an unfavorable product comparison.

Re: Apple Watch Sport Edition

See, THIS is more like it. Criticise the watch all you like as long as it's with FACTS.

It wasn't a criticism on my part it was a genuine question as I read an argument between two people online last night as to whether it was or it wasn't.

If it isn't then personally I don't know what they are thinking. That is a basic requirement for one of these devices for me and should be a given if it has sport in the name, but that's just my opinion...

The Moto 360 is still the best looking smartwatch I've seen, but it is too bulky and the battery life is too bad for it to be worth considering at this stage

Re: Apple Watch Sport Edition

@Scott Earle

The swimming pools in Cupertino are all filled with dollar bills instead of water anyway, so I guess it just never occurred to them.

Re: Apple Watch Sport Edition

Another question? Is it shock & dirt resistant, i.e. can it take a smack against a squash court wall or go into sand onto a beach volleyball court?

Or is it "sport" in the sense of a Ford Fiesta "sport", it has some go faster stripes and a crap ride?

From what little details they have released it seems to be sport in the sense that it comes with a naff brightly coloured plastic strap. No indication of battery life, whether it is shock proof / dust & dirt proof / waterproof.