Apple Springing Forward

Apple officially announced their Apple Watch today with actual details unlike when they teased everyone in September. Any logical person would expect an expensive product and they would be correct. The Aluminum Sport edition is the cheapest of all the models and starts at $350 (Bigger version costing $50 more). The middle tier starts at $550, made of stainless steel.

The Apple Watch Edition, made of gold, starts at a measly $10,000 and goes up to $17,000 (the upgrade to $17,000 get you a bit more gold on the hinges of the watch and on the bracelet). Keep in mind the only difference is the material of the watch; the internals are the same (or so we think). It would make sense if the highest tier comes with a reasonable time period of complementary updates but it doesn't. This watch will not be "timeless" since the functionality of smart watches will continue to grow unlike other watches, like Rolex's, which have the one functionality of keeping time. It's hard to see anyone buying this edition without the purpose of displaying wealth (real or fake) or without having tons of money to just waste.

At an entry level of $350, this will almost double the cost of any smart watch currently in the market. The features shown in the presentations definitely met or slightly exceeded what Android Wear devices have the ability to do; this probably has to do with the magnetic pull Apple has with developers. It'll be interesting to see how consumers will look at the Apple Watch since most of the younger generations barely wear any watches.

I'm intrigued on whether Android Wear device makers will produce higher end watches to compete against Apple or just stay at its "low" price point.

What are your thoughts on the Apple Watch? Are you planning on getting one?

While the Apple Watch was the featured product of the day, the new Macbook won the show's spotlight in my opinion. It looks amazing and is ultra sleek like no other laptop in the market. It only have one port for power, external monitors, and data connections. That port is USB Type-C and there will be an adapter that will allow power, HDMI, and USB 3 connections at one time. The trackpad is no longer a physical click but features haptic feedback. The keyboard had to be redesigned to fit in this new slim design. Even the batteries in this laptop had to be contoured to the laptop body to produce this device. From a conceptual aspect, this laptop is going to be awesome. I guess we'll see how it performs in reality when it's released on April 10th.

With that said, I'll probably continue to play the dangerous waiting game for the redesign of the Macbook Pro.