I have an analogue Wenger stainless steel watch about 15 years old. It has date and time, needs a battery every 3 or 4 years. Tells perfect time.

I don't even understand the need for a huge digital watch with a bunch of buttons; so no; I won't be getting one of these things. The fact that it's made by Apple just emphasizes the NO

I had a Casio calculator watch that I wore for like 10 years, but the waterproofing finally failed and the watch died at Wet'n'Wild. So now I wear a Citizen.

My wife has a Samsung Gear that she uses as a pedometer and also to see if it's worth taking her phone out of her purse when she gets a call or text, but I have no need for that.

I will never give up a watch for a cellphone because there is no convenience in having to reach into my pocket or over to the desk or wherever I may have the phone and then hit a button to see the time when in literally one second I can glance at my wrist.



The Jedi Master

They are pretty handy, and it's harder to drop a watch than a cell phone

The Apple Watch to me is the single most telling thing on which abyss of stupidity our humanity is plunging into.

I mean, this thing does nothing that the iPhone doesn't. I'd guess there even were heart-rate belts available for iPhone?

So, here's a 400EUR (cheapest model, but goes up to 600 easily) watch - which is the price of quite a decent laptop or a very good cellphone - which doesn't enable you to do anything more than you could do if you pulled your phone out of the pocket. Oh, and you have to charge it every day.

People who spend this kind of money on a gadet this useless simple must be doing it for status reasons. Which means they'll automatically appear as Dufuses to everyone else. Which is a good thing.

I can understand the concept behind a cheap! smart watch to show you incoming caller ID or texts, or maybe navigation when walking. But not at this price.

I don't wear a wristwatch, but I do carry a mechanical pocket watch. Just don't like having something on my wrist.

Agree with RSColonel. This Apple Watch fad reminds me of the fad with "Swatches" during the 1980's. Both of them seem to be simply status symbols and nothing more.

Yep. A 67 DS19. Unfortunately it's not mine, it belongs to a friend.

I have a Timex watch that has 3 different alarms, can easily tell time in two time zones, has a countdown timer and a stopwatch, is easily viewable in the dark with a push of a button, has a battery that lasts for years, and cost $40. I can't imagine what would make an iWatch worth the money they're asking. I feel the same way about Rolex watches.

From a purely practical/utilitarian viewpoint there's zero reason to buy a Rolex. People who buy Rolexes do so for the social status it gives them.

That depends, it's like a nice car. Maybe they just appreciate having a very fine made machine from a renowned company. I don't think anyone that buys an Apple watch is doing it from a mechanical enthusiast's position so much as a fanatical need to have the newest gadget regardless of what goes into it. Apple is asking Rolex prices for a calculator with no soul.

Rolex prices are ...hem...higher...

Figure of speech more than literal, asking wine prices for a beer if you will

I don't know about that comparison, I've seen bottles of wine that were as cheap as a bottle of beer!

I don't know, with prices for these editions, Peally was more literal than he might have thought:

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/9/8161553/apple-watch-edition-price-how-much


For 17,000 you'd also get a nice, mid-range Rolex.

Actually, my point about the Rolex watches were that they're just status symbols, much like the iWatch appears to be.

A friend of mine has a Rolex, and we talked about it, and he compared it to a nice car. I told him that nice cars usually give you some extra capability for the money - more quiet, better ride, more performance, something. A Rolex watch doesn't really do anything my Timex doesn't, and in fact they generally do less. Even if they claimed to be more accurate, the differences are so minimal that they have no practical advantage, and certainly wouldn't be worth hundreds times the price.

If a Rolex has gold and diamonds on it, then I get that those would contribute to the price, and those things have a value by themselves. But the functionality is not really a reason to charge a bunch for a Rolex these days, in my opinion.

The Apple Watch does more than a Rolex, but most of it is really just acting as in interface to another device (iPhone), so to me, it's not really doing enough to make it worth the price.

Key thing for me: a $10,000 Rolex will still have value after 5 years.

In 5 years, it's unlikely that my new iWatch will be worth a fraction of its original resale price. All consumer electronics quickly fall in value as they are replaced with new models: thus a 1st-generation used iPad is today worth much less than its original sales price.

High-Price Watches are generally status symbols, that much is true, but at least they keep the price or even increase in value. The irony of the iWatch is that like any other digital device it will be end of life/support in three or four years. A good mechanical Breitling will "always" work and usually be worth not so much from what it sold for in a generation or two, to a collector.

For sure, but I can appreciate a Rolex for being a fine watch. I can appreciate the Apple watch for being a block of expensive Chinese plastic, and there's literally nothing else to them, no history, no craftsmanship, no class. Just 8 dollars worth of material made in a sweat shop with a massive markup.

I've never been impressed with an Apple product and this is just one more notch in their belt. As far as soulless tech gadgets go other companies do what they do minus the cult factor and crappy CS.

If they were to design a car it'd be a Smart Car, not a Lamborghini, but they'd still charge the same price and sell their cars like hotcakes.

Ran across this Samsung Gear ad



I mean, it can't be any more blatantly convened that these gadgets are aimed at males lacking confidence, can it?

People have been trying to turn wristwatches into something more for decades. I wish they'd just let us enjoy a watch. Not everything has to be multifunctional. I'm happy just adding the day of the week and month to my watch. LOL