Here’s Andy Boxall digging for clicks:
It’s exactly what Apple has long been criticized for: high quality hardware for elitists who want to make sure everyone around them knows how much they’ve shelled out. Apple absolutely knows this, and the Watch is here to artificially kickstart what it lost with the now almost commonplace MacBook and iPhone.
This article is less about the effect Edition will have on people and more about Andy’s grudge against people with enough money to buy Edition.
Here’s another odd assumption Andy makes:
Perhaps the most depressing thing about all this, is it’s not an accident. It’s a calculated strategy. Apple is hoping to leave the mainstream world it entered with the iPhone.
Let’s flip this on its head and consider it from a different angle.
Fashion senses and fashion tastes are funny things and aren’t ruled by a dollar value. They’re ruled by personality, not specifications. They are irrational products, despite our incessant need for them to be rational products. And at this end of the spectrum, dollar value is irrelevant.
Yet, fortunately for Apple, it’s a very rational gamble to make. The raw materials for Edition are appreciable materials — Apple can sit on a hoard of gold and, even if they don’t sell many Editions, their hoard of gold becomes more valuable.
So why not produce an expensive gold watch that caters to those with irrational tastes by making a rational gamble?
Apple isn’t playing the snobbery game. They are interested in changing the world through innovative technology and, in the process, making a pile of money. Edition represents a rational business gamble that fills an irrational niche in the market.
Apple Watch Edition is calculated alright. But not in the sinister ways Andy Boxall wants to believe.