I looked at the videos and early reviews and predictions for the new Apple Watch. Why is not an iWatch? I suppose they are going for a bit more class. This is a real watch, they likely said in their brainstorming sessions, not only tech, but elegance. I’m not feeling like it’s going to be a huge success. Near as I can tell, only about 20% of their target demographic wears watches. I think it will be great for a few technophiles and for fitness junkies. But that’s only maybe 5% of the population. So their US market, 5% of 20-30 year olds, amounts to maybe 3 million units, not the 20-30 million that seems to be the hope. I’m in the technophile group, but I see no valid reason to own one of these new devices unless I join CrossFit again and decide to be hyper-aware of my fitness. Not likely. There’s nothing the watch can do for me that my iPhone can’t. Unless, a couple years from now, the watch has cellular and can replace the phone, then I might be a customer. But probably not. I can’t type a poem on a watch face. So they’ll need a holographic keyboard, so I can type in the air. But… what of privacy? If I can see the keyboard and holo-display, so can others around me, where the iPhone offers some privacy.

And at $350 plus, it’s a pricey watch. Lots of great watches go for less than $100. Decent watches go for $20. How many 20-30 year olds have $350 in disposable cash? Not many. So I’m predicting they’ll sell a million, maybe two, in the first twelve months after launch. And they’ll consider it a failure. Not enough money for Apple. Especially since they’ve probably committed to having 20 million manufactured. At a cost of $250 each, that’s $5 Billion in inventory. A pretty big loss, even for a company as big as Apple.

It looks to be the absolute best smart watch in the market, but, it seems to me, it’s a minuscule market. The Apple Watch is not the game changer the world is ready for. It’s really cool tech, amazing innovation, but it’s not going to be enough to entice people (their prospective customers) to change their behaviors. Sorry, Apple. You’ve had some incredible successes, the iPhone, the iPad, the iPod, and the MacBook line of computers, but this isn’t going to be your next big thing.