French website iGen.fr, which has provided reliable information in the past, reported on Tuesday that the steel Apple Watch will start at $500 alongside a gold model that will retail for between $4,000 and $5,000. Apple previously claimed at its September event that the Apple Watch would start at $349, but did not disclose further pricing information.
The report claims that the stainless steel Apple Watch in polished steel or black will cost $500, while the gold Apple Watch Edition will be the more expensive version at between $4,000 and $5,000. That price range would be nearly half the estimated $10,000 price that some other reports have suggested.
In terms of a launch date, the report claims that the Apple Watch will launch in time for Valentine’s Day, but that was the most specific date given. We previously shared an internal memo from Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts in which she wrote that the Apple Watch will launch in the “Spring” following the Chinese New Year.
iGen.fr accurately reported that Apple would launch both the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 at its September event and has also provided information that proved true regarding an iPod touch update in the past.
Apple announced last month that its WatchKit SDK will be available in November.
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For a ONE DAY of battery? no thanks.
High quality watches need wound daily, you put them in boxes that wind them for you, so I am not sure how much of a limiting factor it can be, will heavy users get only 6hrs? No one knows yet…
The type of watch you are talking about never needs to be wound up as long as you wear them. They are called automatic watches and they have a rotor built in that winds up the watch using your natural wrist movement. The boxes you are talking about are called watch winders, and they are used to simulate your wrist movement, to keep watches you aren’t going to wear for a few days wound up and ticking.
The watches you wind up daily are non-automatic mechanical watches. you wind them up using the crown not a winder. They are very rare in the modern day high end watch market.
Tim: i have aRolx oyster it needs to be wound if it is not used all day, as many high end watches are not as tey get scratched up and lose value, and it is automatic. Most of the Rolex line is. So to say most are not like that? If you look how many of thouse winding boxes they sell, there’s one hek of a lot of fancy watches being kept ticking by the gentle sway of a winding box. So I call BS on wht you say.
The overral point however is that people accept tradeoffs. The watch at one day of charging, akin to one day of wearing. Fancy watch is worth if it during that day it fulills a function or addresses a need. Too early to tell if pople will accept that. Some will no matter what because it looks cool. Early smartphones had crap batt life but people still bought them. Same with cars, how many people buy sportscars tht get lousy fuel consumption.
Many in the middle class would not, but then they are not the markt it isaimed at as they cannot afford to run it. A watching starting out at 350 and toppig 5K is more akin to that sportscar and Rolex than a Casio.
Dave, did you read his reply? He said they are automatic when you wear them, the box is needed when you don’t. Pretty straight forward.
David…Tim is absolutely correct. Not only is his grammar and spelling on point, but so is his accurate description of an automatic watch/manual vs. a quartz/battery. Dave, concentrate on your dictation first before calling BS on something you yourself are incorrect about.
the more you know…
How long do you think it would take to charge the tiny Apple Watch battery? 30 minutes to full? This thing isnt going to sit on a charger like an iPhone or iPad the battery is much much smaller.
Yeah that’s what everyone’s been ignoring. I think that’s gonna be a big reveal at the final event before launch. “Yes, you have to charge it every night but it charges to full in 15 minutes” sorta thing.
Perhaps, but it doesn’t appear to be a direct contact kind of charge. It looks like an inductive charger which is not nearly as efficient as a straight shot of the juice.
So, basically there are 3 tiers: $350 for the poor, $500 for the middle class, and $5K for the rich. Makes sense.
Haha “for the poor.” Or for me because I prefer* the aluminum model.
*As much as one can prefer one having never held either.
I second that…I prefer the aluminum model also. with the rubber band at all.
I will get the gold if I can afford it.
The aluminum is 30% lighter and doesn’t have a sapphire glass cover. The 30% lighter is an obvious benefit, and while sapphire is far and beyond more scratch resistant than the ion-X glass, it is also far more reflectant, which you’ll see the difference because unlike regular watches with sapphire covers, these have a display, and numerous display metrics are worsened by reflectance, even in room luminance. For example—and specifically in the daytime outside—the contrast and color accuracy will likely be worse with the Steel or gold watches.
I think the steel one is the only one that looks like a “watch” though.
In terms of street responses the aluminium one will be like “what’s that weird gadgety thing on your wrist?” the steel one will just be “Hey, cool watch!” and the gold ones will be “Hi Kanye!”
I guess I’m not surprised, but Im only see this as looking worse and worse for apple. I think the only real advantage here is that it’s made by apple.
No
Seems a bit unrealistic
As much as a decent Mac pro configuration?
I would guess no more than 800 for a spec’ed out gold model
Dude, it’s solid 18K gold.
True, but tech loses value very quickly. In 2-3 years you’ll have 18K gold attached to a dinosaur.
I might just stick with my Pebble for now then…
Because you are poor.
Warren Buffet drives a car that he bought used. Some people are poor, but some people are also just unwilling to part with the cash.
The truly rich aren’t rich by over-paying and wasting cash. Those who quickly become wealthy and spend like there is no end, quickly become not so rich. :-)
It’s not about rich or poor. It’s about flash and cash. It’s about those people out there who like to make statements in the crowds they run in.
Yes, most of Apple’s core customers right now are probably scratching their heads wondering how this will sell because they have zero interest in a $5000 watch that may or may not be obsolete in 2 years. The thing is, you don’t have to think too hard about this as long as you don’t confuse this with the rest of their products. It’s not a mobile device, it’s a piece of jewelry for most. The $350 Sport model is for the fitness gadget crowd. The Edition and Gold versions are for the fashion crowd. There’s a reason this bit of news debuted in a French site…. You don’t have to be rich to buy it either. How many women making average cash own a LV bag, or a Fendi, or a pair of Jimmy Chu’s? They don’t have the entire collection but they mustered up enough to buy one bag, or one pair of shoes. I know plenty of guys who wear $200 or $300 pairs of Diesel jeans. $500 for a watch is really nothing when it comes to fashion and making statements. And people like that will muster up $1000 for a statement piece on their wrist, especially when it comes with the wealth of abilities it will have with iOS and the iPhone.
off topic: i recently got an iphone 6 thru verizon but its on back order until 11/21/14 has anyone gotten their phones sooner or later?
Wow that sucks. I could understand the 6 Plus being delayed, but not the 6.
iPhone 6 remains in short supply and, according to Apple, it will be well into the New Year before they catch up with demand.
As for the gold watch – what are you going to do with a $5000 gold watch two years later when the new watch is half as thick, twice as fast and runs an OS which uses hardware features not included in yours? And when after a few years it doesn’t really work at all do you sell it for scrap?
You do realize that there is a large category of consumers who drop $5k on a dress they will wear once or twice, right? Not every product is targeted at everyone.
Define large. The market is already minimized to those that use the latest iPhone models. Now slap a 5k purchase to it. Might be a large base in our minds but it May not be a large market for a Fortune 500 company.
This is targeted towards celebrities and athletes; people who will pay for the status symbol and give Apple free advertising by wearing it on TV.
They will introduce a premium service wherein you trade in your old watch and it gets melted down either into some kind of fancy brick for you to display, or into the new watch itself. There are lots of ways to solve that “problem,” my suggestion is just one.
I had the same issues with ATT, Canceled my order, walked into local Apple store and bought it the same day. Check online if nearby Apple Stores have it in stock. Carriers are dragging feet on shipping.
i just went into the Apple Store last week and bought my iPhone 6. Although they only had the 128 gig left, but I read a lot about people waiting forever for their on line orders of iphones to arrive. Try just going to a store and buying one. More than likely no waiting.
Hmmmmm…the rumored Pebble Steel 2 (thinner, lightrer, and even longer battery life) is starting to look pretty good right now…
My Steel lasts for almost a whole week on one charge – most people now wear quartz watches, and are thus unusedt o daily winding of a mechanical watch.
imagine that there will be a new model with better technology and spec coming out every one year…..wondering who would buy the gold model…….I think APPLE made completely mistake……people would spend big money on a Swiss luxury watch because their style last for long time…..but for a technology watch i think it would not be easy…….
P.S. everybody now think APPLE will do well with the watch andshares price are up……I think next year their shares price will drop badly coz of the watch are not selling as well as people think it should be…..
All that and no GPS? Nope, but thanks anyway…
Cue the “…but I can buy an Android Wear smartwatch for $100 that’s just as good” retorts. Throw in the “Nobody in their right mind except Apple sheep will be buying an AppleWatch” comment for good measure.
There was a time when buying $300 headphones seemed like only something a DJ would do; then Beats came on the scene and suddenly 12-year olds had them.
$5,000 is certainly a lot of cash but I’ll give Apple the benefit of the doubt on this one and believe they have the gravitas to push a first-generation smartwatch at such an extreme price point.
You just said it, so consider it “cued”.
Definitely won’t be buying it. I’ll be paying less for my iPhone 6+.
“the gold Apple Watch Edition will be the more expensive version at between $4,000 and $5,000. That price range would be nearly half the estimated $10,000 price that some other reports have suggested.”
Or about 4 to 5 times more expensive than what tech crunch and their jewelry experts think it will cost.
That’s a lot of money for a watch needing a re-charge every night. And for a watch with a probable 3 year life span.
You could probably recharge the Apple Watch from zero to full in the time it takes you to shower and shave in the morning. This isnt a night long recharge like an iPad. The battery is too small to need to sit on a charger that long.
I don’t understand these kind of comments. Only a fool sleeps with their watch on, you put it beside the bed. Why not charge it then? It makes excellent sense.
The only thing you would lose is the ability to track your sleep, but sleep trackers are a tiny minority of the tiny market for smartwatches in the first place, and again, you want more of a lightweight plastic band for that, not a gigantic heavy gold watch.
There is no huge crowd of folks out there champing at the bit for a sleep tracker, and watch wearers take them off at night. Always.
Swiss gold watch $5,000 lasts a lifetime, prob will be worth more in 50 years than when it was new. Apple Gold watch $5,000 and it will be junk in 4-5 years.
Who can buy a gold Apple Watch at $5,000 now will then be able to sell it in 10-20 years at $500,000 or more… Just like the ancient Apple I, Apple II and so on.
Far from junk.
Unlikely – the Apple I was a hand-made computer with an extremely limited production run, with only 61 to be confirmed in existence. That kind of scarcity creates value.
The Apple Watch, no matter how significant historically, will be mass-produced in volumes measured in millions rather than dozens, therefore it’s highly unlikely to hold more value in 10-20 years time than your old scratched up iPod classic.
Apple I and Apple II are selling like that because there were not 5 million made. Get real…
This watch will be a distant memory in 4 years. Apple will make sure of that. They will release a new OS update that cripples it and gives no way back to restore and use on the old OS.
They will line tech junk drawers across the globe…history proves that is a fact.
Great point on life cycle of these. Will be interesting to see how Apple addresses this in marketing.
I’ll bite when and if Apple makes a watch that last at least 3 days.
The post-Steve Apple sucks.
Pebble is the way to go.
Apple should have started the Watch in a simpler humbler way. Just like the Pebble and work their way up in sophistication as technology allows to have a longer battery life. Color screen is nice but battery life is a must.
I’d guess that their next hardware upgrade cycle will come in 2 or 3 years if the $5K watch has to make any sense. It sucks.
Love Apple and all their things I have, but does anybody else agree that the Apple Watch is lame? Coming out of the gate, instead of a revolutionary design, they gave us a tiny square iPhone 1? Design is obviously a personal opinion, but mine is “fail”. I can’t even sell myself on any of the technology because its just so ugly AND expensive. Anyhow.
I find Ive’s designs rather boring now that he lacks Jobs’s input. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call the watch ugly, but it’s definitely boring. Totally devoid of style and coolness. And the smiley faces and haptic heart beat are just dumb.
Actually, I think it *is* a revolutionary design. The “digital crown” and the zooming action is a design masterpiece that no other manufacturer thought of. There are many aspects of the hardware and software design that are just brilliant.
The big failing of the device to me is that it really is HUGELY EXPENSIVE relative to any other competing products. Compare any basic steel smart-watch to Apple’s and you are talking about roughly 500% more price-wise for the Apple model. When you add to that the fact that the Watch although great, is obviously a kind of chunky 1.0 kind of design, it’s just not a very good value equation at all.
There is good evidence that the internals will be upgradeable and thus your purchase will last a long time, years even. But knowing Apple’s penchant for thin-ness, and knowing that the Watch’s one big design “failure”of sorts is it’s “chunkiness,” who really believes that there won’t be a brand new $1000 Watch that you will have to buy within two years at the very most.
So with the press in the fashion industry and now these prices, these watches will be on the aimed at the arms of celebrities to go with their fake eye glasses.
$5K for a bling tech device that’s obsolete in a couple of years?
That’s not a watch, it’s an IDIOT ID BAND.
If we estimate 18 carat gold at $25-35 a gram (http://www.goldcalc.com/scrap_gold_value.php), factor in a weight (of the gold) of between 15 and 50g, then add ~$90 for the ‘movement’ and then an additional $20 for the strap, plus a markup of 15-40%, the price at the lower end comes out at ~$600 or at the higher end ~$2500.
I really cannot see it being more expensive than $2500.
As an additional comment, in my opinion, from hands-on accounts and first-hand readings of images and articles about the Apple Watch, I think $500 for the stainless steel version seems very reasonable. This is because of the build quality, fit and finish and design of the watch and the bracelets in particular. Other manufacturers will charge at least $1.5-2.5k, if not upwards of $3k for something comparable (of course, it’s worth noting that with other manufacturers you are also paying for precision, often chronometer, movements, which in the Apple Watch you are just not getting).
However you look at it, this does look like good value for money, given that in all likelihood it’ll be replaced within two years. (This being said you’ve gotta have a screw or too loose if you’re thinking of paying $2500 for a wearable computer…)
May be 4-5k Yuan and not Dollars.
Which translates to $650-$800 today.
They say a sucker is born every minute…
Exactly as I predicted. The basic Watch will be around $500, and the strap will be extra, with the basic steel one also being around $500.
So the actual introductory price of the basic Watch will be around $1000 (as compared to their competitors who are marketing theirs at around $300). I’m not saying they won’t sell, and they will sell a lot more of the cheapo “sport” models too, but they will be vastly more expensive than any competing product.
The only major concern I have with this device is obsolescence. I’m hoping we get to see more information from Apple regarding the watch soon.
i say they are wrong and it will cost no more than 1k