One Fundamental Insight Predicts the Success of Apple Watch

One can flop about, being a surly curmudgeon and pronounce, with arrogance, the ultimate failure of the Apple Watch. But there is one key, fundamental observation that demolishes every Apple Watch naysayer.

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Every once in awhile, someone in a burst of insight encapsulates an important idea in a few words. Sometimes it's a also a clever play on words that both delights our sensibilities as well as our logic. From that fundamental insight, other obvious arguments follow with grace, and we are convinced of something we suspect we already knew but couldn't put into words. It's an aha moment.

It happened this week for me. The insight comes from John Biggs (@johnbiggs) at TechCrunch:

... Apple makes things people want to buy while most manufacturers make things that they want people to buy.

You can find that magnificent, almost throw-away line, in his article: "Let’s Face It: The Apple Watch Will Sell More Than A Million Units In Its First Month."

At first, you may not think this dictum to be that deep, but a moment's reflection will affirm it. So many companies work so hard at fooling us into buying something. There's either a devious play on words in the ad or packaging, or trickery in the specifications. Or the price seems too good to be true. (It is.) But Apple? People bring lawn chairs and get in line the night before for most new products from Apple.

The mystery is not so much how Apple does it. Rather, it's why other companies can't bring themselves to delight us in the same way. (That's another article entirely.) And so, if one uses what I've dubbed the "Biggs dictum" as a basis for evaluating the potential success of the Apple Watch, one won't be far off.

Finally, in my book, if an article is well grounded, well researched, and addresses all the issues as it propels itself from one powerful insight, it can be forgiven for picking an Apple Watch unit sales prediction.

Most other writers have seldom fared so well.

Next page: the tech news debris for the week of March 2.

Page 2 - The Tech News Debris for the Week of March 2

 

When I reviewed the Amazon Fire Phone, I wrote, on page 6, "Miscellaneous Observations:"

3. The iPhone has hardware encryption, and it's so fast that it's transparent to the user. Amazon told me: 'The Fire Phone does not support hardware encryption. Fire supports AES 128 bit key software encryption.' The Fire Phone in Settings > Device > Manage enterprise security features warns that full encryption can take an hour or more.

This week, I read "Google has delayed its Android encryption plans because they're crippling people's phones." Why Android phones don't have hardware encryption by now is beyond me.

Did the big telecom companies bring the recent net neutrality ruling on themselves? Perhaps the obsession with stealing customers and ever more profits detracted from a humble, service oriented mentality. In any case, Rob Pegorano suggests: "How Comcast, Verizon, and the Rest of Big Telecom Blew the Net-Neutrality Battle."

Along those lines, ff there's anything modern smartphone users want, it's reliable carrier service without hassles and an a decent price. One of the things Google may be poised to do is experiment with being a MVNO so that it can both set the rules and prices and also better define the carrier experience. While Google has hosed up a lot of things in my opinion, I like this move. It's how a company like Google should be spending its money, making our lives better, not worse. Here's more: "Another reason Android fans will love having Google as their wireless carrier."

Here at TMO we review a lot iPhone cases. We do that because customers love to customize their iPhone life and make a statement about their personality and taste. And so, in light of that, I give you, (with a smile), "Now you can buy ‘the dress’ as an iPhone case." Hey. I'm just the messenger.

Ben Bajarin (@benbajarin) is one of the great technology writers. And so, you should check this one out. "Why the Mac may be poised for double-digit market share."

Last week, I mentioned that Kirk McElhearn (@mcelhearn) has been writing a multi-part series on how he'd fix iTunes. (As for me, I'd fix it by deleteting it, but I can't do that.) As of today, he's published parts #4,5,6,7,8 and 9. you can find a list of all the articles to date at his website.

Particle Debris would seldom be complete if I didn't point to an article by Jonny Evans. (@jonnyevans_cw) This one is cool and practical. "9 sweet Mac OS X secrets you’ll want to use."

Pete Cohen (@flargh) at iMore fills us in on what we might see in future MacBook Air models. "Is a new MacBook Air just around the corner?"

Finally, Microsoft has released a Preview edition of Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac. You don't even need an Office365 subscription. The company says:

Welcome to the new and modern Office for Mac! You will receive regular updates automatically until the official release in the second half of 2015.

Here's a good initial take at The Verge "Office 2016 for Mac finally catches up to its Windows equivalent.This is a new Microsoft. Instead of a quiet groan whenever there's a new announcement, I'm smiling. It's refreshing.

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Apple Watch images via Apple.

Particle Debris is a generally a mix of John Martellaro's observations and opinions about a standout event or article of the week (preamble on page one) followed by a discussion of articles that didn't make the TMO headlines, the technical news debris. The column is published most every Friday except for holidays.