[cjdoc29]

I am doubtful their VR product will be great if released within this or next year.

> Apple Watch got so extremely lucky

But given that others have tried and arguably failed to have the same impact, this is not sizably attributed to luck at all.

[anonymouse008]

The digital watch market is like the meme where we see a guy spraying champagne all over himself, kissing his girlfriend, but when we zoom out it's at the bottom tier of tech experience.

Apple won it not because their watch is 'great' - but because they have such brand cache that they could sell 100m of anything once the market learns about them. Airport could absolutely come back and sell that amount, taken into consideration 6 watches == one household == ~1-3 airports - with the marketing budget they used on Watch.

Long story short, they are in a precarious position. They must make something to stay relevant with financial markets, their manufacturing pipeline, keep operationally excellent with sourcing, etc... so it's not meant to be a full 'knock' on them. The 'knock' comes in taking that chance twice with a shrug from your top execs 'well the watch worked out, let's see if this does' - that's just not it.

[cjdoc29]

> but because they have such brand cache that they could sell 100m of anything once the market learns about them

I partially disagree with this argument. They sold some 10 million units in 2016 - it might be that because of the success and ubiquity of iPods and iPhones in the decade leading up to this, that people thought that the first Apple Watch was a great product (it wasn't, really IMO). Brand cache, or whatever, sure.

But you don't sell nearly 60 million units in 2021 off luck.