Source: Apple.
It was easy to have a laugh at Apple's (AAPL 1.27%) expense on Monday. The Apple Watch is too expensive. Digital Touch is childish at best and creepy at worst. The 18-hour battery life requiring daily recharges -- essentially the lifespan of a mayfly -- is too weak.
That may all be true, but there's a pretty good chance that a lot of people -- possibly including you -- will be lining up with the masses when Apple's next new plaything hits the market next month.
"No way," you say. "I don't need it. It's too expensive. I'll look like an idiot with that in public."
Yes, and you probably said the same thing about the iPad in 2010. Let's go over a few of the reasons why there will eventually be an Apple Watch wrapped around your wrist.
1. The Apple Watch is fairly priced
Apple prices its gear at a premium, and the market's cool with that. The Apple Watch's starting price of $350 is reasonable in that light.
Forget all of the heat that the $17,000 rose gold model is getting. The entry level bands at $350 and $400 are comparable to what rivals did when they jumped into this market two years ago. Toq and the original Galaxy Gear were priced at $350 and $300, respectively. That was too much, but only because it wasn't Apple doing the marketing. For Apple fans that pay a lot more than that for an iPad, Mac, or an unsubsidized iPhone it's not an outrageous price.
2. 700 million iPhones
Apple announced at Monday's event that a whopping 700 million iPhones have been sold over the years. This isn't really a secret since Apple breaks out these numbers quarterly. Obviously there aren't that many Apple smartphones out in the wild today. Older models get tossed or naively placed in storage instead of returned to the marketplace as trade-ins. iPhones break. It happens. However there are still hundreds of millions of iPhones out there in use, including a an impressive 74.5 million handsets that hit the market during the holiday quarter.
There may be more Android smartphones out there, but it's a confusing flavor wheel of operating systems that make universal compatibility challenging. Apple, on the other hand, has the market cornered in iOS, and it knows how to reach the masses in its ecosystem.
If 1% of iPhone owners buy the Apple Watch we're already talking millions. Spoiler alert: More than 1% of iPhone users will be buying it.
3. Developers are just scratching the surface
There hasn't been a lot of developer support for the smartwatches currently on the market, and understandably so. Most of the devices have been flops, and even the ones that are hanging on don't offer the same audience or engagement potential as traditional phone- and tablet-based apps.
Apple should change that. Folks will actually be using it, and soon we'll be talking about the challenges of going from mobile to the even smaller smartwatch screen for monetization just as we did during the PC to mobile migration. The end result is that we could be in a much different place with how we perceive the smartwatch market once we get developers behind a hit product.
It's also quite possible that the influx of apps, particularly health-related ones, change the value proposition here. CNBC's Jim Cramer -- yes, Cramer -- had some interesting thoughts about the Apple Watch potential once medical professionals get behind it.
"We're living in an era of personalized medicine that requires instant feedback without having to go to the doctor," he said on Monday night's Mad Money. "This device can be the vehicle that measures key data which can be sent wirelessly to some service that flags your doctor when something's going very wrong."
The device already has a strong health and fitness profile. It tracks movements, encourages exercise, and monitors heart rate. Cramer sees a more ambitious future where it's monitoring everything from spikes in blood pressure to insulin readings. He argues that Apple Watch can be indispensable as a lifesaver, but also suggests that owning one can eventually lower health insurance premiums. It's a long shot, but if that comes within shooting distance of reality we're talking about taking the iPhone model where it's heavily subsidized by wireless carriers to an Apple Watch model where it's being paid for by health insurance and corporate wellness plans.
So, seriously, which Apple Watch are you getting next month?
