KGI’s Ming-Chi Kuo said that the iWatch 2 (this time it is personal) has several changes. Apparently it will get a GPS so your watch knows where it is, a barometer, so your watch can find the nearest bar, and waterproofing so that it can survive when you try to flush it down the loo. It will also have... er that is it really.
Like most Apple “enhancements” it will get a new internal SoC for faster performance which will probably not be noticed by anybody. Ming-Chi does not expect the physical design of the watch to change and this will be like an ‘iPhone S’ update where it keeps the same physical design as the first Apple Watch and instead revamps a couple of internals in the hope that people think it is cool, super and wow.
Major external design changes appear to be on the cards for the next generation of Apple’s Watch hardware, ‘Apple Watch 3’ if Apple keeps the product slogging along failing to get much in the way of attention.
Curiously Apple will show off a spec-bumped version of the existing Apple Watch which will lack features like GPS. So Apple will keep selling the Apple Watch 1 with a new SoC to improve CPU and GPU performance.
Kuo expects Apple Watch in general to see price cuts this cycle, following a $50 reduction to the price of Apple Watch Sport in March. The Apple Watch 1 could be even cheaper, perhaps $100 less, pushing Apple Watch below the $200 mark.
But the hidden launch shows Apple’s lack of commitment to the product which has not done as well as analysts and the Tame Apple Press expected. Apple was expected to sell 60 million of the things and optimistic pundits think Apple might have sold 10 million. Of those 10 million, a big chunk was disappointed with their purchase and probably would not buy another one. It does not appear that Apple has sorted out the battery life or the other important problems associated with the watch.
We think the numbers will fall back to the six million who would buy a dog turd if it had an Apple logo on it and still tell everyone else that it is the best technology in the world.
