Got to be honest, I think they missed a big opportunity to make the watch fashionable and popular by simply choosing a square face, reminiscent of nerdy calculator watches from decades past, rather than a nice circular face, like most other watches.
Most people won't get an Apple Watch not because it isn't useful, but (I think) because it just doesn't look right, doesn't fit into the "fashion" that it claims to be.
Apple's gamble seems to be targeting people whom have never owned or even wanted to own a traditional watch and for whom the traditional shape holds no intrinsic emotional value.
Nor for that matter is square an unknown shape even for higher end watches:
http://media.gq.com/photos/56c61128b9dd6cd82e6f7bb5/master/w...
http://media.gq.com/photos/56c61128585fc86b2f2497c6/master/w...
>Apple's gamble seems to be targeting people whom have never owned or even wanted to own a traditional watch...
That should be who. People who have never owned... is the noun phrase acting as an object of targeting, and who is the subject of the modifying phrases who have never owned and [who] never even wanted to own. I'm not trying to be a pedant. By using whom, you're signaling that you care about grammar; so I thought I'd give feedback. Feel free to ignore.
The goal should be simplification.
The bigger problem is that Apple Watch never became its own fashion statement. The hype fizzled out quickly and it never reached the same cultural peaks as some of Apple's other products like the iPod or iPhone, products that became their own status symbols in their primes.
And that comes back to function, because the Apple Watch is still a solution in search of a problem.
"Hey dude, something is happening, take out your phone!"
It's not a very compelling value.
For the years to come all apple designs made look the competition like ridiculous old technology.
Today, Apple designs like the watch and Macbooks follow the same tired idea of curvy, minimalistic Braun-like devices while some competitors are leapfrogging to new design paradigms, maybe trying to pull the same 2001 success of the iPod; Perhaps no one is there yet, but many years have passed and the taste of design is eager for the next thing.
Which competitors/designs do you think are beating out Apple?
Even many newer smart watches are trending to more Apple-like
Yeah, I mean they're only the second largest watchmaker in the world, barely popular at all!