A brand new Apple Watch is coming. It is time to break the mould

Apple’s product strains observe a really particular sample: begin small, after which develop into one thing greater and extra advanced. There was initially one Mac, one iPhone, one iPad, one Apple Watch.

Over time, the product strains received extra sophisticated. Typically too sophisticated, as anybody who remembers Steve Jobs returning to Apple with a four-quadrant grid in his again pocket, driving out an ocean of Performas and lowering the Mac to 4 easy merchandise.

Too usually, individuals take Jobs’s transfer to simplify an overcomplicated product line a bit extra actually than they need to. The Mac product line Jobs discovered on his return was too advanced, sure, however as he rebuilt Apple, he knew he must simplify and focus issues to get began. After the Energy Mac, PowerBook, iMac, and iBook all shipped, Jobs was joyful to toss in all kinds of Macs that didn’t match into the grid, together with the G4 Dice and Xserve.

Equally, as fashionable Apple has grown within the years since Jobs, it has achieved so partially by dropping the simplicity and providing many alternative variations of its merchandise. It simply is sensible. And over the subsequent few years, we could discover new variations of acquainted merchandise that go far past what we’ve come to count on from Apple. Does this apply to the way forward for the Apple Watch? Let’s take a look at what historical past could inform us.

Decide your iPhone

2014’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus had been the primary time Apple experimented with introducing two dramatically totally different iPhones at one time. But it surely actually wasn’t till the iPhone X in 2017 that Apple actually started experimenting with the iPhone line.

The essential leap in 2017 was that the iPhone X value much more than earlier iPhones had. Apple nonetheless provided the “conventional” iPhones alongside the iPhone X, for extra conventional costs… however the iPhone X appeared to promote effectively, encouraging Apple that there was at the very least some a part of its buyer base that was keen to spend much more for his or her iPhone.

So, the corporate saved experimenting: In 2018, the XS gained a bigger and costlier companion, the XS Max, in addition to a bigger and cheaper XR. In 2020, issues settled down right into a configuration that has kind of held true for the final 5 years: iPhone Professional, iPhone Professional Max, iPhone, and a size-differentiated iPhone (mini or Plus).

So many iPhones! Steve Jobs could be appalled… or would he? The iPhone is so standard that it’s actually inconceivable for a single mannequin to enchantment to everybody. Even in case you design a cellphone that’s received mass enchantment, lots of people alongside the sides received’t prefer it. So it’s good to make an even bigger cellphone, a less expensive cellphone, possibly a smaller or greater cheaper cellphone… the extra selection you supply, the bigger a portion of the universe of consumers you possibly can handle.

Apple

If information experiences are true, issues are going to get even wilder within the subsequent couple of years. This 12 months, we’re anticipating Apple to switch its “low-cost cellphone however a distinct dimension” tier with one thing utterly totally different, a cellphone designed to be as skinny as potential. That’s not essentially going to be a cellphone for everybody, however since there are such a lot of different fashions obtainable, it doesn’t occur to be.

After which there’s the rumored 2026 folding iPhone. That factor’s going to break the bank. It’s most likely going to have compromises in its show, its digicam, its battery, and possibly extra… but it surely’s additionally going to be an iPhone you possibly can unfold into an iPad, kind of. If it had been the one iPhone on the market, it could be a catastrophe, but it surely received’t be. Nonetheless, it’ll be an interesting experiment in discovering what the higher value restrict is perhaps for iPhone consumers. My prediction is that Apple will uncover that for some individuals, the good and most attention-grabbing iPhone is value any value. The extra Apple can cost these individuals, the extra revenue will roll in.

Room to be your self

The iPad is a good instance of how product differentiation may also assist merchandise be true to themselves. Ten years in the past, Apple launched the primary iPad Professional. The informal case for an iPad was obvious nearly instantly upon its introduction, however for the final decade, Apple’s been struggling to outline what knowledgeable iPad ought to characterize. Is it cutting-edge tech? Is it only a nicer, extra full-featured iPad? How a lot ought to the base-model iPad be compromised to hit a low value, when some individuals would clearly choose one thing a little bit sleeker and streamlined?

Within the final couple of years, Apple has discovered a contented medium for the iPad. The low-cost iPad actually is for faculties and youngsters, and individuals who don’t actually care very a lot concerning the iPad. For individuals who care extra, there’s the iPad Air (which is kind of what the iPad Professional was just a few years in the past) or the iPad mini.

Apple

And on the prime of the road, the iPad Professional is now a cutting-edge, M4-wielding, OLED-display-having monster–with the attendant excessive value. The existence of the iPad Air has freed Apple to make the easiest iPad it could, for the individuals who actually care about that (and are keen to pay the excessive value required to get it). Apple will get to prepared the ground (and lay the groundwork for future iPads, because the costly cutting-edge tech turns into cheaper and fewer cutting-edge) whereas nonetheless providing a wonderfully good, good iPad within the iPad Air.

Will the Apple Watch get bizarre?

Which leads me ultimately to the Apple Watch. I used to be speaking to somebody the opposite day about whether or not or not Apple would ever redesign the Apple Watch, given its decade of stability when it comes to design and even watch band compatibility.

Halyna Kubiv

The standard argument is that this: if Apple adjustments the Apple Watch, it dangers offending Apple Watch followers with giant band collections. If it adjustments the Apple Watch to be spherical (like most analog watches) as an alternative of a rounded rectangle, is it throwing away a decade of brand name loyalty? Does Apple need to make that sacrifice, or ought to it carry on preserving on?

I spotted that each one the teachings of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac might be utilized to the Apple Watch, too. (Sure, there’s an Apple Watch Extremely, but it surely’s mainly a bigger model of the prevailing Apple Watch design.) Contemplate this: What’s stopping Apple from designing a brand new Apple Watch that’s dramatically totally different from present fashions, maybe with a spherical show and a distinct strategy to bands? What’s stopping Apple from designing a watchOS-based health tracker with a tiny show?

Nothing.

Apple doesn’t even have to suppose that both design is superior to the prevailing Apple Watch. Sooner or later, Apple’s objectives are to get individuals to spend extra money and to succeed in potential prospects who aren’t within the present Apple Watch. The traditional knowledge that Apple may solely change the Apple Watch by discontinuing the present fashions and changing them with one thing model new is simply not proper. Apple may make a clear break, but it surely may additionally simply add new units to the Apple Watch product line and see what occurs.

I’m not saying Apple is planning a radical strategy to the Apple Watch. It is perhaps completely pleased with issues as they’re. I’m simply saying that in case you observe what has occurred to the iPhone and iPad, it’s simple to think about that Apple could make daring strikes in different product classes with out merely changing one product with a distinct one. Apple is so big that it has realized that not solely can it afford to broaden its imaginative and prescient, it could revenue from doing so.