LAS VEGAS — Apple is global. That's something we forget sometimes, in our big country with oceans on both sides, but it's something that was easy to remember when I saw the huge posse of Chinese press angling to get in front of the case of Apple Watches.
And that made me think: maybe the Apple Watch isn't really for the U.S. Maybe not initially.
I'm not an expert on the Chinese market, but I've heard a lot about trends there. And several of the unique aspects of the Apple Watch seem more targeted towards the growing Chinese upper-middle class than towards the mainstream American market. If I'm really wrong about any of this, tell me in the comments. I'm always happy to learn.
Take the rose gold models. Gold is huge in China. As Philip Elmer-Dewitt recounted in Fortune, the gold iPhone 5s sold out so quickly in China that a massive gray market developed of Chinese buyers hiring shills to purchase units in New York and ship them out for export. I would not be shocked to see a luxury gold Apple Watch selling in China for 8888 Yuan ($1,448) and appearing on Chinese movie stars and pop stars' wrists by March.
Lots of smartwatches do notifications and track fitness data. The Apple Watch's most unique app is its strange communication app, which I initially thought of as "living in a game of Pictionary." You can't type. You have to scribble, or use creepy animated emoticons. It's an absolutely perfect interface for transmitting one Chinese character at a time - and remember, their characters are like our words. It's a chat system designed perfectly for China.
Then there's the heartbeat transmitter. Romantic but creepy, right? Here's where my knowledge falls apart a little, but I've heard that biometrics like heart rate and blood type have a lot more cultural cachet in China and Japan than they do in mainstream American culture. There's been plenty written about Chinese "mistress culture," as well. I bet businessmen would love to give their mistresses a watch that establishes a subtle, constant but secret connection between them.
Let's also look at that launch date: "early 2015." But they'll miss the holiday season, you say! Not so. China's holiday season - the blowout, two-week-long Chinese New Year period - starts on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015.
Yes, there will be many cheaper smartwatches in China. But Apple's price premium gives it brand cachet, Chinese marketing professor Jeongwen Chiang told CNN. So to a great extent we must thing of the Apple Watch not for what it does, but for the social prestige that wearing one will signify. All of this sets up the Apple Watch to be the premium fashion technology product for the 2015 Chinese gift-giving season.
Why Americans Should Care
Apple targeting China for watches gives the company some breathing room to develop the next model, which may solve the problems which which Americans are more concerned.
Seeding Apple Watches to the Chinese elite will hopefully start a virtuous cycle of component development. That's actually an old trick of Samsung's: that company is known for releasing small-batch phones to get new technologies into production. The little-seen Galaxy Round, for instance, pioneered the curved-screen technology that's going to make a bigger splash on the Galaxy Note Edge. And Samsung's entire smartwatch strategy seems to be innovating its way through the market.
Apple has done this before, as well. The first iPod was not a thundering seller at launch, with sales restricted by its Mac-only software. But it got the ball rolling: less than a year after the first model came out, there were already significant hardware improvements and price drops.
So consider this the "test" Apple Watch, the first in a 10-year plan of wearables. It'll be a darling bangle on the wrists of Chinese pop stars all through early 2015. And we Americans? We'll probably get more from the Apple Watch 2.