14 DAY TRIAL // A disappointing report by the Wall Street Journal reveals that many features originally planned for the Apple Watch are not ready for prime time, and that things like blood pressure, heart activity and stress levels will only be tracked in the second-generation model.
Confirming suspicions that the first version will be limited in terms of functionality, WSJ says that many sensors that were originally part of the Apple Watch concept have been scrapped.
Sensors didn’t work reliably or were too complex
People familiar with the matter told the Journal that Apple executives originally envisioned state-of-the-art health-monitoring for things like blood pressure, stress levels, heart activity, and other physiology-related stuff.
None of this will make it into the final product, “due in April,” the report states. While some sensors didn’t work reliably, others proved too complex. Other hardware features would have hampered the rollout because they’d have required approval from regulatory bodies. Some parts did not meet Apple’s standards, and therefore were scrapped as well.
Apple gearing up for a “strong start”
Despite all this, Tim Cook and his troops are very confident that the watch will have an incendiary debut. Apple plans to have between 5 and 6 million units manufactured in the first quarter, with half of the orders being placed for the base model, the Apple Watch Sport.
One third of the orders will be mid-tier stainless steel models, and the remainder (between 850,000 and a million units) will be gold Apple Watch Edition models.
The watch is attractively priced in its lower-specced form (€350 / €350 for the Sport model). The mid-tier version is expected to fetch $500 / €500 apiece, while the gold version will run in the thousands of dollars. Special accommodations are being made throughout Apple’s retail stores to host the emerging new product.