The attitude towards the Apple Watch (both users and developers) is cautious at the moment. There is no confidence in the prosperous future of the platform. And will it be the future?
On April 24, Apple launched the Apple Watch retail in nine regions. On April 27, at the announcement of the results of the financial quarter, Tim Cook did not disclose data on the first sales of devices. Recall that according to the results of the first three days of sales of iPhone devices, Apple often discloses data.
It may seem quite logical in this case to assume that the first results were lower not only than expected, but also those that can be published with aplomb.
According to the analytical company Slice Intelligence, by the beginning of this week, 1.7 million devices were pre-ordered (as of April 10, 957 thousand Apple Watches were pre-ordered). The actual shipments, according to the same company, amounted to only 376 thousand hours.
In other words, there is no hype around the clock.
As noted in an interview with our colleagues with iPhones.ru a representative of one of the “gray” suppliers: “… there is really little demand for them now. We have regular customers who regularly buy iPhones. So, they are now directly saying that they are not interested in watches. Like, we don’t want to take them, we don’t need them.”
A representative of the Russian store “Computer Plaza” also told about this in an interview with RBC: from one and a half to two thousand devices have been imported into Russia by private individuals since the beginning of Apple Watch sales, but no more than two or three hundred units have been sold.
Here, however, it is necessary to understand that, firstly, we are talking about a situation with multiple margins – about the sale of devices for 120-300 thousand rubles in the first days. Secondly, in general, about the decline in demand for Apple products due to the economic situation in Russia.
Along with buyers, mobile game developers are also cautious about watches. We talked to more than a dozen teams on the topic of whether they are going to do anything for the Apple Watch. Most were not ready to speak officially on this topic.
But, for example, Maxim Petrov, product director of ZeptoLab, on the contrary, said that the company “sees the future in games for “wearable devices” (including Apple Watch) and is actively looking in this direction.” Moreover, he hinted that the authors of Am-Nyam are making a game for watches: “as soon as we have the first project for these devices ready, we will definitely tell you about it in detail.”
Playrix creative producer Igor Elovikov, on the contrary, is not so optimistic. “I don’t really believe in watches as some kind of revolutionary product for the gaming industry. Maybe some games, like Trivia Crack, will have a place there, but it will still be too specific a gaming platform. Maybe there are some interesting scenarios for companion apps. In general, it’s hard for me to imagine a multibillion-dollar market of games for Apple Watch,” he said App2Top.ru .
Ksenia Schneeweis, product marketing manager at Zillion Whales, noted that her company has been following the wearable device market for a long time, but at the moment has no plans to port anything to the Apple Watch. “Our games are more complicated than those that can be fully played from a multifunctional device: RTS, CCG RPG,” explained Ksenia.
Despite the restraint towards the device on the part of users and large teams, more than 300 gaming applications supporting the watch can already be found in the App Store, notes PocketGamer.biz . However, the quality of most of them leaves much to be desired.
Be that as it may, such a solid number of gaming programs is caused not so much by the success of the device, but by the desire of many developers to be the first to “jump on the train” in the hope that the new composition will “take you to a bright future.” And, probably, it would make sense if the user base of the device was not so small.