Tag Archives: Apple

Apple vs Swiss Watch Industry Cont.

In my previous post on Apple vs Swiss Watch Industry, we looked at (perceived) short comings of the Apple Watch. This blog post will be about what makes Swiss Luxury watches.

Relevance

The Swiss watchmaking industry is unique in the world. Unsurprising as this may seem, it is undeniable. Despite an unpredictable global economic climate, Swiss watch exports continue to confirm the healthy state of the industry, which has enjoyed successive record years. Swiss watch exports now exceed 21 billion francs annually, representing 54% of the world watch industry.

Swiss Made

Luxury products are mostly about the quality of the item being purchased. Quality refers to the constituent materials used in making the product, the finesse and extent of the craftsmanship involved and the reputation of the brand behind the product. With items such as luxury watches, it is widely known that the best items in this niche are largely made in Switzerland, an area renowned for its watchmaking practices and innovations which have held the attention of those who understand the nature of timepieces for centuries.

Heritage

Most of the world’s best known watch manufacturers are based in the Swiss Jura region. Cross-fertilization between companies as well as co-operation with suppliers enable independent manufacturers to remain at the forefront of precision watch making. Watchmakers are the most important assets of a watch manufacturer, since each watch is individually assembled by hand. Watch making schools in Genève and La Chaux-de-Fonds have educated most watchmakers. Many of them gained experience in the ateliers of renowned watch brands.

Luxury

Swiss luxury watches in general and Frédérique Constant watches in particular are defined by their high quality, differentiation and precision in design and manufacture. We have a passion for designing our beautiful watches. Their perceived value — through quality of design, materials, and manufacture — is a key component of our success. Each of our watches is assembled by hand and extensively controlled with the latest equipment to ensure maximum quality. A customer of a Swiss watch understands the finer details about the intrinsic qualities of luxury timepieces.

At Frederique Constant, our focus is creating luxury timepieces with an intrinsic value usually greater than the offer price of the products being sold. Intrinsic value involves the quality of product both in terms of design, materials used in manufacture and adherence to Swiss watchmaking standards as well as traditions. Our timepieces are exclusively manufactured by hand while the processes involved are regulated with the latest precision equipment available in the industry backed by years of research & development. We recruit passionate watchmakers from time honored watch making schools whose reputations are an intricate part of Swiss watchmaking history.

Manufacture

Craftsmanship can be seen in manufacture animations, seeking to highlight the complexity of a manufacture caliber and other watch key components. Brands are inviting consumers into their manufacturing spaces and seeking to connect them with artisans. The focus for these brands is on design, heritage, craftsmanship and the complexities of creation. An example is this video on the manufacturing of watch dials:

Swiss watch brands tend to distil layers of complex technical information into succinct content. Brands often bring clients into Swiss workshops to visually confirm the expertise necessary to produce beautiful timepieces, and reiterate messages of creativity, quality and excellence.

Longevity

Swiss classical watches are understated, exclusive timepieces, immune to the constructions of age. These are objects of art that can be passed down through generations. Traditions are very important, and what better a gesture than to give or receive a special watch for an important birthday or milestone. A special gift that lasts for generations. The best watches even increase in value over time. Sotheby’s and Christie’s hold luxury timepiece auctions regularly.

Comparison

With all the above in mind, how do we rate the Apple Watch? Or is it something that should not be compared to Swiss Luxury watches at all? Apple states on its website that its watch is designed to be worn during all your daily activities, from morning workouts to nights out. Swiss watch companies develop and design their creations to be precious personal jewels. OK, the Apple Watch certainly looks more refined than prior smart watches being sold in the market, but can it be called a luxury item? It also remains to be seen if the Apple Watch “redefines what people expect from a watch,” per Tim Cook. We will find out in early 2015.

Apple vs Swiss Watch Industry

Let me start with that I am a true admirer of Apple products, the Apple Company, as well as Steve Jobs. With great interest, I studied each page, each sentence, each word, of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. It is an inspiration for CEOs, innovations teams, creatives, and marketiers. Many times, I have watched YouTube movies of Steve Job’s presentations, a great learning for any presenter. So, nothing but respect for all that is Apple.

Apple has a history of conquering whole industries with new innovative products and services. Any watch industry CEO would be a fool if he or she does not take recent developments seriously. Even if we do not agree with John Ive’s statement that the Swiss Watch Industry is ‘in trouble’, we should all see that the Swiss Watch Industry is under attack and potentially faces major upheaval. A very powerful new competitor is now entering the watch industry. A competitor that plays with entirely different business methods, finances, culture and ambition.

Apple has been hiring watch and fashion industry specialists. To name a few: Patrick Pruniaux, former vice president for sales at luxury Swiss watch maker TAG Heuer, Marc Newson, the renowned and influential designer of the Ikepod watchbrand, and Angela Ahrendts, the former chief executive of British luxury retailer Burberry Group. It is clear that Apple takes the watch segment seriously and they are not shy to bring-in outside specialist knowledge. The question is what the Swiss Watch Industry is doing to learn?

Many of my colleague CEOs have responded in the press that the Apple Watch will be no threat to their business. The Apple watch has been down talked on many occasions and I agree with most of the comments that have been made. Square watches don’t sell, it is still a gadget, there is no longevity, the product is not sexy, and more… Let’s turn this around: What can we learn from this first generation Apple Watch? In my opinion, this will give us an immediate clue and what we can expect in the coming years.

Form Factor
Square watches indeed are not liked by men. However, the Moto 360 shows already that a round smart watch is possible. Definitely needs adjustment on the ‘dead’ display section at the bottom of the screen and the thickness, but we can see it coming already.

Charging
There are many stories that expectation is that the Apple Watch may need to be even charged during the day. We are already not happy that we need to charge our mobile phone every evening, do we want to have to do same every night with our watch? No, so time between necessary charges should be maximized as much as possible. I am sure that engineers are working deeply on this.

Longevity
A watch is for many many years, some brands advertise it is for future generations. This is the opposite with what Apple products are today. Our daughters two year old iPhone 5 is discharging in 3-4 hours, she has been told to buy a new one. We need to remember however that first quartz watches 30 years ago needed to be charged every day also. Today, we need to change the battery every 3-4 years.

The Screen Is Off
Apple Watch’s screen is off most of the time, it will only switch-on by moving the arm. Let’s see how this works in real life alter when first watches are shipped. We should remember however another parallel here. First quartz watches 30 years ago had red LED screens that were off until a pusher was pressed.

Summary

In my opinion, it will be a matter of time until above issues will be improved and finally be solved. This will remove the ‘negative factors’.

In a next blog article, I will describe what we see a watch actually is today and how this ties-in with the upcoming smart watches.

Finally, another article will touch upon the upcoming ‘positive factors’ of smartwatches. This is where I see the biggest threat of the ‘attack’.

Apple Watch Screen

Just preparing an article on Apple vs Swiss Watch Industry and stumbling on the Pulsar LED watches of 1975. See their ‘invention’ on the how to turn the screen on:

Apple boasts: The Apple Watch comes with advanced sensors that turn on the display when a user raises their wrist. How new is that!

Apple’s Marc Newson

Apple hired industrial designer Marc Newson. Newson joined his friend and Senior Vice President of Design, Jony Ive on the company’s design team creating future Apple products.

Meanwhile Apple introduced its first watch. Marc Newson however has a longer history with the watch brand Ikepod. Together with Oliver Ike, a Swiss entrepreneur, he designed his Pod line of watches. This is where the name came from. Ikepod really began in 1993-1994, when Oliver Ike, a Swiss businessman who also worked in the furniture industry, hired Marc Newson to design wrist watches for a new “unconventional brand.” Ike had become familiar with Newson as a designer because of some of his furniture design work.

The “Ikepod” name was not only a simple contraction between Oliver Ike’s last name and Newson’s first watch, the Pod, but also a reference to Newson’s design obsession with “pod” and “capsule” style designs that define much of his work as well as many names of Ikepod products.

When we look at earlier Ikepod models, the resemblance with the Apple Watch is striking:

Similarities are even more clear when we look at straps:

What happened with Ikepod?

Ikepod is technically still around, but it is a shadow of what it was in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Ikepod had a very successful first couple of years but the business of watches slowly eroded the relationship between the people running the brand and Newson. Ikepod went bankrupt in 2004 after just 10 years. The brand was later purchased by new investors. Marc Newson and Ikepod finally parted ways in 2012.

Smartwatch Market

Here my short feedback on the Apple Watch.

I certainly like number of software features of the Apple Watch. Still form factor is a problem, square watches are extremely difficult to sell, only very small part of business. Also, watch is thick, not always on, needs to be charged, and we have to see final product, see if straps are smooth, see how coined underside sits on wrist ergonomically. Apple is a formidable competitor. Believe however that Jon Ive’s comment is premature, the Swiss watch industry is not yet ‘In Trouble’.

The future of smartwatches is in Switzerland, as long as we believe in it and do not commit the same mistakes as we did during the quartz crisis. A connected watch is not an extension of a smartphone. There is no sense in replicating the functions of the first on the second. I cannot imagine a watch showing emails effectively or a user talking to his watch. The future is elsewhere and will be based upon software. For a smart watch to be perceived as a watch, it has to be like a traditional watch, a jewel, with its own longevity. A watch is just the opposite of a gadget. And must stay like this if one wants to succeed on this market

Apple: Keep it simple

Recently, the Wallstreet Journal reported on watches with simple designs. August 10, the NYT reviews how Apple strives for simplification as well. Below is based on article by Brian Chen on the Apple University in the NYT of August 10, 2014.

Apple and Picasso

Apple may well be the only tech company on the planet that would dare compare itself to Picasso. In a class at the company’s internal training program, the so-called Apple University, the instructor likened the 11 lithographs that make up Picasso’s “The Bull” to the way Apple builds its smartphones and other devices. The idea: Apple designers strive for simplicity just as Picasso eliminated details to create a great work of art.

Steven P. Jobs established Apple University as a way to inculcate employees into Apple’s business culture and educate them about its history, particularly as the company grew and the tech business changed. Courses are not required, only recommended, but getting new employees to enroll is rarely a problem.

Taking a Cue From Picasso

Apple has religiously embodied the notion that function and beauty come from elegant simplicity, and teachers in its internal training program sometimes point to a collection of Picasso lithographs that artfully illustrate the drive to boil down an idea to its most essential components:

That drive can be seen in many of Apple’s endeavors today, including its product marketing and the design and ergonomics of its mouse:

Randy Nelson, who came from the animation studio Pixar, co-founded by Mr. Jobs, is one of the teachers of “Communicating at Apple.” This course, open to various levels of employees, focuses on clear communication, not just for making products intuitive, but also for sharing ideas with peers and marketing products.

In a version of the class taught last year, Mr. Nelson showed a slide of “The Bull,” a series of 11 lithographs of a bull that Picasso created over about a month, starting in late 1945. In the early stages, the bull has a snout, shoulder shanks and hooves, but over the iterations, those details vanish. The last image is a curvy stick figure that is still unmistakably a bull.

“You go through more iterations until you can simply deliver your message in a very concise way, and that is true to the Apple brand and everything we do,” recalled one person who took the course.

In “What Makes Apple, Apple,” another course that Mr. Nelson occasionally teaches, he showed a slide of the remote control for the Google TV, said an employee who took the class last year. The remote has 78 buttons. Then, the employee said, Mr. Nelson displayed a photo of the Apple TV remote, a thin piece of metal with just three buttons.

How did Apple’s designers decide on three buttons? They started out with an idea, Mr. Nelson explained, and debated until they had just what was needed — a button to play and pause a video, a button to select something to watch, and another to go to the main menu.

The Google TV remote serves as a counterexample; it had so many buttons, Mr. Nelson said, because the individual engineers and designers who worked on the project all got what they wanted. But, Apple’s designers concluded, only three were needed.

“The Best Things,” another course, takes its name from a quotation by Mr. Jobs. Its purpose is to remind employees to surround themselves with the best things, like talented peers and high-quality materials, so that they can do their best work.

One of the teachers for this course, Joshua Cohen, a Stanford professor, brought up Central Park in New York. The space for the park was originally a rocky swamp. But, Mr. Cohen said, its designers wanted to transform it into an area that gave urban residents the experience of nature.

The comparison was to one of Mr. Jobs’s goals: to make complex computer technologies feel understandable and natural.

PETER STAS

Personal Blog Peter Stas, CEO of Frederique Constant, Alpina Watches and Ateliers de Monaco