Apple will no longer fix the $17,000 gold Apple Watch

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/2/23900158/apple-watch-edition-gold-2015-obsolete-unsupported-beyonce

by ortusdux • 3 years ago

89 144 3 years ago

jkubicek• 3 years ago

I doubt this ever mattered, especially to folks like Karl Lagerfeld, who never even set his up (or appears to have charged it).

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/karl-lagerfeld-audemars-pi...

SahAssar• 3 years ago

That's mentioned in the article.

demondemidi2• 3 years ago

If I was worth what he is I’d be buying expensive gadgets on a whim every 15 minutes. Then just buy a new house when the current one fills up with said gadgets.

sgu999• 3 years ago

Well, then I guess we should be happy inequalities prevent one more person from wasting a tremendous amount of rare materials and energy.

fsckboy• 3 years ago

then just buy a new house when the current one fills up

I heard about somebody who has actually done that... but their main interest was porn.

nlunbeck• 3 years ago

I'm curious what the convention is for gold consumer electronics at EoL. Do you bring it into a jeweler and get the gold casing pried off and melted down?

surfingdino• 3 years ago

Ultimate planned obsolescence and an ultimate flex.

SSLy• 3 years ago

People have repurposed gen0/1 AW's into mechanical watches with a bit square-ish case.

Cockbrand• 3 years ago

I kinda expect a YouTube video to exist of a Chinese hardware hacker transplanting the Watch Series 9 innards into an obsolete gold (or better: ceramic) Apple Watch case.

twoodfin• 3 years ago

I’m not sure it will beat the S&P 500 or Apple stock, but I’d bet that an OG Apple Watch Edition will hold its value better than the gold you’d melt out of it.

pleb_nz• 3 years ago

I assume these are solid gold and it can be cast into something useful for many more years?

jklinger410• 3 years ago

Apple is to servicing their hardware products as Google is to maintaining their software products

crgwbr• 3 years ago

This was a one off first-gen product that was sold almost 9 years ago. How long do you expect them to keep maintaining it? At least no one is attempting to build infrastructure on top of an Apple Watch—that can’t be said about google’s services.

mrtesthah• 3 years ago

Apple’s executives committed themselves to the lunacy of selling effectively disposable electronics housed inside an actual gold case. They knew exactly what they were doing and that decision is exemplar of their overall practice of building hardware that is impractical to maintain in the long run.

expazl• 3 years ago

I get that the luxury watch crowd will look at this as a failure because they count the time a watch works not in years but generations. But the Apple watch isn't that type of watch, it's a wrist computer. And from my perspective having gotten 8 years of support on a smartwatch that was still one of the early generations for the device type itself is pretty decent. How long would you expect them to keep supporting this?

dfox• 3 years ago

Another issue with luxury watch crowd is that they have truly skewed definition of what is meant by “works”. The primary function of a watch is to keep time with reasonable precision, not to be an overengineered piece of mechanical complexity.

MBCook3• 3 years ago

Which is why the gold never made any sense. The rumor has always been they did it entirely because Johnny Ive wanted to make a fancy gold watch.

The writing was on the wall the next year when they dropped gold and there was no way to upgrade it.

It was clearly someone’s vanity product. We don’t ever know if they ever sold a single one. Sure celebrities got them, but did anyone ever pay? It’s possible the answer is no. We also don’t know how many they made.

It was a laughing stock from day one, even among Apple lovers (like me).

naravara• 3 years ago

There are very few generations old watchmakers who are both still around and servicing their vintage pieces. Generally, even if they are, they're charging an arm and a leg because they're going to have to custom machine the parts for you. On rare pieces the labor costs alone are eye watering. It’ll probably be cheaper to just a modern Apple Watch SOC into a vintage edition.

mahmoudhossam• 3 years ago

Google's software rarely makes it beyond 5 years though

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 3 years ago

There’s a story about this newly rich woman who is trying to impress her new friends. “I clean my diamonds with milk, and my rubies with dilute vinegar,…”

Finally, she turns to an older lady and asks, what she uses.

The older lady just smiles and says that when her jewels get dirty, she just throws them away.

The gold Apple Watch is a status overpriced, impractical good for signaling and technological obsolescence is not really something that a person who buys it cares about.

Rapzid• 3 years ago

I wonder how many people actually purchased them vs gifted from Apple.

If I'm a celebrity people are paying me to wear their crap.

MBCook3• 3 years ago

I seriously question if they ever sold a single one.

That said the GP’s point is also completely true. No one who bought one (assuming they exist) is mad it fell out support 9 years later. It’s chump change, and if they like Apple Watches they upgraded long ago.

lovemenot• 3 years ago

The purpose of these watches has long been served. They introduced Apple Watch as a premium digital watch to the masses, getting free media attention.

Celebrity owners would have got a brief sparkle from it. Perhaps also some of Apple's marketing budget too. And they continue to own a legacy item which will have notoriety beyond mere function.

Collectors of rare historical firearms presumably don't actually fire them.

_3u10• 3 years ago

They do, generally at least before selling it to prove it works, as a working firearm has more value than one than doesn't.

nitwit0052• 3 years ago

Firing an antique firearm decreases the value. It is now used.

glhaynes2• 3 years ago

If I buy a WWI-era pistol, they’ll fire it before I fork over the cash? Surely not, right?

wl• 3 years ago

I collect antique firearms. It has not been my experience that sellers generally test-fire an item before selling it. More common is a disclaimer that if you want to shoot the thing, you should have it inspected by a qualified gunsmith familiar with the particular model.

tarxvf• 3 years ago

No, they don't. Unfired weapons fetch a premium. For true antiques every time you fire it is another opportunity for it to break. These are not weapons that are valued for "working".

1-more4• 3 years ago

I'd add one more purpose these watches served: Jony Ive really wanted to make something out of gold. He also really wanted to make a gear linkage and that's why the monitor stands were as complicated as they were. So they served the purpose of keeping him happy I guess.

WheelsAtLarge• 3 years ago

From what I've read, Ive was the one that wanted to push the watch as a super luxury item. Designers like to cater to that segment of the market but it's not as profitable as the mass market. At least when referring to Apple products. Ive left Apple so there's no one to push to service the upper segment. I suspect they sold very few $17000 watches so it makes sense to just give it up and deal with the few people that will make a fuss. Even if they have to refund a few sales, it will be way cheaper than maintaining a group of techs and SWEs to deal with those watches.

I also suspect that given enough time those are the watches that will become collectors' items and will sell for multiple times their original cost so it's not a total loss for the buyers.

gerdesj• 3 years ago

I bought a Citizen Eco watch in 2003 for around £120. I still wear it and it still performs all functions correctly. One part of the wristband sports a bit of paperclip for a joint - "jury rigged" by me. The back of the watch has four quadrant shaped solar panels and the have charged the cell for 20 years so far.

I run quite a few ntp time sources at sub milli-second and generally better accuracy (at work). My watch is quite decent for drift. It is far better than I actually need for a wrist watch.

Now, $17,000 for a thing on your wrist for time telling? Apple wankery involved ... please tell me it ain't so!

Quality does not always involve a sodding huge price tag and in this particular case Apple's S&M dept took their eye off the ball and went for a trot around noddy land waving their hands and looking a bit silly.

addicted• 3 years ago

There are luxury watches which can easily eclipse $17k.

But they basically serve as jewelry.

The problem with the Apple Watch is it tried to be that, but it has absolutely no premium value at all.

Which is unsurprising considering you can get the same brand, same look, etc with a little less gold for 1/200th the price.

Also, it doesn’t help that there is no handcrafted precision work involved with the Apple Watch. It flowed out of the same Chinese assembly line the other $200 Apple Watches did.

LeoPanthera• 3 years ago

Now, $17,000 for a thing on your wrist for time telling? Apple wankery involved ... please tell me it ain't so!

My gosh. Wait until you discover how much you can spend on luxury watches from the "established" watchmakers. You might want to be sitting down.

dools• 3 years ago

"It was never clear who the $10,000 to $17,000 18-karat gold Apple Watch was for, beyond celebrities and the ultrarich"

Ummm I think it was for celebrities and the ultrarich.

__loam3• 3 years ago

It is a bit wild that Apple refuses to support this further. At that price you can buy things like Rolexes that will last your entire life.

MBCook3• 3 years ago

Apple refused to support it 8 years ago when the Series 2 came out and there was no way to upgrade it.

It’s not a special watch. It’s a Series 0 with $16k of gold.

We don’t even know if anyone ever bought a single one (as opposed to being given one by Apple/an Apple exec).

judge2020• 3 years ago

The cost of keeping them alive will eventually outweigh any margin they've ever made on the product.

kazinator• 3 years ago

The obvious purpose of everything is clear up to a point, beyond which it is unclear.

It's not clear whom crutches are for beyond those with broken legs or atrophied muscles.

It's not clear what an eraser is for beyond removing pencil traces from a paper, or any purpose benefiting from a small block of rubber/elastomer.

...

quantified• 3 years ago

And if it stops working, not something they'll care too much about.

geoelectric• 3 years ago

If the case is worth anything, you could probably gut it and replace with a standard movement somehow.

bobbygoodlatte• 3 years ago

Reminds me of the Swiss brand H Moser that makes a mechanical wristwatch which looks like an Apple watch

That said, it's a custom case & their movement wouldn't slot into an actual Apple watch without a lot of machining. But it would be a cool way to immortalize one of these Series 1 watches https://www.h-moser.com/product/swiss-alp-watch-5324-1205/

tolmasky• 3 years ago

And yet Siri on it remains just as useful.

quags• 3 years ago

That’s rough but who’s crying any tears here. Melt it down for the gold or hopefully it was kept in the box unopened to sell in the next 20 years

spicymaki• 3 years ago

Honestly, I am not rich enough to be upset about this! If you could comfortably afford a $17,000 Apple Watch, this probably would not bother you either.

mcphage• 3 years ago

How much are they worth nowadays? Like if I wanted to buy one (second hand, obviously) where would I get it, and how much would it cost?

nailer• 3 years ago

Only one entry on Chrono24 for the 18 karat gold model, GBP 6600, so around 8K USD.

They might creep higher in a decade or so, like a first gen iPhone has.

sakex2• 3 years ago

Whenever I show my mechanical watches to my colleagues, they ask what's the point. Well, my Rolex and my Hublot are NEVER going to be Obsolete.

SketchySeaBeast4• 3 years ago

Different tools with different uses. Sure, your Rolex won't ever be obsolete in what it does but given that no one needs a watch to tell time anymore it's really a symbol of your preferences and where you like to spend your money. It's wrist art.

gregoriol4• 3 years ago

Do you have statistics of usage for Apple or Android watches? do people really use more than time on them? 10% ? 50% more? It would be interesting to have some data because even if people have plenty of other ways to get the time, I believe we still haven't invented a more efficient way that a watch with physical handles.

tzs2• 3 years ago

Yes and no.

Yes, almost no one needs a watch to tell time. I counted the clocks in my house a few years ago, counting anything that displays the time as a "clock" including things such as my microwave oven, my stove, computers, phones, tablets, DVCR, thermostat, TV, etc, and found something like 20.

But no, there are still functional reasons to have a watch. I do not want to deal with keeping all the aforementioned clocks actually set to the correct time. Some aren't a problem, such as computers and phones, because they automatically sync to time servers over the net.

With a watch I can reduce my clocks to those on my computer, phone, and tablet, and my watch for when I'm not using those, plus any clocks on things that actually need the correct time.

Dudester230602• 3 years ago

Vacuum tube amplifiers and germanium fuzz pedals are simultaneously obsolete and timeless.

inversetelecine• 3 years ago

I've been looking into mechanical watches. Not quite Rolex level, but Égard watches look interesting.

Maybe I'm just becoming a graybeard, but I'm tired of software updates, constantly charging devices, and throwing away good hardware because it's not supported by software anymore.

1-more4• 3 years ago

Égard watches look interesting

They knock off famous watch designs. Their whole Patriot line is meant to look like Richard Mille. I'm showing my bias but if you want a mechanical go right to Seiko instead of this company putting Seiko cases that are meant to make you look like a soccer player who just got his signing bonus.

FirmwareBurner3• 3 years ago

Well, my Rolex and my Hublot

Nice flex, but you don't need to spend Wolf of Wallstreet money to enjoy the fun and diversity of traditional analog and digital watches.

You can build an entire watch collection for every occasion, of high quality Casios, that will last ~forever, for the price of one new Apple watch who's lifespan will be less than the CR2016 battery on those Casios, while having more features that a Rolex.

Casio even had the audacity to build an analog knock-off of the Apple watch and IMHO they nailed the design better than Apple (the moon phase indicator is a functioning complication, not a design element): https://down-th.img.susercontent.com/file/th-11134207-23030-...

1-more4• 3 years ago

Hands that tick? They give me the ick. Hands that sweep? On watches I'll keep.

gregoriol4• 3 years ago

Swatch watches for about 100€ last a lifetime

sakex2• 3 years ago

I'm swiss

guntherhermann3• 3 years ago

Neither will my cheapo casio watch :)

hotpotamus• 3 years ago

In another sense, they're long obsolete, but that doesn't mean they weren't impressive technical achievements of their day.

maltalex• 3 years ago

You’re comparing apples with oranges. Just because both products are called “a watch” doesn’t mean they’re interchangeable.

It’s like comparing a wired phone to a smartphone because they’re both “phones”.

gregoriol4• 3 years ago

They’re interchangeable in the sense that you can't wear both at the same time.

eloisant2• 3 years ago

Sure, just like a necklace or a ring. Because that's what those expensive watches are: pieces of jewelry.

Yes, they can tell the time but there are better ways of knowing the time nowadays. Especially if you care about accuracy, a smartwatch connected to a smartphone connected to an atomic clock is more accurate than your Rolex.

So what's the point of jewelry? Fashion, and signaling your wealth mostly.

graypegg2• 3 years ago

Just because my phone can tell the time, doesn't mean a watch is obsolete.

It gives me an ambient sense of the time because I end up glancing at it randomly. I lose track of how far along I am in the hour if I forget my watch.

alexjplant• 3 years ago

Sure, just like a necklace or a ring. Because that's what those expensive watches are: pieces of jewelry.
So what's the point of jewelry? Fashion, and signaling your wealth mostly.

That's a sweeping generalization, pun intended... I guess "expensive" is relative but I own a few four-figure watches and appreciate them for their aesthetic and the engineering that went into creating them. Being able to tell the time mechanically without cellular service or an Electron app is a welcome reprieve in today's world. I suppose my Casio F-91W is more accurate but it's also much less whimsical and doesn't really feel like "my" watch the way that my Damasko does. Ditto for the Rolex that I inherited from my Grandpa - the German watch that's worth 15% (but still 50 times the cost of the Casio, i.e. "luxury") and has zero brand recognition gets worn way more often because it's my jam.

My next purchase will likely be a Seamaster Professional not because I want to signal that I can afford a $4000 watch but because I like the aesthetics and the movement. Obnoxious Rolex bros are certainly a thing (I see them in public fairly regularly) but that doesn't mean that everybody that enjoys nice watches does so for the sake of conspicuous consumption :-).

guntherhermann3• 3 years ago

Yes, they can tell the time but there are better ways of knowing the time nowadays. Especially if you care about accuracy, a smartwatch connected to a smartphone connected to an atomic clock is more accurate than your Rolex.

I agree that expensive watches are mostly status symbols, but a quartz watch is accurate to about 15 seconds a month, which unless you're in the military is good enough accuracy, may I ask what you do day-to-day that requires you to have atomic-clock levels of time accuracy?

otikik• 3 years ago

Ok but what is the point, though? Surely obsolescence resistance was not high on the list when you got them.

tiborsaas4• 3 years ago

I don't show my watches unless I'm asked, so I'm not sure what people think about them, but I do see smartwatches everywhere. It's becoming an obvious choice nowadays, I think that they are an easy way not to make a choice in the ocean of mechanical watches. A glass screen that can display anything has an apparent appeal.

rsynnott3• 3 years ago

Well, I mean, you could argue that those became obsolete in the 1970s with the introduction of practical quartz watches, which worked better by all reasonable performance metrics.

stetrain2• 3 years ago

An absence of device on the wrist is also never obsolete. Or a polished stone on a bracelet.

So it's a question of what utility or value you derive from it.

Personally if I didn't have a smart watch that tracked activity, showed me the weather forecast, let me glance at a notification without taking my phone out of my pocket etc. I would have no watch. That's what I had before my first Apple Watch.

If you find value and enjoyment from your mechanical watches, then that is the point, and they don't need to do anything else to justify it.

graypegg2• 3 years ago

Doesn't have to be expensive! You can find a Bulova Hack [0] (the modern remake) for ~400$ usually. (Well under 400 on sale) I love mine: looks different with it's military styling, durable, repairable (by a jeweller, the watch glass is special but that's it), and accurate enough. A casio is going to last a lifetime too (with battery changes) if you want something under 100$.

[0] https://www.bulova.com/us/en/product/98A255.html

tzs2• 3 years ago

Electronic watches can last a long time too. My 40+ year old Casio scientific calculator watch still works.

The biggest problem with longevity of modern portable electronics (watches, phones, etc) is that they usually use the internet. That generally means they need security updates when bugs are found, protocol updates as the net evolves, and sometimes they depend on specific network services that the provider drops.

Sometimes the electronics themselves fail. For example I've got a Casio MG-510 guitar [1] that I bought in the late '80s. It still works great as an electric guitar, but its MIDI functionality no longer works.

From what I've read this is almost certainly due to a bunch of bad electrolytic capacitors. Someday I'll have a go at replacing the capacitors, which other people have reported fixed theirs.

[1] https://spinditty.com/instruments-gear/The-Casio-Midi-Guitar...

mronetwo• 3 years ago

so... what did people expect? Also, people who buy 17,000$ Apple Watch have probably moved to a different model long time ago.

Is any of that OK? No. It's just not surprising.

KaiserPro• 3 years ago

Precisely this.

There have been specially expensive editions of the iphone before, and they were chucked on the bonfire of e-waste long before.

lopis2• 3 years ago

I remember once, eons ago, there was a gold plated 3.5 inch android phone that costed a few thousand euros. This was probably iPhone 4 era. It was a mediocre phone, specs wise. I struggled to understand who would ever buy this. Maybe as a prank ultra rich teens would pull on their friends?

xd1936• 3 years ago

But never made by Apple themselves. This feels particularly special after their self-congratulatory comedy skit they included in their latest announcement event about how environmentally friendly they are.

wil421• 3 years ago

How much does $17k cost for a celebrity or wealthy person compared to someone making $75k-$100k? It would be interesting to see comparisons with an average celebrity or multi-millionaire, but it seems hard to define without getting into crazy wealth.

tiborsaas4• 3 years ago

$17k should be in the affordable range if you make $100k.

What do you mean by "cost"? They both have to pay the same price, one might have to spend less time to make that amount if that's your point, but that's kinda obvious.

thfuran3• 3 years ago

If you have 150M, then you can spend about 15k per day forever without much risk of ever running out of money, even without any further income.

atonse2• 3 years ago

The kind of person that spends $17k on an Apple Watch probably stopped using it years ago and moved on to some $50k Rolex the next week.

FirmwareBurner3• 3 years ago

The kind of person that spends $17k on an Apple Watch

On any watch.

offices• 3 years ago

In hindsight, that's a massive premium on the value of the gold. It might even have been cheaper to commission your own.

potmat• 3 years ago

Not even that hard, there are many jewellers who will gold plate an Apple Watch for you: https://quickjewelryrepairs.com/articles/what-you-need-know-...

Almost certainly much less than 17k.

Toutouxc• 3 years ago

To be fair, the gold Apple Watch was not just gold plated, a substantial part [0] of it was actual 18k gold.

[0] https://twitter.com/gak_pdx/status/568310194406469632

rsynnott3• 3 years ago

Wow, totally forgot about the Apple Watch that cost as much as a car.

NoMoreNicksLeft• 3 years ago

Seven years? I've kept my $17,000 car for 15.

friend_and_foe3• 3 years ago

Imagine, a technology that a company can tell you is obsolete. Is that even a technology? The wheel isn't obsolete. The coal powered steam engine is, but that's not because someone says so, that's because it's just naturally no longer useful, other things have since been invented that are more useful for it's same purpose. Why not buy technology that's no longer useful to you when you decide that?

madeofpalk• 3 years ago

It's a harsh word, but it's a specific term of art for Apple: Apple no longer provides any warranty or replacement parts for it.

They could call it Category A, B, C, and D for all it actually matters.

easeout• 3 years ago

Hmm. According to Civ 2, the products of The Wheel have been obsolete since we discovered the secret of Polytheism.

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Chariot_(Civ2)

pxc• 3 years ago

Is that even a technology?

Nope. It's a device. Presumably much of the technology in the now 'obsolete' Apple Watch is still in use in more recent models.

SketchySeaBeast4• 3 years ago

The first wheel was a solid disc of wood. I don't see many of those running around anymore. Wheels, just like smart watches, are bits of technology that aren't obsolete, but specific iterations are.

friend_and_foe3• 3 years ago

Yeah, but it's obsolete because people who use wheels can get better ones and upgrade. That's not the same as a company telling you your hardware is now useless. These devices are services.

drcongo• 3 years ago

I think the difference is that it's a product, not a technology. The wheel is a technology, the penny farthing a product - the penny farthing is obsolete, the wheel isn't.

stetrain2• 3 years ago

The wheel as a general technology isn't obsolete, but a model year 4000BCE wheel certainly is.

In your analogy that would be like Apple declaring the Smartwatch category obsolete, which they have not done.

friend_and_foe3• 3 years ago

No, it would be like if the manufacturer of a certain wheel flipped a switch and your wheel no longer worked.

You cans till right now use a model year 4000BCE wheel if you want to and if it suits your purpose. You decide when your property is no longer useful to you. That is not the case with the apple watch, or with a plethora of other devices out there. The device belongs to the company that made it, not to its supposed owner, if the owner has no say in when it becomes useless.

fortran77• 3 years ago

My digital Casio from 1982 still works fine. So it’s not that it’s “electronic” that makes it obsolete. It’s because the vendor doesn’t care.

swader999• 3 years ago

So much for passing it down to my grandchildren and them telling gross war stories about smuggling it out of POW camps.

m3kw9• 3 years ago

If you can afford or be stupid enough to pay 17000 for a tech gold watch you wouldn’t care if it went obsolete

tiborsaas4• 3 years ago

Time to install a mechanical movement into them:

https://hackaday.com/2023/06/08/apple-invent-the-mechanical-...

ghusto• 3 years ago

Kind of off-topic-but-not: A few years ago I got into watches. I don't know how it happened, but I now have four watches! Have to stop myself buying more, because I can always rationalise it ("well, you were different ones depending on your mood, wardrobe, and the event"). My automatic watch is my favourite. The technology in it is amazing, and it's what, over 100 years old?

One watch I got rid of immediately was my first generation Apple watch. I felt it was a completely useless piece of crap.

Apple will no longer fix the $17,000 gold Apple Watch

Related Stories