Are you thinking about spending $10,000 or more for Apple's premium watch? Apple's most expensive timepiece, named the Apple Watch Edition, features an 18-karat gold case and a display protected by polished sapphire crystal. This line of its watches can retail for as much as $17,000 and is set to compete in the same market as Rolex and other luxury watches.
While mechanical watches have a history of holding, or even gaining value, the same cannot be said for digital technology and since the watches main features are its digital technology, it can be expected to follow the same route like much of the technology we buy. For example, when the Apple II debuted in 1977, it was a modern marvel and cost $1,298 for the base model and $2,638 for the premium model. Today you can easily find these machines for sale for around $50, less than the cost of a typewriter.
So what will happen to the buyers of Apple's most expensive watch when the company releases the Apple Watch 2?
"It's something you're going to wear and use, and the new one's going to come out and you're going to recycle it out," speculated Jacek Kozubek, a partner at H.Q. Milton, a watch dealership in the Mission.
The Rolex, he said, is often seen as an indulgence for those who can afford it but at the same time they are highly valued in the collector's market meaning they tend to hold their value. Kozubek believes that the Apple Watch simply won't be able to compete in these types of markets.
In an extreme example, Kozubek said, "There's pieces that we have bought that sold in 1968 for $400, and then we sold that watch for like $120,000."
Recently, Kozubek purchased a watch that hadn't been serviced since 1958, but it still managed to keep remarkable accurate time and with it brings a little slice of history.
"There's this soul in pieces like that," Kozubek said. "It's something that was meant to be used and given to the next generation, as opposed to a lot of things that are designed now. There's an obsolescence that's engineered into" the smart watch.
Smart watches, like other digital devices, run on processors and every few years these processors continue to get better and faster greatly outclassing the older generation of devices.
"Try to sell your first-generation iPhone - there's nothing cool about it," Kozubek said.
Most Apple Watch buyers won't be picking up one of these expensive versions of the watch, meaning they won't likely have a problem with casting it aside once the new one is released in the future. In most cases, people will almost certainly shove it into a drawer alongside their old iPhones that are no longer of any use.
