Australia is one of the nine countries that will be included in the initial Apple Watch launch on April 24 (sorry, New Zealand). Here’s what you’ll pay if you want one.
Picture: Getty Images/Stephen Lam
After what seems like years of hype, the Apple Watch will finally land next month. Apple will allow pre-orders for the watch from April 10, both online and in Apple stores. To use one, you’ll need iOS 8.2 (which is being released today) running on an iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, 6 or 6 Plus.
Apple Watch will come in three basic designs, which Apple is calling “collections”. The Sport collection costs between $499 and $579; the standard Watch costs between $799 and $1629; and the high-end Edition collection, which includes “rose or yellow 18-karat gold alloys”, starts from $14,000.
MORE:
How Much Australia Tax Will You Pay On The New Apple MacBook?
Even the cheapest $499 design is costlier than similar Android models, but that’s no surprise; Apple has always pitched its phones as premium products, so we wouldn’t expect the watch to be any different.
Excited by the Apple Watch? Figure you’re still OK with just an iPhone? Tell us in the comments.
Comments
18 responses to “Apple Watch Australian Pricing: Anyone Want A $14,000 Watch?”
The price for just the standard watch is ridiculous but totally inline with their insane pricing for all their products. My wife is one of those silly apple fangirls and even she laughed at this.
What happens in 12 months? Do you chuck it away to buy the new model? I just can’t see this business model working.
To be fair, I said the same for iPads – and their popularity still doesn’t make sense to me – a crippled, overpriced laptop…
Especially the gold one. Dropping 14k on something that will be obsolete incredibly quickly. I love how they have kept it square so than can do a round one next year. Like the original iPad without the camera. Apparently there was not room for one. Until a teardown happened.
I bought a Samsung tablet around the time Apple tried getting a sales ban on them. My main uses for it are as a remote control for my media centre, a way to easily watch Youtube videos lying down while I’m taking a break from other stuff, or as a way to watch porn from the comfort of bed before I go to sleep. Occasionally I also use it to keep reading something on the toilet that I started reading on my PC but didn’t want to interrupt.
I used to play games on it, but I realised I really don’t like touch as an interface for gaming, so I don’t really do that much any more.
Great. What do you think about the Apple watch?
It was a response to his comment “and their popularity still doesn’t make sense to me”.
OK. Sorry.
Why do people keep comparing tablets and laptops in 2015? They’re not productivity machines, it’s something you’ll play around with in bed, on the couch, or chuck in a bag for the train or vacation for reading, comics, games, and watching movies.
The whole point is conspicuous consumption.
I know its weird huh, I don’t get why sports cars are popular, I mean they are just crippled, overpriced station wagons right? They cost more and you get less boot space! Crazy. It’s almost like they are a different category of vehicle entirely.
Your comment made my day and your understanding on the masses of complaints that are happening when it comes to low, medium and high end of consumer products, let alone other categories like food and housing, is spot on. People just don’t think outside of their opinion, now do they. “Why pay x amount on a nice house, dinner, watch when I can… blah blah so unnecessary!”
Sure, as long as you’re paying, and it’s an Omega, Fontana or rolex or similar.
I like how they call them “collections”
People will buy it but no thanks. Probably for the same people that buy Vertu phones – Russian oligarchs, Chinese billionaires and organised criminals.
$14,000 on a piece of disposable tech – a watch which will be obsolete in a few years, and only last as long as the smartphone that rides with it – not to mention its probably made by Chinese slave labour.
If you spent even half that on a good Swiss watch, like an Omega, Tudor, Tag, IWC etc., you’d get a mechanical really nice piece that would last a lifetime made by real craftspeople paid a decent living you could pass down to your grandkids. Hell you can get a four or five really nice Swiss watches for $14,000 and start a collection.
Apple’s trying so hard to pander to the Rolex crowd, but I don’t see it. People buy expensive watches for the craftsmanship of its movement and detail of the case. There’s no craftsmanship in an Apple Watch, it’s the same mass produced motherboard rolling off a Foxconn assembly line as the $350 watch, only soldered into a gold case. Tech people will think it’s overpriced, watch people will think it’s tasteless. The only people I can imagine buying the $14K watch are Sheikhs.
Yup… and after 2-3 years your Apple Watch will be obsolete and worth nothing because the technology will be outdated. Watches with automatic or mechanical movements can last forever as long as they don’t get abused too badly.
+ Rolex’s, Patek’s, etc can be easily resold and you’ll be able to re-coup most of your money back depending on the condition. On the other hand, try selling an Apple Watch in a few years time and no one will want it because it’ll be lacking all the functions the new models have. TBH I wouldn’t be surprised if the Apple Watch releases were every 2 years rather than the yearly releases of other Apple products.
Also, the mid-range versions ($799-$1629) have the exact same tech specifications as the higher-end gold versions ($14,000-???), so there’s no justification for the higher price other than the gold alloy material… You’re better off buying a cheap Apple Watch and then finding a jeweller who will custom make a replacement watch housing out of good quality gold for much, much cheaper.
The Apple watch is water resistant (splashes) but not water proof. I’m sure that will come in the later versions. But the upper collections should already be water proof for that price tag.
Having repented of watch wearing 25 years ago, just to be shackled a few short years later to the inescapable ball and chain of a mobile phone (mobile brick as they were, in those days), this looks like a further step into the bondage of unlimited access and information gathering of the great unwashed (well.. granted… the more wealthy end of the great unwashed spectrum) by the illuminati…
Whats next… the iBrain???
I’d have to be dragged kicking and screaming and only submit under the threat of having my gonads removed before I’d give consider spending my hard earned filthy lucre on yet another ‘innovation’ designed to further invade my personal space.
I’m always stunned by the Apple-bashing. You are aware you’re as bad as the Apple-fan-boi’s you hate, but you’re just the other side of politics? Tiring.
I’m not excited by it, no. I’m sure in time my mind will be changed as they stuff more useful things into it. For the moment, I’ll leave it to the hardcores.