 "Apple launches iWatch to mixed reviews")
Apple Inc on Tuesday unveiled a watch, two larger iPhones and a mobile payments service as Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook seeks to revive the technology company's reputation as a wellspring of innovation.
The first new product to be developed and introduced under Cook's reign is a timepiece tethered to the iPhone that will combine health and fitness tracking with communications. It will will prices at $349 in the US, likely with a contract, and hit stores in early 2015.
The Apple Watch can receive phone calls and messages, play music, serve as a digital wallet to pay for goods and monitor heart rates via special sensors. The watches will come in three collections, including a sport edition and an upscale line coated in 18-karat gold.
"People are kind of scratching their heads on this watch, especially the fact that to successfully use the watch and to take advantage of its capabilities, you also have to have an iPhone," said Daniel Morgan, vice president at Synovus Trust Company in Atlanta. "I don't know if they're in the right direction with this iWatch."
Still, rival watch and wearable device makers will keep a wary eye on Apple, which upended the music industry with the iPod, the iTunes Store, and drove once-dominant phone makers like Blackberry to the brink of extinction with the iPhone.
Sony Corp, Samsung, LG Electronics Inc and Qualcomm Inc have already launched smartwatches, but have struggled to make much headway.
"Not the knockout some were anticipating. A bit gimmicky also on the health end of the wearable bands market," said Jon Cox, an analyst of Swiss watch companies at brokerage Kepler Cheuvreux in Zurich.
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"Not as cool as I feared. Nick Hayek is probably sleeping a little easier tonight," Cox said, referring to the chief executive of Swatch Group.
Shares of the company closed just a tad higher after having risen almost 5% before executives trotted out the watch. The stock tends to rise in the run-up to a major product launch, and come under selling pressure afterward as investors cash out.
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The watch is unlikely to increase Apple's top-line. Estimates vary but IDC expects total global demand of 42 million smartwatches in 2015. Apple sells that many or more iPhones in a good quarter.
But the pressure was on for the world's largest tech company to wow on Tuesday, after a years-long drought of products beyond new iPhones and iPads. The prospect of a new gadget attracted a broader swathe of attendees than usual, with celebrities, fashion industry editors and even healthcare executives rounding out the mostly tech-industry crowd.
In a rare move, Apple had planned on livecasting its entire event online, with a simultaneous translation in Chinese. But the livestream went down about a half-hour in, prompting many users to take to Twitter to express their frustrations.