10k to you an me might very well be a lot of money. To some people, it really is not. We might think its insane to spend 100k on a watch, but prople do. If you watch Top gear, you will know that yhere is obviouly a market for 500k or even million dollar cars. The folk who will spend that kind of money on a car would think nothing about spending $10 grand on a watch. I would actually imagine that if I were one of those people, for whom a Rolex is a cheap swiss watch, and I wanted a iwatch, I’d probably want one in gold because stainless would probaby clash with my wardrome. I figure for Apple, the decision to attempt to enter that market wss probably a no-brainer.
The margins on those is certainly high enough to make the enfineering for it worth their while.
One thingnthat wouldnhave been interesting, would have been to put some kind of automatic movement in it to self-charge the watch from your movements. That would have probably have required the watch to be a bit thicker than whay they were aiming for. I suspect strongly that Apple is still looking at it.
Gold watches and Rolex watches, and luxury cars, are easy to understand.
On the other hand, a gold Apple watch makes no sense whatsoever. A Rolex or any watch that is made of gold and that will last a few decades with no need upgrade and that will NEVER go obsolete, is something that people might feel proud about. A luxury car is a status symbol, and gold watches are the same.
A gold Apple watch that is obsolete the moment that it is bought, is a very stupid purchase. The Apple watch won’t last as long as a Rolex nor as long as a luxury car, or any car, for that matter. Plus, the Apple watch won’t get updates for Apple after a few years, which will make it just a worthless piece of technology, with the gold still holding some value after smelting. The Apple watch is useless without an iPhone on the person wearing it. The ‘internals’ of the gold watch are basically the same as the $500 version, while the internals of a Rolex or other luxury watches are of much better craftsmanship than a regular watch.
I can’t see any way that a gold Apple watch is justified at all. Other than holding on to it for its value as an antique 30 or more years into the future, it’s totally asinine to pay for a gold Apple watch.