I’m an great admirer of Apple; I think the company does some tremendously innovative things. But just because you admire something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be critical of it from time to time.
I think the regular priced Apple Watch Sport is a great idea and I’d like to have one. But I was dismayed and quite shocked by the announcement about there being an 18-carat gold model in the line up too.
Put bluntly, was it a good idea to launch a $10,000 gold watch by featuring a supermodel running a half marathon in Tanzania, the world’s 26th poorest country? Did no one in Cupertino think this might sound an off-key note?
To put this in context, Apple has three times as much cash in its offshore as Tanzania’s annual GDP.
In fairness, Christy Turlingham does a great deal of charitable work, so her presence in Tanzania was not only related to Apple. But any positive reference from this segment was flattened by the idea of smug, super rich, Silicon Valley zillionaires flashing their gold Apple Watches like West Coast versions of the traders in Wolves on Wall Street. You can practically see the cuffs being shaken down and the arms being rested oh-so-casually on the window frame of the Porsche 911. It’s not as if the entrepreneurial class needs any help in being perceived as being out of touch right now.