The amazing thing about the classic Apple designs was the way they managed to be textbook Veblen goods while also appearing to be gender and class neutral. They were aspirationally expensive, but not blingy.
That changed when gold and pink started to creep into the design vocabulary and the prices started moving up. The classic designs were more democratic. Not everyone could afford them, but they managed the neat trick of appearing to be visually inclusive rather than aggressively exclusive.
From that POV, Watch has been a design failure. It lacks the social status of the high-end I-have-money watch brands. It's neither expensive-but-neutral nor an outrageously self-indulgent statement product. The expensive straps and stainless steel variants made a pitch for the latter, but it was never convincing.
As a signifier it's visually bland and even slightly vulgar, which is why it hasn't had the same cultural impact. It's also why it works for C1/C2s but not for the ABs. Sales may be fine, but in its current form it's never going to be the covert high status product that Apple used to do so well.
Apple products, while expensive in a general consumer goods sense are not anywhere near the pricing of a typical Veblen good, they have never been particularly status driven throughout their history in either computers or phones, and their sales violate the textbook definition of a Veblen good, sales dropped substantially when prices increased.
Apple is much more in line with a premium brand driven good like Nike, or Sony.
A true Veblen good phone would cost like $20000, be gold cased and nobody you know would own one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS_social_grade
The amazing thing about the classic Apple designs was the way they managed to be textbook Veblen goods while also appearing to be gender and class neutral. They were aspirationally expensive, but not blingy.
That changed when gold and pink started to creep into the design vocabulary and the prices started moving up. The classic designs were more democratic. Not everyone could afford them, but they managed the neat trick of appearing to be visually inclusive rather than aggressively exclusive.
From that POV, Watch has been a design failure. It lacks the social status of the high-end I-have-money watch brands. It's neither expensive-but-neutral nor an outrageously self-indulgent statement product. The expensive straps and stainless steel variants made a pitch for the latter, but it was never convincing.
As a signifier it's visually bland and even slightly vulgar, which is why it hasn't had the same cultural impact. It's also why it works for C1/C2s but not for the ABs. Sales may be fine, but in its current form it's never going to be the covert high status product that Apple used to do so well.