Herculodge

Will the Apple Watch be a "Me-Too" Device That Does Nothing That Other Existing Solutions Don't?

Ulysses writes:

The power of branding. It's the same reason why a perfectly sensible woman will happily spend over a thousand dollars on a $100 handbag assembled in a sweat-shop just because it has a designer label on it.

The Apple watch will initially sell very well. Excited speculators will make faulty assumptions based on over-simplified linear regression analyses and declare it another world-beating smash hit. Then, after several months they'll start cropping up on eBay and discount electronic stores, as people wake up from their delusions and realise they can't force utility on to a product that never had any. By their own admission, Apple planned to include far more functionality into the product than will actually be there. They blame a lack of advanced sensor technology. It's curious that such a cash-rich corporation consistently spends such paltry amounts on R&D - they could easily have invented their own superior sensors and technology in the four-year design cycle of their watch. Instead we have a "me-too" device that does nothing that existing solutions don't.

Apple Orders Six Million Watches

I'm still not a buyer as Apple gets ready for its initial run, as reported in the WSJ. 

Time to Start a New Chukka Blog?

My obsessive personality, usually locked on watches, has inexplicably turned to Chukkas, which I find strange since I never owned a pair. In the fifth grade, 1971, some of the boys bragged about their "waffle stompers."

Research for the Chukka Grail has been daunting. Reviews evidence that Chukka wearers are as fanatical as watch enthusiasts.

Here are some brands that piqued my interest: Clarks Exton, Lacoste Sherbrooke Hi 13, Geox U Zal, Ugg Leighton, Ted Baker Torsdi 2, Frye Jim, Fry Phillip, Red Wing Heritage, Trask Gary, Danner Tramline.

I could see myself owning a dozen pair and starting a Chukka blog. Go figure.  

What Is It About Expensive Leather on a Watch?

 

 

Lately, I've been interested in alligator leather, sometimes known as hornback, for watches. As I was looking at this lengthy watchuseek thread about the Hamilton King Pilot 46mm (photos of the appealing black and equally appealing gray dial left me pulling my hair out as I couldn't choose on which one to put on my wish-list), I noticed that someone had put a bracelet on the Pilot, and it occurred to me that the Pilot looked far better on leather. In fact, the bracelet looked gauche. 

Now I'm thinking if I should fit leather, a very high-grade variety, on my Seiko Tuna or Seiko Fieldmaster. 

Comparing Size of Seiko Tuna and Benarus Megalodon

And showing my lack of video skills in the process:

 

Spending the Day with the Twins and the Seiko SBDL021 FieldMaster

 

"Help! My New Degen 1126 Doesn't Work!"

Reader TDB writes this regarding the Degen 1126:

I just got my Degen 1126 yesterday after shopping reviews for weeks. It will only operate while plugged into charger tho battery is fully charged. It's running firmware ver. 1.2 and all upgrades seem to have vaporized from the web..........However, all of the warnings have spooked me. As well, contrary to reviews, even plugged in and operating, the AM reception is non-existent! It's why I bought it in the first place!! anyone with a solution? I'd rather use it than return it, but that's where I am. HELP

An Argument for Enjoying a Diversity of Watches Even in the Face of Wanting One Watch

Jonny writes:

I think perhaps the "one watch fantasy" acts as a kind of Platonic archetype that continually draws one to it, like a dynamic attractor. The fallacy is that there is one physical watch that will live up to the Platonic archetype, which it cannot possibly.

This is not unlike a man looking for the "perfect woman" (or vice versa), or why we seem so doomed to disappointment with whatever we accomplish. The reality can never live up to the Idea.

The "boyhood fantasy" is, I think, the early phase of the process. It is the beginning, the "Edenic phase" in a sense - before the agonizing desire for the Perfect Watch sets in. In other words, one starts by buying and collecting capriciously but then gradually begins to refine down towards the quest for the Perfect Watch. Although it also seems that some never leave "Eden" to go on the Quest.

I think a further stage is possible wherein one achieves a kind of epiphany that there is no singular Perfect Watch, but rather all watches are "expressions" of the Platonic Archetype and can be enjoyed as such. In a way this stage mirrors the earlier "boyhood" phase in that it is more playful, but it includes the developed palate and refinement of the questing phase. You could say it is a kind of higher order Play - a "Return to Eden" but on a higher octave, so to speak. Like T.S.Eliot's poem: "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

That pretty much sums up the watch journey, the three phases I describe.

Why We All Deep Down Want Just One Watch Even As Our Collection Grows

Because in our imagination, the watch becomes our brand and our identity and to have more than one watch would be to comprise that brand and that identity. It's probably not realistic to have only one watch. It's probably a chimera, but in the watch enthusiast's imagination, he sees himself wearing one watch, the watch that is him, for all perpetuity. But this chimera is in direct conflict with another, the boyhood fantasy of amassing a huge collection of watches that address all your whims and caprices. 

"Unbelievable, a Whole Month Without Buying a Watch"