Apple is historically the kind of company that says "you can have it in any color you like, so long as it's black" for new products... and then when the product has been around for awhile, they start accessorizing it.
The iPhone is a good example: it wasn't until last year that you could have more than 2 versions (black and white)... and the 5c added many possible combinations with the off color cases. That's a product that had been on the market 6 years at that point!
So, actually offering all these different variations is quite a departure for them.
One argument for the Beats acquisition I heard was that Beats did this as well- they had many SKUs and many color combinations for each model of headphone and the argument went that managing selling a product line like that took a lot of special skill.
I wonder if this is the thing that Apple was really buying with Beats? (or more realistically, a big part of Beats value to Apple.)
Another explanation for color choices - the austere Jobs is no longer at the helm, it's Tim Cook, and Tim clearly wants to steer Apple into the fashion market - he recently hired many top execs from fashionable brands. Beats acquisition ties in as well - wearing Beats is more a fashion statement more than a technical selection.
There is a fine line between using things like color as a tool to shape a product, versus using them as an option to sell a product. I know which side Jobs was on.
More realistically, I think it was obvious to them that they couldn't make a watch in a singular style and expect wide adoption. Personal style is a very important factor in watch purchases.
the iPod Nano is the counterexample, together with the bright colors of the iMac.
the Nano is especially important as it was used already by various kickstarter projects as a poor man's Apple Watch. the real one looks very similar actually.
The iPod Nano actually launched in black and white, briefly dropping the color options from the earlier HD based iPod mini. That was toward the beginning of Apple's black/white phase.
Thru went back to colors pretty quickly, probably for a mix of fashion and scratch resistance. There was a class action about the plastic nanos getting damaged too easily.
I think of those as supporting examples. The first iMac had bright colors, but you're right that they both adopted colors rather quicker than my example of the iPhone.
I wonder how much of the impetus for the Apple Watch came from the number of people who wanted to use the nano as a watch. Kind of a back door MVP in a way.
We partnered with Timex on a wearables project once, and their sentiment seemed to be that you needed a couple of thousand SKUs before you'd truly satisfy people's desire for personal expression. With less you'd run into "I like that thin blue band, but it should be a different shade of blue."
The iPhone is a good example: it wasn't until last year that you could have more than 2 versions (black and white)... and the 5c added many possible combinations with the off color cases. That's a product that had been on the market 6 years at that point!
So, actually offering all these different variations is quite a departure for them.
One argument for the Beats acquisition I heard was that Beats did this as well- they had many SKUs and many color combinations for each model of headphone and the argument went that managing selling a product line like that took a lot of special skill.
I wonder if this is the thing that Apple was really buying with Beats? (or more realistically, a big part of Beats value to Apple.)