Comment by jarjoura

How so? The Watch was launched as a FitBit killer at the 1.0 keynote. There was a small segment from Jony Ives touting a ridiculously priced gold variant which was a complete mis-read of the market. I could see how Apple was nervous that their core audience was fashion conscious and smart watches were the domain of the biggest nerds out there.

However, point still stands, they knew they wanted an iPod shuffle with health and personal safety device at launch. They even went all out with a Nike partnership to help promote it.