Apple's Wearables business is a ~$8 billion per quarter business. That includes AirPods and a few other products, but Apple Watch is obviously a major part of it. To me, $8 billion per quarter is far more than "modestly successful". Of course, comparing anything to the iPhone's success will make it look modest.
I think the wearables revenue is overwhelmingly AirPods? I can’t find clear data easily, but the first hit on google is $23B in revenue per year for just AirPods. It also looks like the number of Apple Watches sold is a tenth of the number of iPhones sold.
Like, the biggest contribution of Ive, the chief designer at Apple over a decade, was a product that augments 10% of phones (and of course costs much less than a phone). If you were hiring for design Czar, wouldn’t you expect more?
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