Gold Apple Watch could cost as much as $5,000, will reportedly debut February 14th

Apple unveiled its first smartwatch alongside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus back in September. The company also confirmed that the device won’t be on the market until early next year. Unfortunately, that meant little in the way of information on pricing, specs, or even a time-frame for release, so eager would-be Apple Watch owners are once again feeding off of the reports being churned out by the rumour mill.

We already know that the sporty version of Apple’s smartwatch will start at $349. Apple gave us that much. According to the latest scuttlebutt, Apple plans to price the stainless steel model at $500. French-language site iGen says Cupertino will release the watch on February 14th and that this information comes from its most reliable source. This person also revealed that the Apple Watch Edition, which ditches the stainless steel in favour of rose or yellow gold, will be priced between $4,000 and $5,000.

The sport version of the Apple Watch is already pushing the top-end of the scale in terms of the prices consumers are used to seeing when shopping around for a smartwatch. It’ll be interesting to see how they react to a watch that costs as much as an iPad. Or in the case of the gold version, more than the top tier iMac with Retina 5K display.

At the same time, it’s important to remember that Apple didn’t tell us everything there was to know about the Apple Watch when it unveiled the device in September. Tim Cook said they just didn’t have time to go into everything the device was capable of. It’s likely Apple will schedule an entirely separate event closer to the launch of the watch. September’s event was just a reminder to all those about to invest in a smartwatch that Apple’s interpretation of the genre is coming.

[source]iGen[/source][via]AppleInsider[/via]