For info I am interested i watches, with a little collection including several vintages. Nothing truly expensive, most even cheap, I do simply like the mechanical engineering.
This being said, the Swiss watch industry has been carefully marketing its expensive mechanical watches, creating that impression of refined heirloom engineering and jewelry, while by and large you pay simply for marketing and big profits. Very little real innovation happens in the world of mechanical watches. There is the coaxial escapement from Daniels, but what else was recently introduced? The price of luxury watches goes mainly to profit, marketing (posters with Daniel Craig everywhere), boutique costs. In a way you don't get more real engineering quality in many swiss watches than in a gold apple watch.
Then comes Apple. As a watch enthusiast, while I am not yet conviced about the current utility of a smartwatch, I was immediately impressed by the attention to materials and the straps & bracelets. Barely any innovation happened in that respect in the traditional watches. Look how the lugs are easily exchanged and are ideally adapted to each strap. There is the refined bracelet that you can resize without tools. The magnetically closing milano mesh (admittedly this would not work with a mechanical watch), the way the sports band folds under (this was first done by designer Newsom in his rare Ikepod watches, no coincidence that he is on the Apple design team now). I like how Apple did not simply add a strap to a watch but truly thought it over from scratch.
Then there is the marketing, where health will become even more a cornerstone in future iterations, since they have hired people specialised in medial sensors. Everyone wants to be healthy, I think this will be the "killer app" going forward. And even in v1, there are several millions of happy iphone users who will be curious to try it, I think that it is indeed not a stretch to imagine it selling a few million pieces by EOY, with real ramp up coming from v2 onwards.
I think that the apple watch and the more refined android smartwaches will start to bring havoc to the sub $1000 segment of traditional watches from this year onwards. Luxury mechanicals will still sell, but the perception of the public about their worth may well change, I am not sure that the traditional Swiss marketing "you're looking after it until you pass it on" will have staying power.