Vacheron Constantin, the exceptional watch swiss brand is launching this month its new iPad App called “Vacheron Constantin iPad Edition”.
2 years ago, Vacheron Constantin already participated into an iPad App experience thanks to an interesting partnership with Watch Time magazine. In deed, to promote the new magazine app, the march 2010 issue was available for free thanks to Vacheron Constantin sponsorship. In exchange of this sponsorship, the swiss brand got a full magazine at the honor of the company history, product catalog and visual animation (images, videos, texts, interviews).
Now, the watch brand decided to go for an app independently. It is a quite simple app, definitely you will need a wifi connection to download it as it is 170Mo. The app is available for free in all iTune stores in english for now. 7 sections are available.
Novelties
This is the App homepage. Discover here the innovations presented at the latest SIHH: the three models from the Métiers d’Art – Les Univers Infinis collection, the new Malte collection and the Patrimony Traditionnelle 14-Day Tourbillon.
Collections
The Collections tab presents the entire current collection using a number of visuals, technical spec sheets and information on each timepiece. You can even click on the Hallmark of Geneva logo to see certification criteria. You can browse the entire collection of Timepieces, even off-line. All valuable information are here and you can even share a watch to a friend.
Favorites
The Favorites interface enables the user to make a selection of his or her favourite models. Here by the way my choice of preferred models. I could buy them all!
Movements
Technical excellence, a true added value of the Manufacture, is demonstrated in the Movements section, using back and front visuals accompanied by technical datas. This is the most impressive part as you can discover the heart of beaty itself. For a easy navigation, the user can choose the different calibers by type: self-winding or hand-winding. You can also share it to a friend or pin it into your Facebook or twitter.
Videos
This is a section that you need to be online to view the videos. Considering the huge amount of videos available, it is normal that only way to access this amazing digital database is by being online. 3G and Wifi are perfect. Here I watched a video about Master Enameler. Purely fascinating. We can discover all the marvelous know-hows in luxury watch making like the engraver, the guillocheur or the master jeweler.
News
Here we can have access to all the news from Vacheron Constantin. A label on the tab itself show the latest updates or unread news, so that each time a news is uploaded, we can easily see it. For the moment we can see that the import of the news did not work 100% as there are some html issues. It is a bug that probably will be fixed in the incoming weeks.
Points of sale
This is a very useful and complete feature. It is accessible of-line, so that if you are looking for a Vacheron Constantin store abroad, you do not need to connect to the network. You have store precise address, phone number and even opening hours.
It is a great effort from the Brand to place their almost entire catalog into an iPad app. The videos are magnificent and the store locator very useful. What could be improved? Well, definitely they need to improve the News section a html is not well integrated. Also I would suggest to add a more immersive experience, especially in the movements section. Why not see the movements working and animated?. On the product page, I would also expect to see more videos, like the one about the caliber 4400 on the American 1921 product page. As the App is already 170Mo, we could push it to 250Mo easily so that we could have a more immersive experience, comfortably installed in our preferred sofa.
Dreaming.
LA
Info sourced at the official Brand press release and from testing the app at luxuryactivist.com. All images are copyrighted with no reproduction rights available.
