To everyone who has been updating statuses in here, kudos. As someone who has the same shipping window, it has been intriguing to hear about everyone elses status who is in the same boat. It is also fun to jokingly agonize together and hope against hope that well see our watches sooner then they were promised to us.
To all those who think they have legitimate complaints, a few things
1) As others have said, Apple gave you a delivery estimate when you purchased the watch and it was your choice to purchase it. If they beat that estimate, they should be commended; if they meet the estimate, you should be perfectly satisfied; and if they miss it, you will have something to complain about. But given almost no one can yet claim Apple didnt meet the expectations they presented at the time of purchase I have exactly no sympathy for you and you have no legitimate grievance that it wont be shipping to you four weeks early.
2) You have absolutely no idea how many watches were made, how many bands were made, how many were ordered, how many have shipped, and in what combinations. If you think the anecdotal and anonymous reports, from lets say (charitably) 100 people on this thread, gives you enough information to reasonably speculate on the status of the predicted over 2 million pre-orders, then Id highly recommend you sign up for a very basic statistics course ASAP. The people on this board are not a representative sample, and even if they were, they are of a sufficient size to draw any conclusions. So all this I cant believe Apple didnt X, Y, or Z is bogus. You dont know, so dont act like you do.
3) Just because your particular model wasnt in the April 24th shipping window when pre-orders went live doesnt mean that mistakes were made or that the launch day should have been pushed back. A lot of people will be getting Apple Watches over the next few days
and that is great for them. The fact that you werent able to get yours when you wanted it doesnt mean that everyone who will be getting one should have had to have waited another 2 weeks, month, or however long you would have wanted Apple to push back the launch for.
4) Given this is a whole new product category, Apple had to make some very very tough guesses about how many of any particular model to make. There is almost no precedent or frame of reference that they can look to build their assumptions. Even if somehow they had managed to guess perfectly which of the dozens of combinations were going to be pre-ordered and in what quantities they still have to deal with the fact that sometimes there can be unexpected issues in the production of a product, in the supply chain that provides the materials for that product, in the quality assurance of that product, etc, etc. There are tons of variables that could have led to some combination of models not being produced in the quantities they desired. There is also the fact that some of combinations are simply more difficult to make then others (the link bracelets are brushed BY HAND). In other words, it is not shocking that some models are more difficult to get then others.
5) None of this is new and not limited to Apple. Every year certain models of iPhone are constrained for months after they launch due to some combination of the factors above (and they come in far fewer combinations). The same has been true of virtually any successful product Apple has ever made.
Anyways
I feel a lot better now getting that off my chest. Thanks to those of you who are remaining rational. I cant wait to get my SS Link.
