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I think we're losing sight of the fact that they know what they're doing and we don't know all of the information. I'm sure there's a very logical reasons behind all of this and it isn't "Angela sucks at her job."
Wasn't the rumor that they were getting 30% yield rates? Perhaps that's the issue and they decided they had to launch anyway and stick to the schedule.
I really don't care that they won't have any in store, I like preordering online. I do agree with people that it was dumb not to have the hands-on BEFORE the damn preorders though. Like Tim Cook said, they're giving us worse case scenario ship dates and likely Watches will be flowing to customers far earlier than they are expected.
It sucks, but if the factories can't get them right, there's not a lot to be done about it (and I'm quite sure they're doing everything they can to fix it.)
 
I love the idea of the watch, I think it can offer a lot of useful benefits and have ordered two but my biggest concern is it's thickness...I'm really concerned it's going to look ridiculous, I'm desperately hoping I'm wrong :eek:

You think iti is to thin ? That's m concerns as well. In particular with Apple obsession for thinness. A real men's watch needs to cast a shadow. From what I read the apple watch is to thin for that.

For the future I hope they keep the thickness and improve battery life.
 
Here are my thoughts. Apple produced X amount of this product. People preordered. Great. You get an estimate saying when your watch will ship. Here's the messed up part. Half of you are complaining and saying there should be stock on the 24th for sale. The other half want your watch shipped before people are allowed to buy on the 24th. What the $@/& are they supposed to do??? You all are completely inconsistent in your want. To me, the most logical thing, is to keep the 24th but have that date as the first day someone can come in and order for in store pickup (but after the preorders ship). That way the 24th is still relevant, but people who preorder still get priority. Yeah, nothing to actually buy on the 24th, but too bad. It would be unfair to sell something to a guy in line on the 24th when people potentially have to wait longer for shipment. However, it's just a watch. We've waited this long, a month or two isn't bad. This launch isn't bad at all, it's actually waaaaay better than iPhone launches. No crazy lines, just online orders and try ons for people to pick out a good one. I don't see how this could get any simpler. If you ordered without trying on first, and you complain, that's your own fault. It's worth repeating, this is my favorite launch to date.
 
Your arguement would be valid I'd there was a surplus of inventory and apple just didn't want to put it in stores; that's not the case. April 24th is a valid date as that is when available watches will go into the hands of customers. People who go into the store will be able to order their watch just like everyone else. Why on earth should someone be able to walk in and get a watch when there are people who already ordered it waiting at home?

Let's say your local pizza place only took phone orders, you called and ordered a large pepperoni and went to get it. You get there and the pizza guy says it isn't ready yet. Someone else walks in and says they want to place an order. He orders a large pepperoni and the pizza guy says okay, I have one coming out of the oven now and hands him the pizza that was presumably yours. How would that make you feel?

There were a lot of very angry customers during the iPhone launch that were really pissed off when phones became available in stores before they received their preordered model. This system prevents that from happening. You want to go into the store and get the watch? Great, try it on, place your order, and be put in line like everyone else. If you really want to, you can wait until there is enough inventory for them to be stocked in the store. The idea that people going into the store are somehow better than everyone else and should get to circumvent the queue is asinine.



That should be up to the people if they want to have it arrive at home or wait in line at the store on launch day. Ordering from home is easy while waiting in lines is not.

And yes its the same thing with phones. You create two sales pipelines and the people ordering at home may or may not wait longer than someone who sits in a line all night or for a couple of hours. Everyone else did the same with the iPhone 6. The AT&T store was packed and a few people came in pissed off people were buying them in the store while their pre-order was going to take a month. They can go F off because they chose the easy route of ordering at home while others tried for a change to get one by waiting in line. Just because you order at home doesn't mean all in person retail sales should end, and the buying experience gets turned into something no more glamorous than ordering TP off Amazon.

I don't think they had a bad model and that model has worked well for a long time. Theres a risk ordering online may take longer than waiting in line to get your hands on the product which is eased by being a much easier purchase.
 
To reiterate, this launch is vastly more complex than anything Apple has done previously due to the large number of available options. Gauging market demand for any particular permutation was simply not feasible, and that factor alone would have made it very risky to create a lot of stock in advance. Pre-orders on-line had to be the primary method and it's logical that as they now have a lot of data regarding demand they'll ramp up production accordingly and this will all smooth out. As for the 4/24 date - this should have been the date when anyone in the traditional long line could get their 15 minutes of fame wearing any of the Apple Watch permutations (perhaps unreasonable to assume we can all try on the $17K version, I get it.)

(Check out the join date - for a macrumors newbie! Yes, I was in a coma for 11 years but the Apple Watch excitement woke me).
 
I think we're losing sight of the fact that they know what they're doing and we don't know all of the information. I'm sure there's a very logical reasons behind all of this and it isn't "Angela sucks at her job."
Wasn't the rumor that they were getting 30% yield rates? Perhaps that's the issue and they decided they had to launch anyway and stick to the schedule.
I really don't care that they won't have any in store, I like preordering online. I do agree with people that it was dumb not to have the hands-on BEFORE the damn preorders though. Like Tim Cook said, they're giving us worse case scenario ship dates and likely Watches will be flowing to customers far earlier than they are expected.
It sucks, but if the factories can't get them right, there's not a lot to be done about it (and I'm quite sure they're doing everything they can to fix it.)


Oh the blind faithful. I am reminded of the big banks and similar confidence before the epic fail.

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I mainly just want to commend Andrew on how well he crafted his email. He wrote his email intelligently and professionally, and actually placed a lot of thought into his diction and syntax rather than slapping together words as an angry or confused customer.

Hear hear! Exactly right!

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Here are my thoughts. Apple produced X amount of this product. People preordered. Great. You get an estimate saying when your watch will ship. Here's the messed up part. Half of you are complaining and saying there should be stock on the 24th for sale. The other half want your watch shipped before people are allowed to buy on the 24th. What the $@/& are they supposed to do??? You all are completely inconsistent in your want. To me, the most logical thing, is to keep the 24th but have that date as the first day someone can come in and order for in store pickup (but after the preorders ship). That way the 24th is still relevant, but people who preorder still get priority. Yeah, nothing to actually buy on the 24th, but too bad. It would be unfair to sell something to a guy in line on the 24th when people potentially have to wait longer for shipment. However, it's just a watch. We've waited this long, a month or two isn't bad. This launch isn't bad at all, it's actually waaaaay better than iPhone launches. No crazy lines, just online orders and try ons for people to pick out a good one. I don't see how this could get any simpler. If you ordered without trying on first, and you complain, that's your own fault. It's worth repeating, this is my favorite launch to date.

I don't think that is the point. It is about clarity [there was none] and integrity
[now called into question]. The information given out leading up to the "launch" was erroneous by both the sales people on the floor and the 800
number. Apple's core value from the onset was about a top quality product accessible to everyone. This approach beyond confusing seems rather elitist.
It also defies logic….wouldn't it be Spock's logic to try on before buying? The
outcome suggests that had you waited for your try on appointment in the store you'd be waiting well into the summer for the watch that someone who was on line at 12:01Am PST would have had weeks earlier. I am not one to crucify
Angela Ahrendts, it just appears she wasn't the right one for this task.

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We don't know that it will always be this way going forward. Plus what are people standing in line for besides iPhones these days? I think this whole idea of standing in line is passé and just opens Apple up to mocking (like Samsung did with some of their ads). Might as well let Apple kill it before it dies out on its own.

LOL that is like the guy on the bus mocking the fellow being driven by in a Rolls and says, I'd never pay that for a car. You think the fellow in the Rolls [Apple] cares what the guy on the bus [Samsung] thinks? What some fail to understand is that standing in line was more that just getting a product…it was a cultural happening. People socialize and share experiences in that line. I know I've stood in it. It was fun for many people. Finally if you think standing in line is passé, then you clearly haven't been to the black Friday sales.
 
Wait times? Let me tell you about wait times....

Am I the only one here who remembers the iPod Mini launch? I ordered a green one for my girlfriend and waited *5 months* for the thing to ship.

What useless pile o' crap CEO was running the show when *that* boondoggle went down? Such mismanagement probably doomed the product line entirely, if not the whole damn company. Oh, wait....

It's almost like the people in charge at Apple can see ahead more than six weeks at a time, and know -- from prior experience -- that pent-up demand for their products is sort of a good thing. Or maybe they built one of the most successful companies ever over the last fifteen years by pure chance and blind luck?

My watch will show up in mid-May, June 1 at the latest. The fact that I will be forced to wait a bit is a *good* thing, in the long run. It suggests the product didn't tank at launch, so there will be incentive to improve the software, create a developer ecosystem, and refine the hardware in future versions. Y'know, kind of the way it worked with the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Gotta admire the nay-sayers, though. The pivot from screaming that the product was "utter garbage" and DOA, to wailing about the company being incompetent because they can't flood the stores with watches for everyone on day one -- that's an admirable bit of footwork.
 
Not Happy

Unless I missed it, why didn't they mention, that it was pre order only before the 10th. Because I would of done so. I was going to queue, like I have always done :mad:
 
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GREAT concerns.... !!


Didn't Apple say u can pickup BY 24th ?..... They never anything about shipping. ?

EMaybie I'm wrong (hey, everyone's entitles to a bad memory), perhaps it could be just delibrate by Apple to lue customers in..

Still.. if is is somewhat "false adverting" by Apple. its still clever.
 
So ordering something online equates to bad customer service? In what universe? As far as I'm concerned having to stand in line is worst customer service. But then I'm not into the whole camping out in front of an Apple store "experience". Got better things to do with my time.

Love them or hate them those lines have generated so much positive free publicity for Apple over the past few years. They are the main reason the iPhone has done so well IMO.
 
So ordering something online equates to bad customer service? In what universe? As far as I'm concerned having to stand in line is worst customer service. But then I'm not into the whole camping out in front of an Apple store "experience". Got better things to do with my time.

Not really....

Maybe Apple just tired of the whole "well.... we gotta do this again every launch, cheer and all"

Its like seeing the Rolling stones twice a year....... Its a bloody device....

The long line, although great for Apple and users...... it does drag on when u to it too often.....

Besides, it also just says "stay the hell away from Apple retail store on day 1. I don't wanna get trampled on"
 
Being sold out of a product isn't bad press or bad customer service. Why do you think you are entitled to a watch before everyone else that has already ordered one?

Because with a time stamp of 3:04EDT (2 minutes) it shouldn't be sold out that I have to wait a month....
 
Don't know if anyone looked from a demo model but
Serial number: FH7PD23AG9J6
Nice Name:
Please visit our facebook page
Family name:
Group1:
Group2:
Generation:
Production year: 2015
Production week: 11 (March)
Model introduced:
Memory - number of slots: Please tell us how many memory (RAM) slots this machine has.
Factory: FH Please tell us where this machine is manufactured.
 
(…)What is so complicated about it?(…)
true. and :apple: can exactly produce / deliver quantity ordered.
- it's only the hype which confuses the early adopters :D
(i think its worth thinking about: why just couldn't wait ;-)
 
Love them or hate them those lines have generated so much positive free publicity for Apple over the past few years. They are the main reason the iPhone has done so well IMO.

Last quarter Apple sold 74M iPhones. I don't need to see people standing outside an Apple store on the news to know Apple and iPhone are popular anymore. To me the lines just reinforce this incorrect negative stereotype that Apple customers are like a cult or just a bunch of "iSheep" kool-aid drinkers lining up to get the newest iGadget. And these days the lines are full of scalpers and resellers more than anyone else.
 
That should be up to the people if they want to have it arrive at home or wait in line at the store on launch day. Ordering from home is easy while waiting in lines is not.

And yes its the same thing with phones. You create two sales pipelines and the people ordering at home may or may not wait longer than someone who sits in a line all night or for a couple of hours. Everyone else did the same with the iPhone 6. The AT&T store was packed and a few people came in pissed off people were buying them in the store while their pre-order was going to take a month. They can go F off because they chose the easy route of ordering at home while others tried for a change to get one by waiting in line. Just because you order at home doesn't mean all in person retail sales should end, and the buying experience gets turned into something no more glamorous than ordering TP off Amazon.

I don't think they had a bad model and that model has worked well for a long time. Theres a risk ordering online may take longer than waiting in line to get your hands on the product which is eased by being a much easier purchase.

So you think you are entitled to a watch before everyone else that already ordered one because going to the retail store is hard? What a joke.
 
Tim Cook's judgement is seriously questionable and that he is no Steve Jobs is obvious, but picking a Burberry coat and scarf seller to strategize Apple retail is insane (and not the "insane" as in "...ly great.")


Here's what you posted yesterday:

"Moonbat Angela Arhendts knew nothing of Apple culture, history or reputation other than what she might have read in Cosmo, which ain't a lot, I imagine. Putting her in charge of this campaign is freakishly bizarre."

Do you have problems with all women, or just strong, competent, successful ones?
 
Last quarter Apple sold 74M iPhones. I don't need to see people standing outside an Apple store on the news to know Apple and iPhone are popular anymore. To me the lines just reinforce this incorrect negative stereotype that Apple customers are like a cult or just a bunch of "iSheep" kool-aid drinkers lining up to get the newest iGadget. And these days the lines are full of scalpers and resellers more than anyone else.

They could solve the scalpers problem if they wanted to by asking for photo ID to purchase, recording those details then limiting purchases to one unit per ID.

Did you see any coverage of the Apple Watch launch on TV? I didn't. They keep showing the Apple Watch advert on TV here with the strapline "24.4.15". It's going to be interesting to see what happens when all the people who've seen that ad turn up at the Apple store on that day only to discover that they can't buy the product even if they wait in line and if they do want to order online they already have a very long wait to get one.

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Do you have problems with all women, or just strong, competent, successful ones?

I haven't seen her demonstrate any of those traits in her Apple VP role so far. Maybe she has big plans down the line but IMO this isn't a good start. Not having any display models on show in the vast majority of their stores worldwide for the new MB launch is a BIG blunder.
 
Exactly. Only a bat***** insane histrionic like Angela Arhendt would come up with this bizarre set-up. And only an uninspired poseur who relies on his "victim" status like Cook would appoint her in charge of Apple's precious reputation.
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Moonbat Angela Arhendts knew nothing of Apple culture, history or reputation other than what she might have read in Cosmo, which ain't a lot, I imagine. Putting her in charge of this campaign is freakishly bizarre.

I bought AAPL at 20 in '00, so I like my hunches. Time to sell.


So......you've held for nearly 15 years and now you're going to sell because a woman is involved in sales/marketing? Really? What's your basis/share?
 
Ship those 4/24-5/8 orders out on 5/8 and use the early stock for retail store sales ;).

That's probably what they are already doing. They probably just made enough for the display models in the stores and now that they have orders in they will start making ones to fulfill those orders.
 
Something is wrong

I placed the order at 3:02 am eastern. I order the stainless steel space black and got a 4-6 weeks delivery time. Go figure, they went on sale at 3:01 am, sold out in a minute for launch day? something is fishy!!!
 
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