Because it makes sense, and that's how many many other products are sold.
Jeezzz I really don't know how many times I need to explain this in these forums for people to actually grasp this basic concept that it used throughout the retail industry.
You have a product that consists of two parts (in this case)
The expensive main body, or which there are very few variations, and the straps, of which there are many many variations.
Think of 3 iPad colours, White, Silver and Gold and a dozen iPad cases if that helps.
You stock, in store the main parts (watch bodies/iPad's) separately. These are the few expensive parts.
You then stock a LOT more of the very cheap things of which there are many more varieties. (watch straps / iPad cases)
The customer comes in, picks what they want, you, in store, combine these and sell this combination.
It would be silly to pack iPads with coloured cases at the factory would it not? Run out of iPads with red cases, but we have blue cased ones.
No, you stock just the expensive part, the iPad, and many cheap cases in all colours that you combine at the point of sale in the store.
Really this is so obvious and is used every day with so many other various products. I don't know why this is so hard to grasp.
Firstly, you could have easily replied without the subtle digs.
A case isn't required for an iPad, and a small percentage of people who buy an iPad buy an Apple Case. As for your ice cream example -
pre-packaged cornets are sold together. Fresh food is a completely different industry.
Let me explain this. For simplicity's sake, we'll say each store has 2000 watches - 200 of each white, blue, green, pink and black in 38mm and 42mm. I'm not going to include the SS/edition to keep it simple.
So right now in it's current state, Apple has 2000 boxes, each with a watch and a band.
if you separate it, Apple has to make and ship 2000 boxes for the watches, and 2000 boxes for the straps. The additional cost so far is the cost of a box (we'll call it £0.30 to make a box). That's £600 in additional box material, and you still have the same number of band/strap combinations - i.e. there is 0 difference between this way, and the combined boxes.
The only way this will make any difference to customer model availability is if Apple make more straps than watches. Say, in this instance, they make 400 of each strap. That means twice as many people can have each model - but there are still the same number of watches as before.
Given that the number of additional straps sold is going to be minimal (how many people here have bought multiple straps), that means you're producing 2000 straps more than what's needed. Say it costs £5 (a fair estimate I think) all in to make a strap, box it, ship it to a store, etc. That's £10,000 in additional outlay, with no additional benefit.
Apple now has 453 retail stores, so if each store has the same numbers, that would be £4,530,000 in additional costs at launch, and an additional 906,000 straps that you would have to make at launch. Given that we know Apple is already struggling to meet demand, it'd be crazy to make an additional million straps, in addition to the number of watches produced.
Whilst in theory it would be nice to go in and pick any strap for your watch, when you're talking about the scale in which Apple does business, it becomes unfeasible (if you were doing business, would you spend over 4 and a half million pounds to have two items separate, rather than boxed together? That could pay 150 people's salaries for a year.
