I've yet to see any material changes since she took over. The retail stores all look the same as does the website. I'm sure she's had a nice time travelling the world meeting the retail staff but at some point that has to translate into something tangable to justify the whopping salary and bonus she's getting.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Watch Orders Exclusively Online at Launch, Demand Expected to Exceed Supply
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I've yet to see any material changes since she took over. The retail stores all look the same as does the website. I'm sure she's had a nice time travelling the world meeting the retail staff but at some point that has to translate into something tangable to justify the whopping salary and bonus she's getting.
Thank God. When I buy something, I try to make my purchase without getting harassed by salespeople. "Can I help you find something?", "Just want to tell you about our sales today", "Would you like to sign up for our rewards card". I know what I want when I came in, and that's all I want. I guess that's why I prefer online shopping, you can get through all of that much quicker.
Sure, that was 'reported' on MacRumors based on nothing other than the fact that in some foreign countries some dates showed up on the app which later vanished.
Hardly concrete proof of anything other than some technicians playing with the web site.
Have you ever pulled your iPhone out of your pocket to check a text, put it back in and then pulled it out again because you just got another text all in under 10 seconds? There's your problem.
Apple has data. They've been measuring web site traffic. They know how many watches of each type have been added to favorite lists. Most importantly, they know, with good confidence, about how many watches will be ready to deliver on April 24.
In short, if there's likely to a shortage, Apple would know by now. Releasing an honest assessment of the situation does no harm. On the other hand, releasing false stories of a shortage would make them look foolish pretty quickly.
We get the same whining at each iPhone release. Folks convince themselves that Apple is holding back supply to make artificial lines and publicity. Then Apple sells them as fast as they can make them, month after month. The shortage always turns out to be genuine. Even after boosting production capacity to record levels, they couldn't keep up with iPhone 6 demand.
There's one key indicator for me. If Apple really thought they had more supply than demand, they'd be adding more countries to the initial launch. Or they'd have already announced the second-wave launch dates and countries. As far as I know, they've done neither of those things. They expect to sell more than they can make in the short term.
Well in all fairness it's not actually blue. It's just how our eyes perceive it thanks to Rayleigh scattering ensuring that red, yellow and orange light has a harder time passing through the atmosphere.
Not to be pedantic or anything.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
While I can see how some viewed the iPad that way, not everyone did. iPad's bigger screen made everything hard to do well on a 3.5" and then 4" screen much improved. Reading books, watching videos, even web browsing was generally better-to-much-better on the bigger screen than on the tiny screens at the time. I could passionately argue that iPad filled an obvious hole that the masses (which are not the fans that frequent a site like this) could easily see and want.
Watch? Harder for me to see like that... mostly because it depends on having the bigger-screen iPhone with you and almost everything Watch can do can be done on that iPhone (and probably better on that iPhone). If Watch could have been iPhone on your wrist (no other hardware required), I could foresee it being huge. But since the iPhone must accompany it, I agree with the sentiment toward solution in search of a problem.
It does a few things that the iPhone can't and it brings some minor convenience (mostly because some of us are suddenly having to "fumble with our phones" and "struggle to pull a phone out of our pockets" or can conjure typically odd and rare scenarios where it would be easier to get an emergency text on a screen strapped to our arm than pull out the phone in our pocket) but- at least I (anyway)- have a hard time seeing it like I could see the iPod, iPhone and iPad ahead of their launches. Each of those seemed "obvious". IMO, Watch seems to be "not as" or hunting for "obvious" and even chunks of us fans so passionate about Apple that we spend time talking about them and their products with strangers on a site like this are struggling in that hunt.
Last edited:
Actually I don't, but I remember getting the Christmas catalog when I was a kid and circling things that I wanted with my sisterand then never getting them because it was too expensive.
That's an interesting idea. It might work this time because of how quickly you can get things shipped to your home. This makes me wonder if Apple will change all future product launches to be like this.
In her letter the other day Angela mentioned something along the lines of "the days of standing in line are over". Will the next iPhone launch have devices ready in the store ahead of launch day so that you can try them out and place your order? If so Apple is going to have to get a lot better at their supply chain, which goes back to my comment of having staging warehouses all over the country like Amazon. The iPhone usually sells out quickly in the middle of the night on pre-order day. Good luck having your customer come in on launch day expecting to get an iPhone and instead you point them to a website that has 4-6 weeks of shipping wait time. But the times are changing, so who knows. It could work if they have the supply.
There's plenty of time to cancel that pre-order if you decide you don't like it after trying it on.
Unfortunately, you and a lot of other posters don't understand how manufacturing works. You can only make so many items a day. Second it is not economical to pay to have all the equipment to make a whole production run at once. Apple is also not the manufacture of most of it items. Their suppliers have to make money making this stuff. Since most of it's new tech it takes awhile to get the yields out that they need.
I feel like the iPhone dependence is being interpreted as "must have iPhone next to watch at all times for it to work". When I get home, my phone goes on a desk in my office upstairs. When I'm at work, my phone mostly stays at my desk. Seeing as how the watch works with the phone over wifi direct (or something close to it), the phone doesn't actually need to be with you all of the time. But I can understand that for people that do carry their phone literally everywhere they go, why the watch wouldn't make as much sense. I'm mostly getting it as a fitness tracker, but the messaging/phone calls stuff is just icing on the cake.
Clearly supply will be tight. I think there will be decent demand too. However, the demand has to be way less than say, the iPhone 6 launch right? So, given that, will Apple's servers hold up well tonight?
What you have now is Apple putting purchases online so that the public and press does not see the tepid response to the IWatch.
I don't think this is an 'Apple Servers crash for 3 hours before accepting an order" type of event like the iPhone. Folks realize that that happens because Apple has to talk to carrier's servers as well right? It's a much more intricate process. This is just a direct item, much like an iPad launch. I expect servers will hold, but expected delivery windows will slip pretty quickly.
...of course I could certainly be wrong.
...of course I could certainly be wrong.
This makes a lot of sense. The B&M stores might become more of a showroom than a place for direct sales. I think we got a hint of that when Ahrendts was hired and online was placed under her responsibility (previously B&M and online were separate) and again when Apple decided to no longer break out retail sales but instead include them with regional sales figures.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
OK, we Apple product buyers who can't be happy about yet another round of scarcity are just stupid. If Apple wants to disappoint a chunk of us because it was just impossible to make enough to deliver what we want to buy when we want to buy it, good for them... because Apple is always right.
i never said low supply issues were her fault. What is her fault is allowing sales in so many countries when you know you don't have the supply for it. Limit the number of countries.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. You go to Sears now during the holidays and it's a pain to check out. "Sears card?" "Want to open a Sears card?" "Do you want the protection plan?" "Do you want to open a rewards card?" "Do you have an email address {so we can spam you daily?}" "Do you want to donate to XXXX?" "Do you want to buy a box of Holiday chocolates on special?" "How many gift cards do you want?"
No joke....that's the whole spiel....
Anybody getting up at 3am to order the Watch is doing do because they want to not because they have to. This is a brand new device. It's not like someone's life is going to be impacted in a negative way if they don't have this thing on their doorstep on the 24th. Heck I didn't get my iPhone 6 until January and I survived just fine.