Here we go again with the "Apple sells out of _____ on opening day!!"
1)Define sold out today? Did Apple sell a million? 50,000?
2)They weren't even shipping until a full week later anyway
3)Apple (and other companies) are notorious for "selling out" on a new product launch so they can go tell the media and their press conferences how overjoyed they are and cannot keep up with demand. Yeah. Right. Apple announced the Watch 6+ months ago and couldn't seem to manufacture, say, 20 million in 6 months?
4)Apple sells out and instantly there won't be any more until at least 4-6 weeks from now?! 4-6 weeks is an eternity in the tech world.
5)4-6 weeks seems to indicate that Apple made very, few Watches...so few that, gee, it will take at least 4-6 weeks for Apple to make more. My guess is Apple manufactured maybe 2 million Watches...again, that weren't even supposed to ship until next week anyway.
Don't get me wrong...it's great that Apple and Macrumors and other media outlets are tooting the horns that Apple sold out of the Watches...but let's be realistic in that this is simply advertising and under-manufacturing.
I understand where you are coming from, but whenever a product sells out, they sold out significantly more than the prior model. It would be a different story if the sell out was for sales that were flat or even declined a little. And for this, it is not like they had the manufacturing parts and machines from an iPhone 6 ready for a 6S. This is a new product category for them, and they very likely ran into manufacturing issues along the way. Do they really want to tell day one early adopters reserving that they can't get one until June on so many of the models? Probably not. June sounds farther away for an early adopter than most folks (this is something you said, and I completely agree).
I will admit I don't know a lot about the manufacturing process, but I thought that their reveal of the watch months ago was more to be in control of the reveal, rather than it coming from a leak. By showing early, they controlled the image from the beginning.
This is the first product I buy in years that I don't reserve one week and get it the next Friday. That's what I'm used to. Here we have a 2 week lead time - not bad, but any longer and their day one pushes into May (much later than analysts expected, and makes for an awkward fiscal quarter phone call later this month). Or possibly June to meet demand based on the Apple Store estimates now? I would guess that they needed (really wanted) to get this out and decided their supply was good enough, manufacturing issues resolved enough, to release. So I also agree with your guess that they made very few watches, but I don't think it was all for hype. They would be pushing it way too much, making people wait a ridiculous amount of time. A fine line, dangerous game that I don't think they'd push it that much.
EDIT: I posted this elsewhere but thought it was appropriate here.
I think the most telling is that even the 12:01 buyers saw a message of "4/24-5/8". The first buyers aren't guaranteed day one? If even the very first buyers were given a range, then isn't this a sure sign of manufacturing issues they have had, but still insisted to keep this launch date?
