Apple Watch Sold Out in Less Than 6 Hours as Shipping Times Slip on All Models

[69Mustang]

Just ask the folks at GT Advanced Technology how easy it is to make high optical quality Sapphire in the production quantities needed by Apple. FYI They declared bankruptcy trying to do just that. You are correct, if they are growing Sapphire crystal ingots less than 6" in diameter, because the crystal structure is very susceptible to pull and cooling rate failures.

Has absolutely nothing to do with the sapphire in the apple watch. There's no way to conflate the two. All it does is plant an errant seed in the mind of the uninformed; colloquially speaking, it's FUD.

It still doesn't make synthetic sapphire rare. GTAT's debacle notwithstanding.

 

[BlueMoon63]

"I see no need for wearables"

"This thing is dead in the water"

"It'll never take off"

"No one will buy the Apple Watch"

I don't know why people make these kind of predictions, as if they're the ones with all the foresight to be able to qualify what will happen to a product that's only JUST being launched, and in its first iteration too.

Same was said about the iPod (the first one ever) - if you want a good laugh, read this review of of the first ever iPod, written by Macworld in 2001... then read the comments - same borked logic applies to Apple watch naysayers:

http://www.macworld.com/article/1002488/29ipod.html

We can add a more recent date of April 2008...

Nokia CEO Disses iPhone, Doesn't Seem Worried That U.S. Market Share Slipped Again - calling it a "niche product"

 

[RichTF]

You know, those 2 assertions are not mutually exclusive.

Yep, you're right of course. I was just thinking in the context of the "Apple Watch won't sell" idea, and using the "restricted sales" claim as a way to ignore all the evidence.

 

[rdlink]

Scarcity effect. Marketing 101.

Hmmm. Wonder what your tack will be when Apple announces through the roof unit sales numbers?

 

[Arndroid]

I doubt they truly sold out. Its more likely Apple is holding back supply to create demand.

I love every time people say that and every time when sales figures get released they are wrong.

Every. Single. Time.

 

[peterdevries]

Deja vu. Why do people insist on saying this when it's pretty clearly not true?

I hear this line of crap every time some Apple product sells at an insane pace

These people are absolutely clueless and just regurgitate what they have heard without trying to think for themselves.

----------

Scarcity effect. Marketing 101.

Be honest, you didn't attend that course.

 

[Ceviche Lover]

Just ask the folks at GT Advanced Technology how easy it is to make high optical quality Sapphire in the production quantities needed by Apple. FYI They declared bankruptcy trying to do just that. You are correct, if they are growing Sapphire crystal ingots less than 6" in diameter, because the crystal structure is very susceptible to pull and cooling rate failures.

Producing 1 inch sapphire glass for a niche product is much easier then producing 5-6 inch sapphire glass for a product that will sell 75 million units in 6 months.

 

[Arndroid]

I agree. I bought one so obviously I want to see it do well. But this means nothing without numbers. They could've sold 100,000 or 2 million for all we know. Seems like stock was super low, and like this was rushed to market IMHO.

But this does make a nice headline.

Except it has been made fairly clear apple has anticipated selling a lot of these devices in 2015. That is a simple fact. For them to exude that much confidence means they likely produced a significant volume for launch.

Tim Cook is one of the best supply chain managers in existence.

There is nothing in apple's history and nothing about the apple watch launch to suggest anything other than a significant number of these devices have already been pre-ordered.

But since smartwatchhes have been a relatively small niche until now, some people will try to decry whatever the actual numbers are.

----------

People that think Apple is limiting supply to create perceived demand are dummies. That does nothing but irritate customers and lose revenue. Many consumers don't like preordering and won't order if there isn't supply available. Even if Apple did do that, they wouldn't be pushing orders back to August. I don't know how any reasonable person thinks this is an intentional restriction.

They can't figure out how to open their Economics for Dummies book they got.

 

[mrtravel123]

I don't really understand what draws so many people to this forum just to post anything from sarcastic hate thru angry get off my lawn fist shaking.

The "up vote" button is to blame for eliciting many of the of the comments posted on MR.

IMO - Many people intentionally try to be divisive, humorous, ultra-sarcastic, etc... simply because getting a lot of "up votes" makes them feel good about themselves.

It really diminishes the quality of the MR forum area. Instead of intelligent posts, we see many posts that are clearly meant to grab up votes.

Ever since the iPhone's release (which brought in millions of new Apple users), I've noticed that the MR forum area has been hit with all sorts of people.

The forums are not what they used to be.

In the past I came to the forums to get information from people who knew A LOT about Macs. Now, it is packed with a bunch of people seeking attention.

 

[Arndroid]

You don’t really believe that.
Tim Crook is supposed to be a supply chain genius, on top of that  have all sorts of anal-ysts that will try and predict demand. They know how many they will likely be able to sell, they didn’t make enough. They know that, and knew that.

Keep demand up by restricting supply, it’s 101 as suggested.

We go through this every big product launch. People make these same claims. Part of tim cook's supply chain acumen lies in not over producing. However the realities are they can only produce so much at any given launch based on what predicted production will be over the product run. To do anything else would be significantly costlier.

When Apple goes into production they have a certain level of capacity based on their entire run. Every time we go through how apple is not going to push a launch date just so everyone who wants one on day 1 can get one. Because the demand curve is so front loaded on these products it is not efficient to try and meet the initial demand. You would have significantly wasted production capacity for the rest of the run.

Apple has had unit sales projections for 2015 that most people could not believe how optimistic they were. Those projections don't mesh with any sort of limited release. Apple has a statistically significant number of product launches to know they would never artificially limit a products supply.

Of course when the sales figures come out none of the people who made these claims will say anything. They will hide away until the next product launch to say the same wrong things again.

Apple can't sell the number of devices projected for 2015 while only having 100k available through June.

 

[SixtyK]

i agree but that tactic isn't helping the stock. the stock is still tanking

AAPL is up 0.31 per share at last check. Maybe "tanking" means something different where I live.

 

[ZCT]

I don't understand why so many people have such a defensive reaction to other people posting predictions of this product failing. Almost as if they are taking the Apple watch criticism personally.

Just because YOU want one, doesn't mean that the next person who doesn't want one is an idiot.

I guess I see it as a bit arrogant to be so boldly predicting failure with such unbridled certainty. We've seen some pretty bold and pretty ridiculous statements made on this forum. We've seen some crazy discussions of whether or not this product is any good, even before anyone has actually worn one or used one.

I am also going to assume that Apple has hired some very smart people who have looked at this product from any number of different angles. So to just write off these people and claim superior knowledge of the market is also a bit silly.

Ultimately I'm not calling into question the decision making skills of anyone who isn't interested in this product. But I don't understand the need to keep loudly beating their chest and telling us how it's definitely going to fail and it is utterly stupid etc etc.

 

[bawbac]

Why do I have envy issues? I ordered one... my only "envy" is for the people who are getting theirs on 4/24. Mines not coming til 5/13 cause my App Store app didn't load until 12:05.

Envy doesn't have to be about money or the Apple Watch.
Your previous posts validates it.
It's OK, not everyone can be like Bill Gates.

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These people are absolutely clueless and just regurgitate what they have heard without trying to think for themselves.

Pot meet kettle.

 

[Arndroid]

Or maybe parts, like the rare Sapphire screens, make the watch hard to mass produce, limiting stock.

Occam's razor.

Except there has not been any indication of parts specific constraint.

Occam's razor would be they made a lot of watches and sold a lot of watches.

 

[GrumpyOldMac]

Just because YOU don't want one, doesn't mean that the next person who does want one is an idiot.

As a long-time Apple shareholder (1990, muah!) I have no interest at all in an Apple watch or any other watch, could not care less, but I am thrilled -- thrilled! -- to see it selling out. I have college tuitions to pay.

 

[ericinboston]

Apple didn't create USB but pushed its adoption for all peripheral devices. This was an evolution of the concept behind Job's NeXT which had a singular type of connection for the monitor, printer etc which could all be daisy chained from the box.

Until then it was a given that you had use a SCSI for, say, your printer. I was at Lawrence Berkeley Labs in the 1980's when someone came around to demo the NeXT and I was impressed. Fast forward (mid 90's?) to Apple starting to incorporate USB for nearly all peripherals. There was definitely criticism from folks who said USB was too slow and that Apple was ridiculous for pushing it.

Windows 95 followed suit afterwards which is when the criticism stopped.

Not that I am doubting you but I don't recall this history at all. I was an avid Apple //e user and back in the mid/late 80s Apple was using SCSI for their drives. Printers back then and well into the 90s still used Parallel or Serial ports. I began playing with Wintel PCs with WFWG 3.11 around 1993 and there was no mention of USB then either. USB 1.0 wasn't realeased until Nov 1995 which was the same timeframe as Windows95.

The only consumer devices that folks would attach to a computer in the 80s and early 90s were a disk drive hard drive (which really came with the computer anyway), a monitor, and a printer. Not until the mid 90s did the portable consumer computer electronics really take off...such as printers galore, all-in-1 printers, digital cameras in late 90s, external portable hard drives, and scanners (which didn't use USB until USB 2.0 in early 2000)...and the big move/switch to USB for mice and keyboards in the 90s since they were such low power and also wouldn't nuke your computer if you accidentally plugged it in while the computer was on like a ps/2 port.

Although Apple and other companies can pioneer and/or push a brand new technology, the timing has to be right for technologies (especially a protocol) to take off. Apple was practically out of business when you say they pushed USB so who's going to listen or invest in what Apple believes?...yet Windows was booming...Wintel PC prices were plummeting fast...everyone and their grandmother was buying a new Wintel PC by 1996...portable, consumer computer electronics were growing exponentially in both available models and the technologies themselves.

On a side note, I've always disagreed with Apple's "one cable for everything" approach...it's just not realistic...and to have all the eggs in 1 basket is never a good idea. I'm glad the thick, unbendable days of SCSI, Parallel, and early USB cables are long gone...and glad a few things are wireless these days...but I am very happy to have a few cords in case, say, my keyboard dies and doesn't affect my mouse and monitor and external hard drive at the same time. I'll buy another $3 USB cable or $25 keyboard vs. the risk of buying $1000+ worth of new equipment and the extreme inconvenience in the first place!

 

[Arndroid]

But my point still stands. If you are a supply chain genius you will know what your yield is likely to be an can, (if you so choose), account for it.

That's only part of the equation. Production capacity isn't some slider you just move up and down without any cost.

Demand is not a flat line, either.

 

[MrXiro]

Envy doesn't have to be about money or the Apple Watch.
Your previous posts validates it.
It's OK, not everyone can be like Bill Gates.

Validate what? I have no clue what you're going on about. I've always stated my opinion that the A Watch is over priced but an interesting device and I definitely want one. I'm on my 2nd SmartWatch currently and the A Watch will be my 3rd... the Pebble Time is a slightly more compelling watch because it works on multiple OS and seems to be moving in a different direction. But I don't see how any of this is "envy".

Are you saying I'm envious of rich people? One of my best friends is worth something like 20 million dollars and is a big time hollywood movie director, but I also have friends who have been jobless for over a year now too. I make OK money... like most people I wish I made more... I really wish my wife made more. But I wouldn't call that envy, everyone wants to be more successful in life.

Please elaborate because you're not making any sense to me...

I can only assume that you're projecting your own issues onto me.

 

[Arndroid]

Rare sapphire screens? Please tell me you're joking. Synthetic sapphire is neither rare nor hard to produce. It's tried and true tech for watches.

I have no idea why Apple has shortages of the watch and the MB, but it doesn't look good at all. They're supposed to be a company headed by a top notch supply chain specialist. Yet multiple products get launched with little inventory and filled in later. Is it intentional? I have no idea. If it isn't, then somebody needs to have their ass kicked. I mean stores don't even have demo/display units of the MB. That is piss poor no matter how you look at it.

Little inventory = more than their competitors sell their entire device runs.

It is a crazy reality distortion field taking place here. The ignorance is deafening. The number of articles discussing apple's production and supply chain on macrumors should not leave this much ignorance.

 

[a1kim]

Except there has not been any indication of parts specific constraint.

Occam's razor would be they made a lot of watches and sold a lot of watches.

I mentioned this earlier in this thread, but it seems like the bands are actually a constraint, which seems weird to me. Perhaps they're not the only constraint, but they are definitely in short supply. If you try to order just a band right now, the "Available to ship" date is listed as just "May".

 

[Arndroid]

Actually, I have a masters degree in it and work for a prominent tech company.

Whether it's intentional scarcity or not, it all works the same. You can either spin it as "scarcity" marketing, or you can spin it as "crud, we can't make enough faster."

Makes sense you have a marketing degree, thus why you don't understand production at all.

 

[Rogifan]

Hmm... Neil Cybart (who runs the Apple-centric site Above Avalon) tweeted that an Apple store manager told him "a lot" of Sport pre-orders were upgrading to the SS model. Which is interesting considering after the reviews came out there were a lot of posts here from people who decided to downgrade to Sport. I guess seeing it in person is a good idea if you have a store close by.

 

[Kenn Marks]

Has absolutely nothing to do with the sapphire in the apple watch. There's no way to conflate the two. All it does is plant an errant seed in the mind of the uninformed; colloquially speaking, it's FUD.

It still doesn't make synthetic sapphire rare. GTAT's debacle notwithstanding.

True GTAT probably had no involvement in Apple Watch sapphire production, but the details of the problems they had trying to make production quantities of sapphire to Apple's specifications are indicative of the production snafus inherent in producing the worlds second hardest crystal. Therefore making production quantities of optical quality sapphire is not as easy as making ice cubes or even silicon boules. Occlusions or crystal lattice faults in a silicon wafer would only affect a single die (half the size of you pinky fingernail) and if you had one defect in each quadrant of a 4" wafer you'd lose 4 die but if it was for watch crystals all watch crystals would be scrapped from that crystal slice.

 

[bigchrisfgb]

Speaking only for myself as a not wealthy single dad, this was announced months ago and once I paid bills, bought groceries, kept my growing child in fitting clothes, etc. I chose to tuck away a few dollars a week to buy myself the extremely rare "something nice for myself."

I think my priorities are okay.

This I agree with. How many people waste money in the pub/bar, on bets? Some people enjoy gadgets, and to be fair most of the Apple watches are reasonably priced.
People have different incomes and different out goings, I hate it when someone says I have got my priorities wrong when I buy something whilst are sitting there wasting money in other areas.

 

[69Mustang]

Little inventory = more than their competitors sell their entire device runs.

It is a crazy reality distortion field taking place here. The ignorance is deafening. The number of articles discussing apple's production and supply chain on macrumors should not leave this much ignorance.

What's the correlation between Apple's inventory and what their competitors sell? I'm really not sure what you're trying to say.