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Here's a twist, I'm happy with the launch.

SixtyK

SixtyK

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 25, 2013
639
38
Nebraska
MRF: Well of course you are, you got your watch.

Nope, I ordered my Space Gray Sport at X:05 and got the mid-May delivery window. I'm still sitting in processing.

This is the second time I have preordered a new item from Apple and both times there was a wait.

Why am I okay with waiting? Because I expected to.

The fact is, in both cases this was a very highly anticipated release. People were excited about the Apple Watch when it was just a rumor. Last year people were excited about the iPhone 6 Plus. It is not uncommon at all for a highly anticipated new product to see demand greatly outpace the ability to produce it.

It happens with every new generation of the Playstation and XBox. It happened in the 1998 to Volkswagen with the New Beetle and to Chrysler in 1999 with the PT Cruiser and there are plenty of other examples.

Eventually production catches up and everybody gets what they want. For heaven's sake, be patient.
 
Communication

I believe the only legitimate flaw I see with the rollout was that they didn't announce that it would be online only before the preorders opened. I do think several folks probably thought to themselves, "Eh, I enjoy the in store experience, I'll just wait and get one on launch day" and were left out of the fun. I feel if they had just let everyone know the new rules of the game before preorders opened, things would have appeared more fair. I fortunately set my alarm for 2:55AM and I'm getting one today, but if I had waited I could see myself grumbling about "Wish they had told me this one would be different..."

I also think it would have been more fun if they had been able to ramp up sport band production enough to have sports bands in store today. Then we could still drop by the apple store and buy an extra band today with a launch atmosphere. Seems like missed opportunity to get a little in store excitement, along with the efficiency of the preorder only process for the actual watches. I bet they would have sold more than a few extra bands that way too. I would love to pick up a black band today at the store if it were an option.
 
powerslave65 said:
Swatch builds 5 million watches a month.
Click to expand...

  1. That works out to a little over 166,000 a day... still less than 1-2 million (or more, depending on estimates)
  2. Once Apple has had 30+ years to perfect and streamline demand vs. production we can talk.
 
sure

I am sure apple has been building these watches for the past several months, not JIT based on two weeks ago..

all the sport are the same, all the SS are the same.. They just had to put custom bands on them based on orders.
 
tivoboy said:
I am sure apple has been building these watches for the past several months, not JIT based on two weeks ago..

all the sport are the same, all the SS are the same.. They just had to put custom bands on them based on orders.
Click to expand...

The people posting their manufacturing dates would suggest otherwise, now if that's just the date the watch and band were assembled or reflects when the case was made is anyone's guess.

to the Op:

I don't buy it, still no one I know really knows about the watch, one person who did doesn't want it. I haven't see anything in any of my news feeds for my social circles or anyone at work. Nowhere near an iPhone.
 
So.... you're happy with the launch because you have to wait a while to get the item you ordered? Then it isn't really a launch for you is it? Maybe you're a masochist and are happy to have the opportunity to be let down. I guess I don't see the upside.

Sure, you managed your expectations, but what's there to be happy about?
 
SixtyK said:
MRF: Well of course you are, you got your watch.

Nope, I ordered my Space Gray Sport at X:05 and got the mid-May delivery window. I'm still sitting in processing.

....

Why am I okay with waiting? Because I expected to.
Click to expand...

Right, I think most people who are upset are people who got the 24th - 8th window within minutes of the store opening having gotten their hopes up that meant they'd have it today.

The people here leading to today have been saying that "there's always a window, that's just to account for something going wrong with UPS" and "When I ordered my iPhone, I received it before even getting any notification that it had shipped", and etc.

So naturally, people got their hopes up that they would NOT have to wait, and when it happened, they were upset. You knew from the start that you weren't going to get yours today, so there was no reason for you to obsess about it as much as others were.

Frankly, I'm disappointed I'm not receiving mine today, however I would not say I'm upset about it. I realize now that I would have been much less stressed about it if I had never ventured to the forums and heard all of the stories about how Apple always underpromises and overdelivers on shipping and convinced myself that being in the first window meant I should expect to see it today. But that's not Apple's fault, that's my fault.
 
I'm not unhappy with the launch. I forgot to get up early to order and my choice started at 4-6 weeks and I have a June date. As far as I can tell my watch doesn't exist in nature as no one here mentions the SS with pink modern buckle. At any rate against all odds I was hoping for some miracle to happen and for my watch to come today. Now that reality is here I've lost a lot of my excitement about the watch. I still want it, but I don't care so much when it arrives. Back to life as usual which was good before and still is.
 
powerslave65 said:
Good point. But building a car is much more complicated than an electronic watch.
Click to expand...

With new technology like Tapic Engine, integrated S1 chip and wireless charging and a Retina screen, all in a case much smaller than the Moto 360 while being more powerful. A car is not easy to build, but we take billions of transistors packed into a tiny space for granted, when we should be in awe of how difficult that task really is. If a single transistor doesn't work, the whole Watch is dead.
 
powerslave65 said:
Swatch builds 5 million watches a month.
Click to expand...

But swatch isn't a company that also makes phones, tablets, computers, routers, headphones, speakers, keyboards, magic mouses, & have to pay and split production times between all of them simultaneously around the clock, while also not only launching a new watch in 6 different models, but a new computer at the same time.
 
well

sterl320 said:
But swatch isn't a company that also makes phones, tablets, computers, routers, headphones, speakers, keyboards, magic mouses, & have to pay and split production times between all of them simultaneously around the clock, while also not only launching a new watch in 6 different models, but a new computer at the same time.
Click to expand...

well, TECHNICALLY IS involved in building a car in France. ;-)
 
Great launch for me in the UK.

Opened app store app at 8:01, purchased SG 42mm I had favorited.

Watch arrived at 09:33 today.
 
powerslave65 said:
This watch is a great execution of very basic electronics and a rich ecosystem.
I think we can safely say this is cool and richly featured, but also a toy.
Click to expand...

Whatever semantics people want to put on it, it's significantly more complex, with far more stuff packed into it's internals, than a Swatch.
 
eoblaed said:
Whatever semantics people want to put on it, it's significantly more complex, with far more stuff packed into it's internals, than a Swatch.
Click to expand...

OK it's small and the components are complex. But as an assembly it's a cpu, a battery, a taptic engine, a speaker, a plethysmograph in a case with waterproofing.

Only two of these components has moving parts. As long as it's clean room manufacturing, assembly should score about the same as a watch.
 
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