Three reasons
1. Under promise, over deliver. This is a key Apple philosophy. They likely know they should be able to deliver those watches in May even but they say June cause they would rather look like heroes getting it done early than idiots having to delay.
2. Rumor is that they removed the references to product reservations and April 24th from the site because they are looking at possibly delaying the in store launch to send the batch of watches that should have stocked that launch to the online channel to fulfill orders. And if not a full delay perhaps only sending part of the previously allotted stock to the stores for a slower more quiet roll out
3. they didn't tell you what day in June. Friday could have been June 1 and now it's more like June 20-30th
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It is all about the hype for the product launch.
More than likely, Apple has more than enough supply fill all orders on launch day, but they build hype by constraining supply, and also limit the number of returns.
so not true. Apple doesn't need to do that crap. Any limits are simply because they don't have a magic machine that can instantly product a zillion units. They very possibly didn't have it finalized until days before the March announcement and there's only so many units they can produce in that time. And it's common Apple practice not to have huge stock piles for security reasons.
And constraining stock doesn't limit returns. It's Apples and Oranges. Letting folks see, play with and try on the item before they buy it, that is how you limit returns. i was totally ready to order a stainless steel with a sport band. Until I saw it in the store and thought it too shiny and gaudy looking. i'm much happier with saving a little money and getting the dark grey sport watch.
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No kidding. Every watch they get on someone's arm is another free advertisement for their product, it starts conversations, draws interest of people who may not have even heard of the watch.
My boyfriend said that is why he thinks its insane that store employees are stuck in the same ordering sitch as the customers. Apple store employees are supposed to be the best form of advertisement etc for the products and they can't do that if they don't have an intimate knowledge of the product. So it's silly that there wasn't a system to let them order the day before and have them shipped to the stores right away for employees to wear. Or even withhold them until the 24th if Apple corp would rather. There's only so much they can train folks on via videos etc.
If they were super worried about the employees grabbing all the stock they could have set limits so only like the first say 100 orders on any model would be right away and anyone after that has to wait with the plebs.
The company makes enough money they could totally afford to give every employee a Sport Watch for free but they don't due to various weird tax laws (in some areas it's considered income), which pisses off a lot of staff. Being able And created a huge base of advertising based on personal knowledge
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If what you guys are saying true then I think that shipping dates will change later this week.
It likely won't be that fast. More like in a couple of weeks at the earliest. perhaps not even until the end of the month.
