Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Odd Note About Build Weeks...

MICHAELSD

MICHAELSD

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jul 13, 2008
5,487
3,499
NJ
Found this surprising. The WSB Sport Watch I pre-ordered on 4/10 with a May date which I ended up receiving on 4/24 was manufactured in week 16 of this year, while the WSB Sport Watch I just received two days ago was manufactured in week 14.

Conclusions: they are certainly shipping these out of order from manufacturing... unless the week 14 Watch was faulty (defective Taptic feedback perhaps?) and repaired. Since Apple is still shipping Watches from week 14 of production, either production has slowed down, the warehouse inventory is mismanaged, or they are sitting on a stockpile of Watches that were recently manufactured.

You can use this tool to decode your Apple Watch build week: http://www.chipmunk.nl/cgi-fast/applemodel.cgi
 
How exactly does that utility ascertain the week of manufacture? Is that information documented somewhere and discernible from the serial number? That link was going around a couple weeks ago and I remember wondering what it's based on.

But as for your question, I would imagine the logistics of pairing watch bodies to bands and then sending them in batches to various parts of the world makes it very easy to imagine a certain amount of disorder in metrics like this.
 
zmunkz said:
How exactly does that utility ascertain the week of manufacture? Is that information documented somewhere and discernible from the serial number? That link was going around a couple weeks ago and I remember wondering what it's based on.

But as for your question, I would imagine the logistics of pairing watch bodies to bands and then sending them in batches to various parts of the world makes it very easy to imagine a certain amount of disorder in metrics like this.
Click to expand...

That utility isn't linked to any sort of :apple: database, so it must be discerned soley by the serial number.
 
I thought this also....

My 42 SS WSB that I ordered on the 25/05 and received on 30/05 is a week 14. I received this during week 18, so implies this watch had been sat around for approx 4 weeks.

This doesn't follow with the "rushing them out the door while they are still warm" theory....
 
I don't think it is the actual watch that is holding back shipments, I think it is the bands. There are only a few watch bodies, but far more bands.
 
I think the internals of the watch are serialized and produced at great volumes. I also think that their final destination (as a sport, watch or edition) is not known at that time (as the functionality of all is identical).

I think this information is updated in the database when the watch internal is assigned to a SKU / configuration. Then it is paired with a watch body and band. If the software is aware of this configuration, it is updated at that point.

Also, I think Apple purposefully randomizes as much as possible the weeks of manufacture to batches, so if there WAS a problem with a specific week, it would be spread across all watch families evenly (if it wasn't, Apple customers would cry out that there was favouritism) :)
 
MICHAELSD said:
That utility isn't linked to any sort of :apple: database, so it must be discerned soley by the serial number.
Click to expand...

An easier way might be to open your activity app and look for the first time the watch was turned on. It appears they turn them on when they're built and again before shipping to the customer.
 
flur said:
An easier way might be to open your activity app and look for the first time the watch was turned on. It appears they turn them on when they're built and again before shipping to the customer.
Click to expand...

That's interesting. Mine was turned on April 15,16 and then again on April 23. I received it on April 24. Manufactured week 16.
It went from preparing for shipment to shipping on April 23.
 
flur said:
An easier way might be to open your activity app and look for the first time the watch was turned on. It appears they turn them on when they're built and again before shipping to the customer.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting one.

First powered on 22nd and then on 23rd April.

Powered on again on the 29th April, the day before I received it. They must do a final QA check in the target country before shipping :)
 
iamasmith said:
That's an interesting one.

First powered on 22nd and then on 23rd April.

Powered on again on the 29th April, the day before I received it. They must do a final QA check in the target country before shipping :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, my guess is that the first turn on is when the build is complete, the next is the day they box for shipping to the target country, and the one right before shipping to the customer is a final check to make sure nothing happened in transit.
 
your week 14 you just received could be a returned Watch from a previous customer. Was thinking perhaps using the Activity trick you could figure this out, but my guess is they would completely wipe all data on a returned watch when going thru whatever re-testing they do on a return to make it "brand new" once again.
 
CellXor10 said:
your week 14 you just received could be a returned Watch from a previous customer. Was thinking perhaps using the Activity trick you could figure this out, but my guess is they would completely wipe all data on a returned watch when going thru whatever re-testing they do on a return to make it "brand new" once again.
Click to expand...

Well, if it has a "first turned on" date that isn't in week 14, it could indicate that it's a refurb. But I can't see Apple selling returned watches as new.

It is possible that it was a returned watch that was never opened, in which case the activity "first turned on" date should still be week 14, but the third "turned on" date might be well before it shipped to the OP.

I'm just guessing on all of this, of course.
 
I received my Apple Watch Sport on April 24th and the label on the package said: "Pick-up date: 08/05". Is Apple holding back orders? I find this note very odd.
 
flur said:
Yeah, my guess is that the first turn on is when the build is complete, the next is the day they box for shipping to the target country, and the one right before shipping to the customer is a final check to make sure nothing happened in transit.
Click to expand...

Mine has activity 4/19, 4/20, 4/26 and I received it on the 27th. I can't see how Apple would be turning the watch on the day before I received it, because it was in Kentucky or TN (wherever UPS is) on that day. No way they are doing final packaging in the US. Wonder what the deal is.
 
dacreativeguy said:
Mine has activity 4/19, 4/20, 4/26 and I received it on the 27th. I can't see how Apple would be turning the watch on the day before I received it, because it was in Kentucky or TN (wherever UPS is) on that day. No way they are doing final packaging in the US. Wonder what the deal is.
Click to expand...

The watches are shipping Next Day Air Saver, so UPS picked it up on 4/26 from Apple. Odds are good someone turned it on to check it before it was boxed and given to UPS.
 
Nik said:
I received my Apple Watch Sport on April 24th and the label on the package said: "Pick-up date: 08/05". Is Apple holding back orders? I find this note very odd.
Click to expand...

I feel like Apple might be constraining supply to artificially boost demand.
 
dacreativeguy said:
Mine has activity 4/19, 4/20, 4/26 and I received it on the 27th. I can't see how Apple would be turning the watch on the day before I received it, because it was in Kentucky or TN (wherever UPS is) on that day. No way they are doing final packaging in the US. Wonder what the deal is.
Click to expand...

Thats funny you mention that. Mine had activity almost 2 weeks before I received it! Then 3-4 days before I received it. The watch was clearly made, so why it took so long to receive, I don't know.
 
flur said:
An easier way might be to open your activity app and look for the first time the watch was turned on. It appears they turn them on when they're built and again before shipping to the customer.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how well this is the case, I get it and it makes sense, but check this out.

Mine shows activity on April 12 and 13. It was shipped on April 24. It shows activity on April 26, that's a Sunday, it was sitting at my local UPS hub. I picked it up the next morning on Monday.
 
dacreativeguy said:
Mine has activity 4/19, 4/20, 4/26 and I received it on the 27th. I can't see how Apple would be turning the watch on the day before I received it, because it was in Kentucky or TN (wherever UPS is) on that day. No way they are doing final packaging in the US. Wonder what the deal is.
Click to expand...

China is one day ahead, so 4/27 in China is 4/26 in America.
 
Maybe the activity on the day before it "arrived" (more likely in my mind, "was paired with your phone") is simply a bug that when it is paired it creates a blank activity on the day before. What makes me think this is that I had my watch off whilst waiting for a replacement band and during that time I reset my phone to factory settings and restored a backup. When I turned my watch back on (5th May) for the first time since I'd turned it off (29th May) it then wiped itself and re-paired with my phone, setting itself up again from the backup. After doing this I have a day of blank activity showing on the 4th just like I had on the 23rd April the day before my watch arrived.

tl;dr I think the original two days of being on is most likely the testing during manufacture, but the last one I believe is a bug that simply adds activity to the day before your watch was paired with a phone.
 
MrGimper said:
My week 14 I received on the 30 April had activity on 18/19/29 April
Click to expand...

My dates are different, but the deltas are the same--I have activity on 2/3/13 May and was received on 14 May. I can't imagine it taking 11 days to put a band on it and get it to the USA. Instead, I think one of two things:

(1) bands are delaying everything on every SKU. Certainly mine (leather loop) seemed to be a band delay, but perhaps even sport bands are causing delays

OR

(2) the internals of the watch are assembled and bench tested prior to going down the final case assembly line. It takes 12 days from logic board/S1 assembly to final packaging.
 
rritterson said:
My dates are different, but the deltas are the same--I have activity on 2/3/13 May and was received on 14 May. I can't imagine it taking 11 days to put a band on it and get it to the USA. Instead, I think one of two things:

(1) bands are delaying everything on every SKU. Certainly mine (leather loop) seemed to be a band delay, but perhaps even sport bands are causing delays

OR

(2) the internals of the watch are assembled and bench tested prior to going down the final case assembly line. It takes 12 days from logic board/S1 assembly to final packaging.
Click to expand...

(2) Is an interesting option because the S1 is fairly static, whereas the case would have screen, button, crown etc... i.e. the bits that would most likely vary in the owners eyes (buttons feel different, alleged screen differences)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back