Forget the spin, we don't yet know whether the Apple Watch is a success
Like many, I placed an order for an Apple Watch. At 12:05 a.m. PDT to be exact. On my iPhone using Apple Pay. The reason it took me four minutes to place the order is that I needed to decide between two models. In the end, I selected the one that Apple said would be delivered by April 24. Or “4/24-5/8” to be exact, whatever that means.
I ended up buying the 42mm sapphire crystal model with a black sports band. The other one that I considered was the 42mm sapphire crystal model with a black leather loop. Four minutes after preorders began, Apple’s online store showed that model with a shipping time of “4 to 6 weeks,” if my blurry-eyed memory is correct. I live on the East Coast of the United States, where it was 3:05 a.m. local time.
I’m only bringing this up because of the many headlines we’ve been seeing in the past few hours, which all suggest that the Apple Watch is flying off the virtual shelves.
Headlines like these:
Now, I’m not saying that the Apple Watch launch hasn’t been successful. In fact, I believe that it has. However, when folks start talking about how certain models are now not available until June, you have to consider where delivery times started for certain models.
At 12:01 a.m., not every Apple Watch model showed a “4/24-5/8” delivery date. Some, like the one I mentioned above, showed a shipping time of “4 to 6 weeks” at the start. Others mentioned a “May” delivery date.
Apple did warn us about this on Thursday when they announced that initial orders would only be taken online. Apple PR will almost certainly leave that point out when they announce “unprecedented” early demand for the Apple Watch in the coming days.
We won’t know how successful the Apple Watch has become until Cupertino announces the company’s earnings for the third quarter, and that won’t happen until July. And even then, the company isn’t guaranteed to give us raw sales numbers, though they probably will.
Hopefully, I’ll be getting my hands on an Apple Watch to call my own on Friday, April 24. Or is it going to be May 8, Apple?