The Apple Watch will be available in Apple Stores starting Friday for try-on sessions, and online pre-orders will begin on that day too. But if you were planning on continuing on a tradition of camping out in front of your local Apple Store the day of launch to get a unit, well, you might want to leave that lawn chair in the garage.
Apple announced today that it will only be taking online orders for the Apple Watch during the device’s “initial launch period.” Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s SVP of Retail and Online Stores, says that this decision was made because Apple expects demand to exceed supply at launch. However, Apple doesn’t go into detail on how long this “initial launch period” will be.
Major new iOS device launches, especially the iPhone models, have often included huge lines of consumers camping out in front of Apple Stores the night before release. Many people were likely planning to do the same with the Apple Watch, but now Apple has nipped those plans in the bud. A recently-leaked memo from Ahrendts said that “the days of waiting in line” are over, so Apple may want to prevent those lines from forming for any future product launches, possibly in part because they’re often just filled with people that will turn around and flip the new product or others that are just being paid to stand in line for someone else.
Have you ever stood in line to get a new product at launch?