“The Apple Watch may or may not be an impressive piece of design or technology,” Mike Elgan writes for Computerworld. “But one thing is certain: Apple’s preparations for retail sales of the watch are amazing.”
“Apple last year brought in Angela Ahrendts, the former CEO of luxury brand Burberry Group, to run its Apple Watch retail push,” Elgan writes. “Apple has 453 retails stores worldwide. But that’s not enough to sell the Apple Watch, apparently. Apple is building Apple Watch stores inside luxury department stores to sell its Edition line of watches, and it may even be constructing stand-alone stores that sell nothing except the watch.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yup.
How about “Apple Watch Stores” (either stores-within-stores or as separate entities, kiosks or otherwise grander) dedicated specifically to Apple Watch customers? Watch and see. – MacDailyNews, February 3, 2015
Say hello to dedicated Apple Watch Stores. – MacDailyNews, February 13, 2015
“Apple Stores will be totally reorganized to accommodate the Apple Watch. Tables and the layout will be rearranged,” Elgan writes. “One credible report estimates that 75% to 90% of each store’s retail staff will be dedicated to helping shoppers with the Apple Watch.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, if you know you have Apple Store business to conduct, make sure you get it in before April 10th. The rest of the month and for some time beyond could be dicey.
Related articles:
Apple considering dedicated Apple Watch stores – February 19, 2015
Apple building secret Apple Watch store-within-a-store at high-end Paris department store – February 19, 2015
Jony Ive and Angela Ahrendts working on Apple Retail Store redesign for Apple Watch – February 16, 2015
Wave goodbye to the last of Apple’s mini-stores – February 13, 2015
The Apple Watch could push techies out of Apple Retail Stores – How about ‘Apple Watch Stores?’ – February 3, 2015
Apple retail veteran Bob Bridger is leaving; big changes coming – February 3, 2015
Apple’s done a great job of presenting all WATCH models virtually on their website, in the Apple Store app and in the iOS 8.2 compulsory WATCH app. Thus should relieve some of the need for live viewing in the stores. 💥😃
Wow, there are a lot people paid to hate on the Apple Watch.
It is more likely just a single person with a drive-by script
It’s not just live viewing, but, live trying the damn thing on. There’s no way to tell, regardless of careful measuring and mock-ups, precisely how the Watch will feel on your own wrist until you actually have one on your own wrist.
The online Apple Store Apple Watch web page shows all the watch and band combos you can order, with pricing.
http://store.apple.com/us/watch
Some interesting “curation” choices…
For the sport watch, the “Space Gray” watch is matched with the black Sport Band exclusively.
For the steel watch, the Modern Buckle band is only available in the 38mm size. The Leather Loop is only available in the 42mm size. The only way get the “Space Black” watch is with the Black Stainless Steel Link Bracelet.
For the gold watch, again the Modern Buckle band is only available in the 38mm size. And the Classic Buckle band is only available in the 42mm size. Curiously, this makes the most expensive Apple Watch a 38mm model at $17,000 (the buckle is fairly large and made of gold); the most expensive 42mm model is $15,000 (less gold in the band).
Even on the page with additional bands, Modern Buckle is exclusive to the 38mm size, and Leather Look is exclusive to the 42mm size.
Once again, someone’s going through lot of trouble to down rate anything Watch…I witnessed 10 votes happen in literally 2 seconds – BS.
Notice how the usual FUDsters of old, the cowards that disappeared as Apple broke “700” (and left it in the dust to set new record highs), contrary to their doomsday scenarios, have reappeared on these pages in the past week or so…?
All the FUD in the planet won”t stop the floodgates once the Watch hits the world!!!
Desperate Butt Hurt iHaters roaming all over the web doing this. Poor idiots. 😛
It doesn’t matter how high Apple goes or how many products it sells, it will continue to be damned and doomed by butt-hurt iHaters and stock manipulators. Every time Apple’s share price climbs higher they will say it can climb no higher based on some vague limit they’ve set in their heads. You’d figure who’d have the time to wait around hoping for Apple to fail. It would seem to me that Apple still has a fair amount of upside to go but then I’m not the typical Wall Street Apple naysayer. I see no point in trying to predict any company’s downfall. It simply will come when it comes.
Apparently, MDN is on the target list of some gang of Chinese scammers. This ding-down barrage started rapidly after MDN posted Order a fake Apple Watch from China and this is what you get on Friday. Apparently, that upset someone and they let loose a swarm of TardTrolls instructed to hit the 1-star buttons. What was hilarious was that the swarm hit the 1-star buttons for everything in sight on the site, including other articles completely unrelated to the offending article. Some of us watched this phenomenon spreading in real time.
Also fun, there were no actual troll comments posted on the affected pages, indicating either a bot was used to find and ding-down the posts, or more likely the TardTrolls no-speak-Engrish. 🐉💩🈵㊗🉐💩
This is a bummer since I rely on those votes to determine whether or not to include some of my jokes in my stand-up routine.
I use them to predict the weather! It’s devastating. ☔
Never leave the house without your umbrella and your tough outer shell and you’ll be fine.
… And of course your towel.
Paid to troll, perhaps?
As the worlds largest / second largest phone maker I wonder if there’s room in the middle too. Smaller than a full Apple Store but more than watches, it would be a small watch & phone retail store or kiosk.
Yes, for those who have no iPhone it stands to reason those WATCH stores will also display and sell companion iPhones too. 💥😃
I read in another thread that Apple expects to up sell and new sell a lot of iPhones with WATCHes. 😱😍🚀👅
So can anyone explain why the first Feedback post is getting (so many) negative votes?
I can only guess the negative connotation of “compulsory” in the post led people to assume the poster was being negative.
I watched the count jump 10 by the time I finished my short post above. So, something organized may be happening.
You’re right, but otherwise a valid point…
I did not mean anything negative. I simply meant to remind everyone that with the iOS 8.2 update an WATCH app that can’t be removed appears on iPhone 5 and above. 😱😃🚀
I think it’s a brilliant piece of marketing genius to have that app. Plus it morphs into the gateway to the WATCH App Store as soon as you sync your WATCH to the iPhone. Kudos to Phil Schiller and his genius Marketing team for this app and all it can be. 😎💪😜
Pre-Ordering 42mm Space Gray WATCH SPORT midnight pacific April 10. Get behind me. 😜💥😱
Get behind me Future, I’m in the Central Time Zone.
You’ll have to wait til 2am CDT. 😜💥😱
All times local right?
No. Midnight Pacific, 1 Mountain, 2 Central, 3am East
I can’t stay up that late, I’m old; crap. On the good side of things I keep getting old and will get the Apple Watch some how.
Keep getting “older” which is the whole point of living.
I’m old too. But I stay up late and sleep late into the morning. Set your iPhone alarm for Midnight Pacific and have your Store app set to order by selecting the model you plan to buy to favorite by clicking on the heart. Then ordering will be extremely fast. Just go to your accounts page where you also have all your credit card, billing and shipping stuff setup. Plus Pay set on your iPad Air 2 and or your iPhone 6/Plus. Ordering should be possible in less than 30 seconds if you have everything preset. 💥😃
FutureMedia: I believe the massive ding-down on your post was from the presumed Chinese TardTroll attack squad we watched inflicted devastating 1-star ratings, first at the ‘Order a fake Apple Watch from China…’ article, then spreading out to every other article and comment in the vicinity. It’s dark and vile retribution for our hating on dreadful Watch ripoff fraud knockoff excrement. Oh the pain. The Pain. 😆 😆 😆 😆
你他妈的，中国的刑事狗屎！:-P <3🔪🔪🔪
As was stated above Apple haters are out in force. I personally will buy the sports edition because I love running and it looks to be great as an exercise and overall health tool.
Haters are always going to hate, so I just ignore them. I don’t have to please anyone else only myself or my family. Personally I take reviews with a grain of salt. I make my own mind up in the end.
That’s fine that you are serene and oblivious to spam, hate mail, poisoned search results, bribed bloggers and analysts, planted reviews, lying commenters, and ratings hijackers, not to mention run-of-the-mill biased, ignorant, and lazy tech reporting in mainstream media. And I suppose a lot of other readers of MacDailyNews are like you and me, and make up their own minds. But all that FUD is affecting a number of other people’s buying decisions, if that were not so then all the phony baloney wouldn’t keep happening. I just think it’s wrong to try to trick consumers or delude them, even though it works.
I think it may have more to do with trying to depress the stock price. Fund managers don’t seem to dig too deeply when it comes time to buy or sell AAPL and they are the ones that swing the shares. There are enough iPhone buyers who will jump onto the appleWatch to cause a frenzy. I’m sure the watch will be another game changer. Hell, it already is a game changer and it hasn’t been released yet!!!
I agree that stock manipulation occurs and takes a number of forms. I can’t imagine, though, that it takes the form of algorithmically downvoting a favorable AAPL post even in an investor-centric forum like MDN. In cases like these I suspect a fourteen-year-old fandroid hacker seething with emotion, trying to crash the party.
I think you’re on the right track, Melanie: just some punk getting a kick from down-voting, irrelevant to the comments. Let’s not be too sensitive.
I’m pretty sure you are correct. I’m just stunned by the amount of vitriol and irrational hatred; almost a religious fervour. Similar to the political rhetoric.
“As was stated above Apple HATERS are out in force.”
I have alway wondered just how many there are.
Based on AppleInsider, when you review all comments, the number of active members and guests are posted at the bottom of the page.
Invariably, there are seldom a dozen or so ‘active’ members on the site at any one time. And for the most part, the same commentators appear all the time.
I would suggest, that the numbers of so-called ‘haters.’ are extremely small. And most importantly, we help precipitate their importance by responding to their negative rhetoric.
If I am on the right track, perhaps our best bet to get a responsible dialogue going would be to ignore the HATERS. If anything, just identify them for whatever reason as FUD’rs, i.e., those that like to spread ‘Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt’.
Nothing else. Let’s all try it and see where it goes.
Look at the other sites, you have to be registered in order to post and add a reply.
I have. Many.
Only AppleInsider shows the current number of viewers at the current time.
Again, ‘Active’ members are ‘registered and currently viewing/monitoring their site. ‘Guest’ are non-registered, i.e., cannot comment.
The so-called ‘haters’ post comments more often than ‘positive’ members.
My point is to simply ignore the ‘haters’. They relish their notoriety. And it gives them greater opportunity to retort their negative rhetoric.
Ignoring them works, but only when everyone ignores them. If even one person actively ridicules them, it infuriates them and they go about their vandalism with renewed glee. Then a site moderator might have to step in to quell the frenzy. I’ve seen that happen a couple of tImes here at MDN. You know what, the only permanent solution is to force parents to bring up their kids properly, and monitor their activity on the internet to prevent them from bullying behavior. Diet is also important.
Two things.
1) Site monitor? You have to be kidding.
2) Kids? What makes you think that all the FUD is being perpetrated by kids?
Again, “Let’s all try it and see where it goes.”
How big is the gigantic Apple watch? Is it inflatable, or will we be able to walk around inside it?
Smaller than your Android piece of wrist garbage. And it won’t smell like your mother’s rancid kimchi, either.
Everyone seems touchy today. Seems obvious you are just having fund with MDN’s title.
Listen, love it or hate it, one thing’s for sure. Apple will sell more watches in the first 5 secs than Google Glasses sold the last three years. How does that make Google feel?
And Apple will make more $ in the 1st day, yes on April 24th, from the watches than all other Android wear devices did the last nine months! Ain’t that a biatch!
Listen, love it or hate it, one things for sure. Apple will sell mor watches in the first 5 secs than Google Glasses sold the last three years!
And Apple will make more $ in the first day, April 24th, than all the Android wear gear sold the last 9 months.
Wonder how that makes Google feel? Ain’t that a biatch!
They can afford it the margin on Apple watch will be between 55% and 85%.