“Launching a product so successful that pre-orders are overwhelming is something that Apple should be used to by now,” Andre Revilla reports for Digital Trends.
“Missing the mark by so much that your supply is out-matched by demand to the point that you can’t make product available in stores is a bit much,” Revilla reports. “his is the current situation with the new Apple Watch, Apple’s first new product category since 2010 and its hope for a strong start in Q3.”
“Slice Intelligence took a crack at measuring how many Apple watches had actually been delivered from the 1.7 million pre-orders placed,” Revilla reports. “From their investigation, it seems only about 22 percent of those orders have shipped.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This too shall pass. Good things come to those who wait.
Let’s face it, Apple never gauges demand correctly. They always undershoot, sometimes wildly. For an “operations genius,” anticipating demand, even remotely, seems to lie well outside of Tim Cook’s range of genius. We have the iPad 2 fiasco, the Great iMac Drought of Christmas 2012, and now Apple Watch, to name just three examples of wretched supply/demand imbalances at launch under Tim Cook.
That said, boy our Apple Watches are rather exclusive right now! Everybody and their mom is stopping us to ask us about them!
Also, Apple, we know you’re sensitive about battery life, but giving us some control over how long the AW display stays active would be helpful. It’s too short for some actions right now and it’s way too short for showing off the Watch to those who are interested in it.
Related articles:
Tim Cook’s mea culpa: iMac launch should have been postponed – April 24, 2013
With obtuse iPad 2 launch, Apple fails to delight 49,000 customers per day – March 21, 2011