Well, I'm not one of those folks, so we can set that aside, you and I.
> 1. With previous launches, people actually left the store with the swag. It created great scenes on the street of people joyously opening their boxes or running around hold their box over their head like a trophy.
Yes. My uninformed guess is that Apple -may- have wanted that sort of scene, but couldn't pull it off for some reason. Maybe the product wasn't ready, and they felt they couldn't delay the launch sufficiently to cover it. Remember Microsoft's Vista debacle? They were many years late because of technical problems. But the reason that the Vista launch was considered flawed was not just that it was late, but the product was pretty egregious. If Apple's Watch is similarly egregious, we'll hear about it soon enough. But that hasn't come to pass yet. I'm holding the thought that they found it took longer than expected to get to a product that could be sold in quantity without serious problems. And that is the CORRECT decision, managerially. You don't release a crap product just because your calendar says you have to -- you take the heat and get it as right as you can.
I might have waited longer, so that people -could- leave the store with the swag. But I'm not Tim Cook.
> 2. Apple is touting the watch as an extremely “personal” device, but the only way to get one right now is to order it online - a very impersonal way of shopping.
I consider that a crap complaint. I order Chanel "Chance" perfume, an expensive and VERY personal gift for my fiancee, over the internet. You know what? It smells the same on her as if I had bought it at a fancy boutique in the Big City. The Watch might be "personal" but there are damn few who give a crap how they get it. This complaint is fantasy in the mind of the blogger.
> 3. The “try one on” process feels like a letdown. a) Because some locations don’t have the correct fit in style the consumer is really looking for and b) it creates a non-impulse buy scenario.
Not having enough product on hand is an error on Apple's part. They should have had a bazillion of these ready to go. They played it safe, in this case, an error.
> 4. There’s a bunch of complaints about the logistics being way too conservative. Something about only 200k units originally created or something. People think that the logistics will take too long to catch up to potential demand, which may temper *long term* demand.
Same comment as #3.
> Bottom line is that people (mostly Apple fans, actually) are asking “why would I rush down to the store to see something I can’t actually own right now?”
Yeah, that's valid I guess. I might feel that way myself, were I interested in a Watch.
> The thoughts I’ve read is that Apple would have been wiser to create a wide-appeal base unit that they could have put in the store, then allowed for customized options for the discriminating shopper.
That's not a bad idea. Matter of judgment, with 20-20 hindsight.
> Again - this is what I’ve read from the various articles where consumers are disappointed with the launch. I haven’t been near an Apple store in god-knows-how long.
Well, as we all know, the data you get from a survey depends mightily on whom you survey and how many of them you talk to. If you go by the "articles where consumers are disappointed with the launch", then by definition you're going to get the impression the launch was a failure. But it ain't over, and I have not seen a majority of Watch customers talking about how disappointed they are. Not yet anyway.
I'll wait for the launch to be mostly over before I evaluate it as a success or failure. Monetarily it's a screaming success, of course, but that's not what we're talking about. We're discussing "perception".
> (I also went to a mall for the first time in, like, three months this past weekend. Like I typical guy, though, when I go to a mall, it’s with a mission for a specific purchase.) There seems to be enough of these articles to support the notion that - *COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING* - Apple has not executed this launch as well as previous launches.
Well, for now I'll certainly agree that it's quite different from previous launches. And I would have done a few things more like in previous launches myself.
Let's see how it all shakes out. Apple customers vote with their pocketbooks like anybody else. If the Watch and its launch are a failure, it'll be obvious as hell in a few months at most.
All reasonable observations with which I agree. Thanks!