The Edition watch is Apple’s first foray into the luxury wearables market, with prices starting at $10,000 and climbing all the way up to $17,000. With that kind of cash at stake, the Silicon Valley company is hellbent on making sure the poors don’t get their grubby hands on it, starting with only having it on display at stores in rich neighborhoods.
If you want to try on the Apple Watch Edition, you can’t just walk into any old Apple Store and ask to see one. Instead, you have to find the fanciest store in your city’s fanciest neighborhood and schedule an appointment for a 50-minute one-on-one walk-through. Though Apple has stores all over Manhattan, it’s only offering the Edition at the locations in the poshest neighborhoods: Soho, the Upper West Side, and at that crazy glass cube on Fifth Avenue. It’s the same for other cities: Philadelphians have to trek downtown to Rittenhouse, Bostonites are ushered to the store on Boylston Street, and those in Houston have to go to an “upscale shopping center” in Highland Village.
According to Apple’s scheduling tool, the rich people of Soho have booked all of the upcoming appointments — every single one of them — so anyone in New York or New Jersey with $17,000 to throw away will have to make an appointment at one of the other two locations. Unfortunately, those are all booked for today and through most of the weekend.
If you’re absolutely positive you want to purchase the Edition and don’t need to schedule a walk-through to be sure about dropping that $17,000, then you can order one online — but you’ll have to wait two months for it to be shipped to you. The economy’s back, baby!
