The Apple Watch isn’t quite out yet, but that hasn’t stopped the consumer tech behemoth handing the device over to a few noted celebrities.
Beyoncé, Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour have all received the highly-anticipated hardware recently. In Beyoncé’s case, the singer was pictured at Coachella last weekend wearing a custom, double-alloyed, 18-karat gold Apple Watch Edition equipped with an 18-karat gold link bracelet.
As pointed out by TechCrunch, that special gold band is not something that has been announced as available to members of the public, even if they could afford the piece. A standard Apple Watch Edition costs US$10,000.
We don’t know if Beyoncé and co paid for the privilege of getting their watches early or whether handing out a few freebies is part of Apple’s marketing strategy. Whatever the case may be, the company has succeeded in building hype around the product. Earlier this month, we revealed that pre-order sales in the US had reached close to 1m units – 957,000 to be exact – in just three days, despite the relatively low demand for all previous smartwatches.
The new watch is available in two sizes (38mm and 42mm) and across three editions: Apple Watch Sport (US$349 to US$399), Apple Watch (US$599 to US$1,099), and from US$10,000 for the Apple Watch Edition. Because not everyone has Anna Wintour money, 62pc of those one million people who pre-ordered opted for the low-end Apple Watch Sport, with 28pc of those going for the cheapest black sport band.
Speaking last month, Apple CEO Tim Book called the product the “most advanced timepiece ever created”.