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The Apple Watch Will Hit These Six Stores Friday

by Becca Stanek

The bad news? The Apple Store will not be selling Apple Watches on Friday. But that doesn’t mean the rumors about the Apple Watch’s limited availability are necessarily true. You can still order an Apple Watch on Friday — just at another store. While Apple has opted to wait until June to debut the new watch in the Apple Store, some other high-end fashion stores around the world will put the much-buzzed-about watches on shelves on Friday.

So, what are these stores? Well, admittedly the stores where the watch will be offered on Friday are few, and the locations of most of the stores aren’t exactly a quick trip down the street. According to Engadget, these are the six fashion stores where the Apple Watch can be purchased: Maxfield in Los Angeles, Colette in Paris, France, the Corner in Berlin, Germany, 10 Corso Como in Milan, Italy, and Dover Street Market in both the United Kingdom and Japan. Forbes reports that the Apple Watch will also be available in Apple pop-ups in high-end department stores such as Selfridges in London and Galeries Lafayette in Paris.

However, buyers beware: the stores’ stocks of Apple Watches are pretty darn limited. For instance, Dover Street Market just has 350 watches available in its Japan store and 570 available in London, The New York Times reports. And if you’re hoping to buy the gold edition versions, which run at least $10,000, those are on backorder. Some of the stores also require reservations for an appointment to be made in order to purchase the watch.

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But still, this news is much better for those yearning for the Apple Watch than it seemed when Apple first announced the launch. Initially, Apple released a memo saying that the Apple Watch would only be sold online for weeks after the watch’s launch on Friday.

Moreover, for customers who went ahead and preordered the watch, the wait will be much shorter than expected. While orders will only be shipped when there is available supply, the anticipated months-long wait is already almost over for some. In some instances, the delivery status of their Apple Watch order has already switched from “processing” to “preparing for shipment,” TIME reports.

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If you missed the boat on the preorder or can’t exactly jet off to Paris or Milan on Friday, you're going to have to wait until June. Those who get their hands on the Apple Watch early will have to tell us whether it’s worth the wait.

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