If you are absolutely sure you are never going to buy an Apple Watch — and certainly not version 1.0 — you can stop reading right now.
But if you’re an early adopter like me — or a reseller working the global arbitrage — and you can’t decide without physically weighing the 38 combinations of size, material and band, you’re out of luck.
That’s because pre-orders start at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time, and there’s a very good chance that by the time doors open at your nearest Apple Store, all the models you had in mind will have already sold out.
“The best way to get in line is online,” retail chief Angela Ahrendts’ is reported to have told store employees Friday in a “confidential” video message guaranteed to leak.
The Guided Tours, the alloy videos, the TV ads now in heavy rotation may be as close as most buyers are going to get to the Watch itself for some time.
Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple (AAPL) coverage at coins2day.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.