A Cheat Sheet on How to Get the Apple Watch

A Cheat Sheet on How to Get the Apple Watch

So you don’t live in any of the nine countries the Apple Watch is currently available in. Here’s how you get your hands on the coveted timepiece.

Apple Watch Cheat Sheet

Everyone’s excited to get their hands on the new Apple Watch, but not every country is on the first wave release. For the uninformed, the Apple Watch is only available in nine countries so far: Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the U.K. and U.S. via the Apple Online Store.

It’s also on sale in select fashion retail stores like Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Isetan in Tokyo, Selfridges in London, Colette in Paris, Dover Street Market in London and Tokyo, Maxfield in Los Angeles and The Corner in Berlin.

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(from left to right) Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch & Apple Watch Edition

Three models are available: Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition. Prices range from US$349 for the 38mm Apple Watch Sport to an eye-watering US$17,000 for the 42mm Apple Watch Edition in Rose Gold.

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Currently, it’s sold out everywhere.

In fact, it was sold out less than 6 hours after Apple began taking pre-orders on its online store on April 10th, 12:01am Pacific Time (3:01am Singapore time). If you order the watch now via the online stores in the abovementioned nine countries, the watch will only ship in July.

There’s no word on when it’ll be available in Singapore, but expect no earlier than the fourth quarter of this year. That’s a crazy long wait. But if you want to get it sooner, it’s possible. One of our readers managed to get the watch, and you can too. All you need is a credit card and a good friend living in any of the nine countries in the first wave release.

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Our lucky reader with his sleek Apple Watch

Here’s how to get your Apple Watch:

1. Plan a trip to visit your friend in any of the nine countries in August. Why August? Well, Apple will only ship the watch in July, but a specific date won’t be provided. So head to the country in August to play it safe.

2. Meanwhile, visit the Apple Online Store of the respective country. For instance, if you’re heading to Australia, hit up the Australian Online Store.

3. Sign in with your Apple ID.

4. Click on “Shop Watch”.

5. Pick the model you want.

6. Click on “Check out”.

7. Under “Shipping Address”, fill in your friend’s overseas address.

8. This is the important bit: Under “Billing Address”, do not fill in your actual credit card billing address (which is a local address), but your friend’s overseas address.

9. Wait until August. Travel to the respective country to meet your champ of a friend, get your hands on the Apple Watch, and be the envy of everyone back home.

Note: You can’t use a freight forwarding service like Comgateway, Shipito and vPost to order the Apple Watch – Apple will cancel the order. But you can get your friend to ship the watch to Singapore once he receives it, of course.

Know of other ingenious ways to get the Apple Watch ahead of the crowd? Share it with us in Comments below!

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