People hoping to buy a menagerie of Apple Watches will have their hopes dashed com launch day, according to a report by MacRumors. Apple’s Reserve and Pickup service, which lets people buy an item online and then pick it up at one of the company’s retail stores, will restrict users to the purchase of just one Watch.
Customers who make a reservation will have to bring a government-issued photo ID with them to pick up their Watch, and they’ll only be able to pick one up from a reservation that has their name on it. (In other words, no paying someone else to go pick up your $500 smartwatch.) That limit doesn’t apply to Watches shipped to a customer’s home from Apple’s online store, though it seems likely that Apple will impose similar restrictions on online purchases.
That’s a slightly higher limit than the company enforces for iPhone purchases. On launch day, people can only buy a pair of new handsets at once. The restriction is designed to maximize the number of people who can take from the limited inventory at Apple’s retail stores, plus cut down on the possibility of people purchasing a large number of the devices and then reselling them.
People who want to make sure they get a Watch when it launches on April 24 will likely be best served by pre-ordering the device as close as possible to 12:01 a.m. on Friday, when it first becomes available.
