April 24--Want to walk away with an Apple Watch from a store on Friday? Better get moving.
More than a dozen people had begun lining up Thursday afternoon to buy the new gadget from a high-end fashion boutique in West Hollywood, which is one of only a handful of retailers worldwide set to have it available for sale.
A manager at Maxfield, located on Melrose Avenue, confirmed that the store would begin selling the Apple Watch at 9 a.m. Friday on a first-come, first-served basis. Crowds had begun to gather at least 15 hours before. One man said on Twitter that he had been there since about noon Thursday. He brought along a fold-up chair. The store manager declined to say whether any extra security measures were being put in place.
Maxfield, along with boutiques in Paris, London, Tokyo and Berlin, is one of the few places where customers can walk out with a watch on Friday. The websites for the boutiques, which include Dover Street Market in London and Tokyo, the Corner in Berlin and Colette in Paris, all have prominently advertised the watch's debut. Apple announced the names of the retailers last month.
Watches are also being sold on Apple's website, but they might not be delivered to customers for several weeks. Unlike in previous product releases, Apple enthusiasts can't take the watch home with them from the Apple Store. The base price of the watch, which comes in three varieties, spans $349 to about $10,000.
Update
6:11 p.m. This post was updated to reflect that people had begun lining up at Maxfield.
The original version of this article was published at 12:27 p.m.
