Apple Watch SE

On Black Friday and the MagSafe Duo

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The Apple product year has largely ended. It is quite unlikely for Apple to make any new product announcements from now until the start of 2021, so the next few weeks are likely to be light on Apple news. You will probably see worsening Covid-19 situations, news of lockdowns, and even mass hysteria episodes, instead of hearing about the AirPods Studio or the Apple Silicon iMac.

This week though, is Black Friday Week. On a certain e-commerce giant’s site in another country, the latest Apple Watches (both Series 6 and SE) are now available for 20% off MSRP. I am not going to get into the how-to of freight forwarding, DuckDuckGo is your friend for that. Seriously, if you are going to focus on only one thing this whole week, focus on getting the best deals from Black Friday. This is a once in a year thing, and everyone needs new toys to cheer up a bit from all the 2020 things.

Remember the MagSafe Duo? People make jokes about how it will end up like AirPower and never show up. But it is a extremely simple device. It is no different from making a dual-pad Qi charger or a Qi charger with an integrated Apple Watch charger. Reviews have already went up on YouTube since one or two weeks ago. Is it worth the price? Nah, probably not. You really have to want the “convenience” of the travel friendly folding design to justify paying 199 Singapore dollars for the thing. It is nothing more than a foldable rubber pad with the MagSafe and Apple Watch chargers nicely integrated. Yes you save on using separate chargers for two cables, but that issue is easily solved with any multi port chargers on the market. Sure, it looks nice. But I can spend that $199 on a leather case and a MagSafe wallet for my iPhone 12 and still have change left over. It is like the official Apple Watch dock. It is a simple accessory that is well made and nice, and the only question is if you like it enough to pay what Apple wants for it. I tend to answer no to that question. But you do you.

By the way, are there any fanatic genuine Apple Watch band collectors in Singapore? Do reach out.

Apple Watch Series 6 (PRODUCT)RED Aluminum and Blue Aluminum Unboxings

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Thanks to a friend, I am able to do the PRODUCT(RED) unboxing. The blue watch I had purchased when the watch was first announced, but subsequently returned when the bundled band did not fit into the watch’s slots.

The PRODUCT(RED) Series 6

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The Blue Series 6

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The blue watch is very dark

I first unboxed it in a indoor environment with only artificial lighting available, and at first sight I did not like it. In most less than idea lighting, you will not be able to tell the Blue watch from the Space Grey watch. The shade of blue on the watch looks pretty nice if you are in strong, bright lighting, but for most other situations, the blue watch is going to look very understated. If that is what you are going for, the blue watch is worth considering. However, I went to the Apple Store to take a look at the PRODUCT(RED) watch when it was just out, and the blue just looked really dull next to the bright and shiny thing that is the PRODUCT(RED) watch, even in Apple Store lighting.

Band pairing is an art

Unlike the relatively safe colours out for the Apple Watch so far, the blue and PRODUCT(RED) watches will NOT look nice when paired with certain watch band colours. If you made a bad pairing, everyone is going to know that you have no taste. However, for those who are either band savvy or just plan to use the bundled band, you are going to be just fine.

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Nah.

Public Service Announcement regarding the geniune Apple Sport Bands this year

…and especially this season. I was first made aware of this issue when the bundled Deep Navy sport band did not fit into my blue Series 6, and I had to return the watch. After much discussions with fellow genuine ‘Apple Watch Band masketeers’ online, we discovered that the quality control of the sport bands are extremely lacking this year, especially for the bands announced with the Series 6 and SE. The two main complaints are either the band is too thin and can not lock into place when slot into the watch, or the band is too thick and cannot even fit into the slots in the first place. There are cases where only one or two (out of three) of the sport band parts in the box have this issue, so for now the advice is to buy directly from Apple where you get the choice of returning or a direct swap (within 14 days from purchase) if you find such issues. If you buy in store and try it on there and then, you can get an immediate swap if the bands do not fit.

Cannot afford a new Apple Watch this year? Dying to find out if your Apple Watch Series 2, 1 and 0 can pair with iOS 14 phones? Find out..

The Curious Case of the Demo Apple Watch Bands

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What we have here are two original Apple Watch Bands that have curious packaging – they are being labeled as DEMO and Demo – Not for Resale. Obviously someone either can not read English or just blatantly decided to ignore that line, if not these will not be here right now.

I have personally verified that both bands are genuine (there are a bunch of tell-tale signs for knock-offs) and unused.

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The boxes themselves are void of any designs or any prints, and are completely white (save for the dirt on them). Labels are affixed on them to indicate the contents.

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The first box’s label read “Apple Watch 42mm Flamingo Sport Demo” while the second read “42MM Space Orange/Anthracite Woven Nylon Band” and both have “Demo – Not for Resale” printed on the same label. A quick check reveals that e Woven Nylon was introduced in the Fall of 2017 and the Flamingo Sport Band was introduced in Summer of 2017. So maybe the format of the label changed during the span of six months.

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The contents of the boxes, however, are exactly like those of the usual retail packaging, with one exception – there is no extra slip of paper for the usual Terms and Conditions. Otherwise it looks exactly like the usual three flap packaging with the cutouts that hold the bands in.

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What I have gathered online is that these demo watch bands are not officially listed in the sales system, and are offered to Apple Premium Resellers for the primary purpose of displaying them or for customers to try on. Why they are being sold without any signs of usage is a mystery, and probably has more to do with the ineffectiveness of Apple to control their third party resale channels in certain countries, as well as the integrity of the humans involved. So who gets the money from the sale? My guess is that Apple does not get a single cent from the purchase.

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Are these rare? Probably not. If you know where to get them from, you will likely find a bunch of them from your usual genuine Apple Watch band sources.

I do not plan on keeping the boxes, they arrived slightly dirty and dusty, and knowing where they came from make me feel unsafe in keeping the packaging (I guess it is as dangerous as buying stuff from Amazon US). So the contents of these boxes, along with some others, will go through a soap and water cleansing regime, before being added to my growing collection of original Apple Watch Bands.

Online Apple Store is down! 3 hrs 33mins to Apple Event

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According to the rumors, we will see;

  1. Apple Watch Series 6
  2. Apple Watch SE
  3. iPad Air 4
  4. iPad 8
  5. Air Tags
  6. Apple One Service

Can’t wait!