Apple Watch Pre-Orders Don’t Allow Users to Mix and Match Preferred Bands and Cases

After months of waiting, Apple is finally opening up pre-orders for its extremely hyped Apple Watch product on April 10. But in case you were hoping to get a specific case and band combination, we have to tell you that you’re out of luck.

As pointed out by iMore, come launch day, only a variety of Apple Watch and band combinations will be available, as shown by the official pairings in the Apple Store previews. The products will be grouped in collections.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t be able to get the combination you desire. Customers will be given the opportunity to pick separate watch bands in-store and online. The caveat is that you won’t be able to mix and match the Watch models and bands to your preference.

To get your desired combination, you'll need to buy extra bands

The plan is for customers to pick up a pre-determined combination and then go buy a new band and swap it over by themselves.

We don’t know how this will play out eventually, but we can only guess that over time Apple will allow customers to pick out their favorite combinations off the bat. The Cupertino tech giant is probably aiming to keep things as simple as possible in order to avoid any complications from the supply chain or retailers.

So if you want a space gray aluminum case for your watch and a colored band, you’ll have to buy the colored band separately and swap out the original. Or you could just choose to wait for Apple to fix this problem, but it might take a few months.

Additional bands will be priced starting from $49 / €45 for the 38nm Sport Band up to $449 / €414 for the 42nm Link Bracelet.

If you visit the Apple Watch Online Store, you can get an idea of the options you’ll be able to choose from on April 10. These will be the only models available for shipping on April 24. At least as far as the first batch of Apple Watches is concerned.

The Apple Watch was officially unveiled in March 2015, during the company’s “Spring Forward” event which also saw the debut of the ultra-slim, fanless Retina MacBook.