With a median household income of more than $250,000, Chevy Chase, Maryland is among the wealthiest communities in the United States. But all that disposable income isn’t enough to convince Apple to put the super-luxe version of its new watch in one of its two retail stores in neighboring Bethesda, which is no slouch itself at median family income of $197,622. Same goes for high-income earners who are within spitting distance of Apple stores in Reston ($142,404), Arlington ($145,941), and Howard County ($108,844).
Instead, if you’re itching to drop some serious scratch on the Apple Watch Edition, which retails between $10,000 and $17,000, but want to test the thing out before pulling out the Centurion Card, you can only go to the Apple Stores in Georgetown or Tysons Corner Center.
What gives? For starters, even though Apple is displaying its entry-level watch models in every store, those are display models only—all sales will be online for now. But the Edition watch, which, on Apple’s website, is sold out until at least June, is only getting IRL presentation at 21 Apple Stores across the United States, according to Mac Rumors. And even then, it’s not as though just any schmo can walk in and play with the demo model. You have to make an appointment for a 50-minute demonstration with a “specialist.”
But local demand is apparently quite hot. Even on a workday, the first appointment I could make wasn’t until 4 PM at the Tysons Corner store. After all, Georgetown (median household income $132,814) and Tysons Corner (which is part of McLean, median household income $179,066) have plenty of Apple’s target demographic.
Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.
