pre-orders

Apple announced several new products at its ‘Far Out’ event on September 7th. While many go up for pre-order on September 9th, the company’s fancy new smartwatches are already available and, unfortunately, not delivering for while.

Depending on the model and band, the Apple Watch Series 8 and the rugged Watch Ultra won’t arrive until as late as October, despite becoming available on September 16th and 23rd, respectively. Those who got a pre-order in early will likely get their watches on time, but if you haven’t pre-ordered yet, be ready for a wait.

For the Apple Watch Ultra, the medium and large ‘Alpine Band,’ all Trail Loop sizes, and the ‘Midnight’ colour ‘Ocean Band’ appear to be the most popular, with expected delivery dates ranging from early- to mid-October.

The Apple Watch Series 8 also has a few options with later expected delivery times, although thanks to the wider variety of bands, watch colours, and sizes, it’s easier to find a Series 8 set-up that will ship on September 16th.

Although I typically don’t recommend pre-ordering products, if you really want a new Apple Watch and hate waiting, you may want to place an order.

The Apple Watch Ultra starts at $1,099 in Canada. You can check it out here, or read MobileSyrup‘s hands-on to learn more. The Watch Series 8, on the other hand, starts at $529 — check it out here.

As some Canadians report issues with Surface Duo 2 pre-orders, Microsoft insists the phone is still coming to Canada.

“The Surface Duo 2 is coming to Canada,” a Microsoft spokesperson told MobileSyrup in response to questions about the status of Duo 2 pre-orders.

Those questions came after some readers shared on Twitter that Microsoft cancelled their Duo 2 pre-orders after changing the Surface Duo 2 to ‘Coming soon’ on its website.

Man I am so dissapointed too @surface can you give us an update as to why our surface duo 2 orders were cancelled?

— JR Balvin (@JuniorBalvinn) September 27, 2021

Further, that change came just hours after the company announced the Surface Duo 2 at its September Surface event. The company previously confirmed to MobileSyrup that the Duo 2 would come to Canada, with pre-orders opening on September 22nd. Further, the phone would be available to purchase at a pricey $1,899 starting October 21st, in line with the U.S. availability.

I wrote a post about how this was a great move following the original Surface Duo’s late arrival in Canada — it all went downhill after that. Shortly after publishing that post, Microsoft’s website stopped letting people pre-order the phone.

A week later, and Microsoft’s website still lists the Surface Duo 2 as ‘Coming soon.’ For now, it looks like Canadians interested in getting the Duo 2 only have the assurance of Microsoft’s continued insistence that Duo 2 will come to Canada at some point.