Two weeks ago, I posted my review of Apple's AirPods. I continue to use them every day and really love them. In my post, I expressed optimism that it would soon be easier to find AirPods in stores. Unfortunately, however, that hasn't been the case, and virtually every Apple Store has been out of stock for the past two weeks. You can place an order for AirPods on the Apple website, but the estimated shipping date is currently six weeks.
If you want to try to get them sooner than that, I recommend that you use the Is In Stock website. This website monitors every single Apple retail location, and online stores such as Best Buy, Target, AT&T and Verizon, to see whether they have any AirPods in stock. Of course, once one of these stores gets more AirPods in stock, they are usually sold out within minutes. For this reason, the website allows you to set up alerts so that you get an email notifying you when more AirPods are in stock at a particular store.
The basic alert service is free, but the website makes money by letting you purchase priority alerts. The cost is reasonable: one alert for $2, three alerts for $3 and five alerts for $4. Emails are sent to those in the priority queue before alerts are sent to users of the free service.
[UPDATE 2/6/2017: It looks like the alert pricing system changed. Now, you pay $5.00 for unlimited priority alerts for 30 days. Those alerts are more expensive, but are also better because (1) you can get text message alerts in addition to email and (2) you can get alerts for multiple stores within an up to 100 mile radius of a location, unlike the old system that made you configure and pay for separate priority alerts for each store.]
How much earlier are the priority emails sent? I'm not exactly sure, but I can offer this anecdote. Back on December 29th, I purchased three priority alerts for $3 for my local Apple Store, the store at Lakeside Shopping Center in Metairie, LA (a suburb of New Orleans). Fortunately for me, the AirPods I ordered in December arrived at my office on January 5, so I didn't have to rely on this service. Nevertheless, on January 11 at 11:09 Central, I received a notice that there were AirPods in stock at my local store:
Just below the animated GIF of Apple CEO Tim Cook dancing, there was a link that said "Reserve your AirPods today." I clicked on the link, and sure enough I saw that I could pay for AirPods and pick them up that same day at my local Apple Store. I checked again about 20 minutes later, and that store was once again out of stock.
I don't know how much later than 11:09 Central the alert was received by those on the non-premium email list. But I do see that the Is In Stock website tweeted to the public the availability at my local Apple Store at 11:16, about seven minutes after I received my notice:
Apple Lakeside Shopping Center just re-stocked Apple AirPods! Get 'em before they're gone: https://t.co/S3iqQs3tME
— AirPods Stock Alerts (@airpodsalerts) January 11, 2017
I assume that the email to non-priority folks went out around the same time as that tweet, which means that paying for the priority notification resulted in receiving notice around 5-10 minutes before the general public was notified. Given that AirPods often sell out just a few minutes after a store has availability, that 5-10 minutes of advance notice could make a difference.
As I noted above, I paid $3 to get three notifications. So far, I have only received that first notification on January 11 because there has been no additional stock in the last two weeks. Hopefully, Apple will soon be ready to send additional AirPods to all of its stores.
There are other potential ways to get AirPods quickly, at a cost. For example, I see that there are Amazon sellers claiming that they can ship you AirPods immediately, but they are charging $300 for AirPods which Apple sells for $159. That's a steep premium, and I wonder if those sellers are even trustworthy. So I don't recommend that approach.
If you are eager to purchase a pair of AirPods, I encourage you to at least use the free alert service provided by the Is In Stock website. And if you can spare $2, I think it is worth it to sign up for at least one priority alert so that you are in the front of the line to get the notification. My email came from "[email protected]" if you want to add that to your VIP list so that your iPhone beeps or vibrates just as soon as the email shows up in your inbox.
For those still trying to get AirPods, good luck, and I hope that this helps!
