Taptic Engine Fault Behind Apple Watch’s Limited Availability

The watch’s key component from a Chinese supplier is found to be defective

There was no doubt about the number of fans Apple had for their Watch and the hype beginning from the pre orders and surrounding the launch date clearly gave an idea about how much Apple would have to stock up on their smartwatch. Unfortunately, things didn’t go about as expected and the high-in-demand Apple Watch has been short supply since it launched in the market. According to the latest report on the scenario, the Taptic Engine is to be blamed for all this mess.

The company’s supply chain showed errors occurring in this key component and hence all early supplies of the watch were subject to severe limitations as stated by The Wall Street Journal. The good news is that Apple has been particularly careful about the defected engines and not even a single unit of the Apple Watch has shipped with a faulty component. However, the defective supply of this key component, which is dependent upon two different suppliers, forced Apple to limit the watch’s availability following the launch.

All of the engines coming in from the Chinese supplier were defective but fortunately for Apple, the ones that came through the supplier in Japan were in working condition. If Apple didn’t have this second Japanese supplier to fall back on, the launch of the Apple Watch would have been pushed further ahead.

“After mass production began in February, reliability testing revealed that some taptic engines supplied by AAC Technologies Holdings Inc., of Shenzhen, China, started to break down over time, the people familiar with the matter said. One of those people said Apple scrapped some completed watches as a result.”

This had highly affected the shipping time for the pre orders after the watch launched into the market and recent reports claim that more than 78 percent of the pre orders still have to be shipped.