Looks like most people's orders have been updated to processing, meaning they are about to ship. The estimated 2-3 weeks (I ordered on 9/1) will be two business days late if shipped Monday, but not really late, as it was estimated.
This is often part of preordering a more complex device or product. Apple is reporting back logs on orders placed for the watch. I don't know if they are proactively contacting users, but I doubt they would if it was a matter of a couple of days. Preorder ship dates of this nature are not precision, but based on a number of complex factors that may change at any time (for instance, a single boat delayed by a day or two or more at port for customs inspections) This is common in my experience with preorders on anything except media like blu rays.
And if you think the message is changing, it has been consistently been the same for over a week: US shipments are heading out next week...UK in October. This is what was stated in the original press release and what is happening. The 3-4 week statement seemed to be for U.K. customers, but the source of that is unclear based on calls to help desks that may not know the correct answer because the expectation is that customers aren't going to be calling 2-3 weeks early asking if their orders are shipping on time in the future. They aren't expecting calls until something is late. If you called Thursay, when you say you felt it was late, they had been giving the "next week" answer they had been giving for some time by then.
Anyway, my message is to a user who had stated he was irritated that it hadn't shipped yet, not yourself.
