Poor stock management or a game by Apple

It seems to be happening at other places too:
http://www.appleinsider.com/article...ts_seen_as_start_of_1m_sales_per_quarter.html
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/10/06/early-apple-tv-sales-estimated-at-1-million-per-quarter/

Just order online and you will be guaranteed to get one in 1-2 weeks. Apple is definitely keeping stocks low to show it is selling out everywhere. They always do this..

Not everything is a conspiracy.

I would imagine Apple had no idea it would sell as well as it has. Based on the previous one, they probably planned for only a 20% or so increase in sales at best but this little thing is selling like hotcakes. Now based on early reports people are predicting they'll sale more in 3 months than they had been selling all year with the older model.

Plus set top boxes in general never really sold that well. This is like how the iPad entered a tablet market that didn't sell much and being a new product Apple just wasn't able to predict demand that well.

jessica. said:

Not everything is a conspiracy.

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Agreed. I'm sure Apple's manufacturing partners only have so much capacity to build these things. So, Apple would have a choice to delay release to allow more stock to build up to accomodate the initial demand or release it as soon as some production is ready and catch up to demand in a few months. It really wouldn't make business sense to hold a bunch of stock nor would it make sense to spend a bunch of money to increase capacity to meet the initial high demand if it would likely be excess capacity in the future.

I'm not really sure what the OP expects...

jessica. said:

Not everything is a conspiracy.

Click to expand...

Exactly! Why do some people always gravitate towards conspiracies? And Nintendo did the same thing with the Wii...just to make people want them more, they purposely held back hundreds of thousands of units.

I think these companies want to sell as many as possible. If they had a guarantee of how many would be purchased up front, then they probably could have stockpiled many more before launch, but you never know what will happen. It is smart to wait and see what demand is like before you put the factories in full steam ahead mode.

The first ATV didn't sell very well, and I'm sure Apple was a little skeptical if it would catch on in the beginning, especially since there was no App store.

Game/conspiracy? No.
Poor stock management? Nah, don't think so.
Demand way higher than anticipated? Oh he-double-hockey-sticks yeah.

They're the Tickle Me Elmo of the tech world this season, I tell ya.

After calling/stopping by my local Apple Store in vain for nearly a week, I stopped in today on my lunch break and finally snagged one. I had even made calls to a local Apple reseller, who had put in an order when the new model came out but won't get them until the end of the month.

Apple does seem to have mastered building buzz about their products and selling out everywhere is one way of having that happen. Whether or not it's intentional, I don't know. I tend to think it's not, since the thing didn't even have an official launch day where TV crews could come and film people lined up outside the door.

What impresses me is that they're managing to sell out despite doing almost no marketing for the thing. You'd think the unit would earn enough respect to get its own TV spot by now.

Just walked in to Apple store and Purchased one!

Just got off work , Went to the Apple store by my house and asked to purchase a new Apple TV, guy said sure walked over to the shelf and handed me one. There were at least 10-15 on the two shelves , but When I asked how many they had and if it was selling fast.... Guy said selling out everyday , but that apple has been sending shipments everyday (150-250) and most people are not buying just 1 on avg. he is seeing 2to3 per person and sone people walking in and buying 5 or more......Must be selling well.....

I guess i could have ordered one and waited 1-2 weeks

Seems odd that apple store is getting shipments everyday and the website has a 1-2 weeks...lol

jessica. said:

Not everything is a conspiracy.

Click to expand...

+1 This looks to be a VERY popular item. I know a few people who ordered them already. I ordered one for my Dad for Christmas and it just shipped yesterday. It was ordered only 2 days after the announcement.

I kind of wish I'd of ordered one for myself but I held off since everyone claims you can stream video to a PS3...I still haven't found a way to do that so it looks like an Apple TV for me

Will move like hotcakes. $99 is nothing for an Apple product.

And this thing beats the pants off the over-priced Apple-branded iPod AV cable/dock/remote/usb power adapter setup that had the same price.


There's alot of ipod owners out there.

And just the digital picture frame capabilities alone will be worth $99 to many consumers.

It's also great for those minimalist setups. For a kid's room. etc.

my ship date suddenly moved up

Yesterday, my ship date online was October 19 to arrive October 22 but then I just got an email today, October 8, saying it shipped and it should arrive October 13! So, supplies are coming in.

chrono1081 said:

+1 This looks to be a VERY popular item. I know a few people who ordered them already. I ordered one for my Dad for Christmas and it just shipped yesterday. It was ordered only 2 days after the announcement.

I kind of wish I'd of ordered one for myself but I held off since everyone claims you can stream video to a PS3...I still haven't found a way to do that so it looks like an Apple TV for me

Click to expand...

trip1ex said:

Will move like hotcakes. $99 is nothing for an Apple product.

And this thing beats the pants off the over-priced Apple-branded iPod AV cable/dock/remote/usb power adapter setup that had the same price.


There's alot of ipod owners out there.

And just the digital picture frame capabilities alone will be worth $99 to many consumers.

It's also great for those minimalist setups. For a kid's room. etc.

Click to expand...

This could be the new "gateway drug" into the Apple entertainment ecosystem, which Apple needs now that iPod sales are relatively flat.

I have the Apple Composite cable/charger setup; it's OK for travel, but I wouldn't use it extensively at home except with an older TV. For any TV with HDMI, the new tv is the way to go.

chrono1081 said:

+1 This looks to be a VERY popular item. I know a few people who ordered them already. I ordered one for my Dad for Christmas and it just shipped yesterday. It was ordered only 2 days after the announcement.

I kind of wish I'd of ordered one for myself but I held off since everyone claims you can stream video to a PS3...I still haven't found a way to do that so it looks like an Apple TV for me

Click to expand...

This is what I use. Works well.

Saying that, after a couple of days of playing with the ATV2 which I ordered for my parents, I have ordered one. Why?

1) Much quieter than PS3.
2) Much less energy usage.
3) Saves running the PS3 all the time for media.
4) iTunes integration.
5) I can use all the audio functions with remote on the iphone and don't need the TV to be on.

Saying that, the Flickr implementation is terrible. You only have access to public albums, which makes it worse than the website.