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"Preparing for Shipment!" 64gb, black, AT&T. Ordered through Apple Store app at 12:05 am, confirmation timestamped at 12:07. What are the odds I'll recieve it early like I did with the iP4 (that one arrived on a Wednesday).
 
the 64gb iphone 5 is $849. For a phone, that's luxury. You're quoting sub.price on the lowest model. It's like buying a bmw that cost $90k for $20k but you have to keep it for 5 years with the words bmw plastered on your forehead till your contract runs out.

a****ingmen.
 
"Preparing for Shipment!" 64gb, black, AT&T. Ordered through Apple Store app at 12:05 am, confirmation timestamped at 12:07. What are the odds I'll recieve it early like I did with the iP4 (that one arrived on a Wednesday).

I think they plugged that hole last year. :(
 
It's a paper launch where I live. Won't arrive here until December. And I basically live where it's manufactured (Taiwan). Same thing every year.
 
So much for it being 'boring'.

Do you think that has anything to do with it? If they sold the 4S and called it the iPhone 5 the sales numbers would still have been huge. What the phone actually is has little to do with it anymore. People will buy it anyway.
 
Clearly you care if you went out of your way to say that you don't care. If you didn't care you wouldn't have said anything to begin with.

Never mind went back a page. I thought you were saying nobody cares in reference to the Original Topic.

Correct. I don't
 
Really? Saying that without knowing my background at all? I happen to have been in large corporate marketing for more years than you've probably been alive, sailor.

I guess you should be aware of the fact than that in most professional companies the marketing department doesn't do the sales forecasting. You stated this in your first comment.
 
Based on past records, don't you think Apple would've anticipated a blow out and increased their supply this time around? I would think so

Na! They would risk having inventory left after 24 hours.

NYT Headline: "iPhone 5 sales off to a slow start."
 
OK, how else do you explain that they sold out their entire supply in 1 hour?

There are only 3 options here:

1) They totally underestimated the demand and didn't build enough phones
2) Their supply chain had such severe issues that they couldn't build enough to meet demand
3) They intentionally created this "shortage" so that buyers would be "blown away" by the product

Remember the promise Apple made with the rMBP about how you could order it and it would ship TODAY? That lasted all of an hour, too.

See a pattern here?

The statement that Apple was "blown away" indicates that option 1) is reality. Sorry, but I don't believe Apple Marketing is that incompetent. I don't think they're holding supply back, but I could be convinced that they intentionally didn't build enough phones so that this type of supply frenzy would be created.

I vote for option 3).

How about option 2. We can all remember reports of iPhone production starting only a few weeks ago. There are e number of factories probably dedicated to only the iPhone assembly and many companies making components just in time.

There is a reason why apple does a staggered roll out with many countries coming a few weeks later. Simply because the production and transportation capacity aren't big enough.

It would be more foolish for apple to contract Foxconn to build a few more factories to subsequently find out that demand just isn't what they thought it would be. Too big of a risk.

Apple probably has some of the best sales forecasting proceses in the world, but there is a limit to how much you can release on a given date when you only have a bit more than a year to design, develop, test, contract suppliers, produce and release a new iPhone.

This is all a matter of a combination of:
  • The iPhone becoming production ready only a few weeks ago
  • Limited production capacity
 
"Manufactured shortages in order to drive demand" is a concept that makes no logical sense in almost any circumstance, and especially when a product already has an unfathomable level of demand associated with it.

Apple's growing level of success over the past 5 year period is simply unprecedented. There is not another story in the history of American business that can be compared to the rise, fall, and rebirth of Apple.

There has never been as good a selling consumer electronics product as the iPhone, period.

And it is certainly true that Apple's marketing might creates a level of demand for new product releases that is unlike that of any other product on the market.

Another factor is that the iPhone 5 really and truly in my opinion represents, on all levels, as close as we've seen yet to a "perfect" iteration of the product:

• The industrial design and combination of glass and the aluminum rear, coupled with the larger screen, yet thinner and lighter form-factor, are really, well, just perfect in my opinion. And many other people's. Not everyone's. But most people's. It seems like all external issues have been fixed.

• It finally has LTE, but with no sacrifice of battery life.

• The processor and GPU double its performance capability -- the thing seems to be capable of graphical tasks that almost match Xbox 360 and PS3 levels, it's insane.

I can't, honestly, think of anything I'd improve about the iPhone 5. I can't really say this about any other version of the iPhone, other than the original, as the firs tone was so paradigm-altering, we had nothing to compare it to, and it forged entirely new ground.

I simply don't think it would have been logistically possible for enough manufacturing lines to be put in ahead of demand in order to avoid this kind of situation, given that I think the iPhone 5 is noticeably superior an iteration of the product than we've yet seen. The damn thing is ICONIC. It takes everything that was cool about the 4 and 4S, and eliminates all of those things like the glass rear that served no purpose.

The reflective chamfered edge and the matte aluminum rear case are, for lack of a better word, beautiful. It is an insanely gorgeous device. For me, it inspired lust the moment I saw the marketing video Apple prepared. I think it might as well be called "the iPhone 2" because it represents the second plateau of iPhone development. Every element seems perfected at this point, based on what the current state of technology allows for. Apple has learned from every single previous version, and made every correct decision about the iPhone 5, from what I can tell so far.

Yeah. I don't think it EVER would have been possible to avoid this situation. There are only so many factories a corporation and its partners can realistically build.

You are too concentrated on the phone looks rather than function. You must be an ideal customer for Apple. It's actually quite easy to see a few things that the phone is lacking. NFC is one such obvious thing. Not being able to use LTE data simultaneously with voice is a major let down. Screen resolution is decent but still lower than that of the competitors. Wireless charging would also be nice as would be the use of a standard connector (micro USB/MHL).
 
Let's break this down:

To the fan boys:

Of COURSE Apple is going to say the sales are spectacular. There is a very real chance Apple intentionally withholds supply to create this aura of success and "hysteria" about their new flagship product. They need the news coverage of lines wrapped around the block, not Fedex pulling up to homes with pre-orders.

To the haters:

Despite the rather transparent marketing (which frankly is intelligent, competent marketing in Apple's position.. they're damn good at it) you honestly think this isn't one of THE biggest tech releases in history? Laugh, mock, whatever.. when the real data comes out this product will most likely destroy everything.... ever. Maybe not, but I wouldn't bet against it.

You contradict yourself. Which is it, really? That Apple is having the biggest tech release in history, or Apple is artificially limiting the release to make it seem like the biggest tech release in history?

Isn't the simplest explanation the one that doesn't involve some unnecessary marketing conspiracy? Why resort to tricks when you're going to sell more of your product than anyone has ever sold anything?
 
I'm proud of Apple, I'm proud of the customers and what we will be able to accomplish together. I cant wait as I will be 'camping' out in front of my Apple Store come Thursday the 20th. Can't come soon enough.

Proud? It's a frigging PHONE, not your firstborn. Designed by a Brit, made by Chinese slaves out of Japanese and Korean bits. We didn't put a man on Mars, find a cure for cancer, or master the fusion reactor.

Meanwhile Bernanke announced "QE3 to infinity" this week, US employment data is in the toilet and we're sliding into a depression, oil and food prices headed to the moon. Welcome to the world of debt slavery. Keep sucking up those rare earth elements, tweeting, and posting on Fb.

I'm all for innovation and consider my self a tech enthusiast, but this cultish obsession with little bleeping gadgets creeps me out.
 
You are too concentrated on the phone looks rather than function. You must be an ideal customer for Apple. It's actually quite easy to see a few things that the phone is lacking. NFC is one such obvious thing. Not being able to use LTE data simultaneously with voice is a major let down. Screen resolution is decent but still lower than that of the competitors. Wireless charging would also be nice as would be the use of a standard connector (micro USB/MHL).

There isn't a single store I've seen that supports NFC in my area. I had it on my gs3 and never even noticed or knew how to use it. Wireless charging is stupid. I still have to have a big ugly thing plugged in the charge might as well use the cable i use to sync my music and backup to charge it....
 
There isn't a single store I've seen that supports NFC in my area. I had it on my gs3 and never even noticed or knew how to use it. Wireless charging is stupid. I still have to have a big ugly thing plugged in the charge might as well use the cable i use to sync my music and backup to charge it....

Try googling "NFC tags". There is more to NFC than retail.
 
When was the last time Sam(e)sung was blown away? Hmm??

Well as Apple are the only company that enjoy blowing smoke up their own backside we will never know. The SIII was a biggish launch, although it didn't have sad people queuing for days before.
 
Try googling "NFC tags". There is more to NFC than retail.

Seems like it could be something. But definitely has caught on anywhere I've seen in my area. Apple probably won't be including this until it has caught on quite a bit. (if it ever even does)
 
?

I don't understand the sellout comment? Last night @ 2:30 central, 12:30 pacific my order was 2 weeks shipping. This morning when I ordered my daughters phone it was 2 weeks shipping so why all the sellout talk they ( to my knowledge didn't have any sooner shipping than 2 weeks) ? Or they soldout in 30 min.
 
Not 6 years in a row. Please.

I see you believe in bubbles then. Unlimited sustained growth does not exist in business. Apple being conservative to avoid betting the company on massive repeated growth is perfectly reasonable. Eventually, Apple is not going to double their sales every year. Planning for such a repetition just increases the risk at an exponential rate. Frankly, I'm glad Apple is smart enough not to believe in bubbles.

What's more, Apple does not control the laws of time and space. You can only produce iPhones so quickly in factories, and it makes no sense to store tens of millions of units rather than sell them, or build new factories that are needed only for a relatively short period of time.

Two years ago, Apple was producing something like 1.5 iPhones a second. They've no doubt increased their manufacturing capability, but even if they doubled that, Apple has only been making the new iPhones for at most a couple months. We'll never know how many bugs they had to work out, how many units failed testing in the beginning of the new lines at the start of that two month period, how many lines were up and running at the start, etc., but even if every single unit in the last two months were flawless, and every iPhone factory was pumping out only the new iPhone (which clearly isn't be the case, but whatever), that's less than half of the number of iPhones Apple sold in the first quarter of the iPhone 4S. A more realistic estimation of Apple's manufacturing capability for the new iPhone alone, stripping away the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S lines they're still selling, and early defective new iPhones, there's just no way Apple can have possibly made enough iPhones to meet the initial demand.

I'm sure they did their best. For reasons others have outlined, Apple has no incentive to hold back supply, and plenty of incentive to sell as many units as possible as early as possible.

You're just complaining because an Apple spokesperson used some expressive language in a statement to the press. Not a press release, not an official pre-planned statement, just the answer to a reporter asking a question. While I'm sure nobody at Apple (or anyone here for that matter, except a few Androids trolls) is actually surprised they sold off their entire first batch of online supply, is anyone honestly not surprised a how quickly it happened? Of course the iPhone was going to sell out, and do so quickly. But in an hour? I think that's "blown away"-worthy.

Maybe you don't, fine. Is it really worth arguing over the choice of wording here, and reading into it all sorts of secret marketing plans or logistics incompetence? I'll say it again, Apple can only produce iPhones so quickly, and I'm glad they don't believe in the fallacy of unlimited sustained growth.
 
I don't think the phrase "blown away" necessarily has all of the connotations you guys are reading into it. Let me offer an example.

Have you ever had sex? Good sex, I mean. If you have, you know it's a pretty swell thing. Admittedly, it has been a bit longer for me since last time given my perpetual state of singleness, but it's pretty easy for me to think back to some great times.

If I met an awesome lady sometime, and ended up "doing the nasty" and it was a great time, I can imagine lying in bed afterward and having a great big grin on my face. It's not that it would have been entirely new territory, but when something is great, and you do it again, after it has been a while, there is a certain level of satisfaction that takes place.

Could I use the phrase "blown away" (read into it as much of a pun as you care to) to describe how I'd be feeling, lying in bed afterward? I think that would be a fair description. Trust me, right now, if I had an evening of fantastic sex with a great lady, I would most definitely be blown away afterword, despite the fact that I'm not a virgin.

Could I have predicted that I would enjoy that night of romping? Yeah, probably. What if it was even a bit better than I had expected? For an already wonderful thing, after a period of absence, to even go a bit passed expectations? Would it be possible for me to be blown away, afterward?

Now, this is me talking about my boring ol' sex life. Imagine that if instead of getting laid, we were talking about selling more of a consumer electronics product in a one hour period than ANY OTHER CONSUMER ELECTRONICS DEVICE IN HISTORY, AND IN THE PROCESS, MAKING MORE MONEY THAN GOD.

Would it be fair to describe your reaction to be one of being "blown away?"

I think so.

Wasn't there an study a while back saying that iPhone users have more sex on average than Android users? Maybe this is why the iPhone fans have less of a problem about the "blown away" phrasing :p.
 
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