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This is it Apple. Show us what you can achieve within the timespan of a couple of days.
 
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DisMyMac said:
Maybe they are Mac Pros or minis.

Why ship a lot of something that has a low demand?
 
A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding the logistical implications of the rumor. There is no way Apple is buying all the air freight capacity between China and the US. That's silly. Most of that capacity was committed a long time ago in long term contracts. What's rumored to be going on is Apple buying all AVAILABLE air freight capacity. That means the capacity that's not already committed to other things. That's still huge because it's China to the US. But it's just the available capacity. If Freight companies had most of their capacity available at any given time, they'd be making no money. They build capacity to serve know contracts plus some margin. It's that margin which Apple is rumored to be buying up.
 
There must be some tax evasion issue going on on the purchasers end. There is just no way an American purchaser should be buying used a somewhat outdated $600 (+ sales tax) device for $495. The only explanation I can think of is that your iPad is going to travel back channels to get sold in a market with much higher sales taxes or Apple currency markup.

I think the more logical explanation is stupidity. If I knew some (illegal) way to make profit even when paying way to much on eBay, I still wouldn't pay too much but only pay a better price, to make more profit.

There are people who think they are "winning" when they make the highest bid in an auction. If two of them get together, and each tries to "beat" the "opponent" and "win" the auction, you have a lucky seller. I bid what an item is worth to me; if someone else has the highest bid then they paid more than I was willing to pay, so that's fine with me.


Apple being down almost $15 in one day is normal?

3% is normal. Especially after going up a lot more recently. For most companies, 3% is a lot less than $15.
 
Apple being down almost $15 in one day is normal?

probably has to do with Congress wanting to investigate Apple and google. The MSM always picks a good time to report negative stuff about Apple (2 days before a major product announcement lol)
 
Dunno why they just don't send them directly to customers from Shenzhen like always... For the sake of a few days?
I don't think air freight is that much cheaper even if you buy the lot - never tried it myself yet!

Is also causing a few more leaks too.

It will be interesting if this rumor is true and Apple does release the iPad 3 this week. I think Steve was always very cautious/paranoid about shipping early because of the potential for leaks. Tim may be more focused on getting the new products into customer's hands as soon as possible after the announcement. And since most of the iPad 3 details are known already, I don't think it's that big of a risk to ship early. But it definitely would be a different approach.
 
Dunno why they just don't send them directly to customers from Shenzhen like always... For the sake of a few days?
I don't think air freight is that much cheaper even if you buy the lot - never tried it myself yet!

Is also causing a few more leaks too.

Perhaps they are. These may just be the ones destined for the B&M stores and online retailers.
 
probably has to do with Congress wanting to investigate Apple and google. The MSM always picks a good time to report negative stuff about Apple (2 days before a major product announcement lol)
Screw Chuck Schumer.
 
Maybe they are Mac Pros or minis.

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Why ship a lot of something that has a low demand?

I have always believed it is a mixture of products. Just like the original article stated.

"Products". more than one.
 
Definitely a lot of items to ship in a short time period by air.

No doubt there's still tons of room on cargo ships.

If they simply starting shipping a bit further ahead of the public debut, there'd be less problem.

And no shortages.
 
I don't know what exact technique Apple uses besides scheduling product releases outside of major holiday rushes, but they could prepay for freight capacity and enable that requirement when the product is actually ready. As it is now, they are effectively paying a "spot price". They have the liquidity to buy a futures or options contract.

Rocketman
 
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monaarts said:
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Nailedtothex said:
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Assuming that they have 5M ready to go , and that each plane can handle 150k units, that's thirty planes or so... I would think that they wouldn't really want to ship them all at the same time for a laugh, they have been probably been shipping 2-3 planes daily I would think... So for the past two weeks or so. It is hard to imagine that taking 2-3 planes would have a major impact on the entire fleet.
Ah well,
I can't wait "To touch" the new iPad on march 7th...

But you aren't taking the current products being sold into count. How many iMacs, mbps, iPhones, iPad 2's, displays, etc are also shipping in addition to the iPad 3 cargo?

I would think that the ipad2 would roughly displace ipad3 shipments? With the exception of the early rush...
 
It will be interesting if this rumor is true and Apple does release the iPad 3 this week. I think Steve was always very cautious/paranoid about shipping early because of the potential for leaks. Tim may be more focused on getting the new products into customer's hands as soon as possible after the announcement. And since most of the iPad 3 details are known already, I don't think it's that big of a risk to ship early. But it definitely would be a different approach.

That was never the case. Ramping up production to meet a specific announcement date, often set a couple of months in advance has always been tough. Release date could be anywhere from same day to weeks down the road. I think what we're seeing is phenomenal interest in a transformational product. One that constitutes 20% of the world's largest company's sales.

It has nothing to do with Steve or Tim and everything to do with production realities. Had it not been for the Chinese New Year, iPad 3 might have been available a couple of weeks earlier.

thats crazy i thought air freight would be way too expensive, thought everything came over on cargo ships yet.

The smaller and more expensive the product, the more likely it is to go on a plane. Shipping electronics on a boat isn't that great of an idea anyway. The salty air can lead to corrosion pretty quickly and that's why you see the little silicone crystal packets in cheap electronics but rarely if ever in high end electronics.
 
That was never the case. Ramping up production to meet a specific announcement date, often set a couple of months in advance has always been tough. Release date could be anywhere from same day to weeks down the road. I think what we're seeing is phenomenal interest in a transformational product. One that constitutes 20% of the world's largest company's sales.

It has nothing to do with Steve or Tim and everything to do with production realities. Had it not been for the Chinese New Year, iPad 3 might have been available a couple of weeks earlier.



The smaller and more expensive the product, the more likely it is to go on a plane. Shipping electronics on a boat isn't that great of an idea anyway. The salty air can lead to corrosion pretty quickly and that's why you see the little silicone crystal packets in cheap electronics but rarely if ever in high end electronics.

Yep yep totally agree. Why the heck would u want to ship out millions of product by some boat that takes 16 weeks to get somewhere. Apple is not that dum!
 
Definitely a lot of items to ship in a short time period by air.

No doubt there's still tons of room on cargo ships.

If they simply starting shipping a bit further ahead of the public debut, there'd be less problem.

Oh sure! Hold deliveries to everyone until they have millions stockpiled. NOT! I want it ASAP.
 
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gillybean said:
Assuming that they have 5M ready to go , and that each plane can handle 150k units, that's thirty planes or so... I would think that they wouldn't really want to ship them all at the same time for a laugh, they have been probably been shipping 2-3 planes daily I would think... So for the past two weeks or so. It is hard to imagine that taking 2-3 planes would have a major impact on the entire fleet.

It's probably closer to 500M units, because in every major country around the world, every business will want 1 for every employee, every school will want 1 for every student, and every citizen wants 1 for their own personal use.

So they've had to buy out the cargo space for 500m / 150k = 3,333 planes from China in the last week.

500M? Holy crap man, be reasonable. I would be surprised if they had 10M ready to ship, given they have likely only been assembling for the past two months getting up to speed for the new assembly. Even 5M is a huge number to launch with!
 
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