iPhone 3G Remains Hard to Find

[Mark Booth]

According to Apple iPhone Availability Checker, 144 Apple stores are completely sold out on iPhone 3Gs (meaning, none in those stores tomorrow according to the site). I believe there are about 170 Apple stores in the US so that means only 15% of the stores have some stock on iPhones and, of those, very very few have all three flavors.

Glad I got mine on Friday!! I'm sure digging the faster 3G speeds!

Mark

 

[SacKingJD]

Go to the Apple Store!

I took July 11th off. Got to the apple store in a small town outside of Sacramento. i laughed at all the dorks waiting outside, and I still do, but I was the one crying when the manager came out and said "We only have 40 iPhones". I looked at him from my 50th spot in line and said, "On the release day, you only have 40 phones ... wow"!

I headed on down the road to another town right outside of Sacramento. I waited in line for an hour and a half for their manager to tell us, "sorry folks ... we are all out"! I left but, people still stayed.

I came home at 10 am in disgust and called the apple store in Sacramento at noon. The gal told me they were fully stocked and to come on down. Well, I cam on down and saw a line that was longer than half the mall.

My wife and I said we needed to get out of town to go camping. But, on our way we passed through 1 more town with an apple store. Santa Rosa Ca. was the mecha! We arrived at 6:00 pm, waited in line for an hour, got into the store, bought 2 iPhones, and left happy. Santa Rosa store sold out at 7:30 pm! That place was great!

 

[IvanTheBearable]

Stock in NZ

New Zealand still has tonnes and tonnes of iPhone stock though.

I was told by Vodafone yesterday that every shop in Auckland had run out. The online store had run out of everything by yesterday afternoon - although they seem to have more today.

Not many people here can afford to buy a $199 phone that comes with a $250 per month plan for 24 months...

I notice that they have quietly dropped that plan from the web site.

 

[atb12688]

My friend bought one from an Apple store here in St. Louis. Missouri isn't really sold out of iPhones.

 

[deannnnn]

*
excellent! I wait 6hrs for mine, on Friday night..I love it!!

Waiting in line outside the Lincoln Road store was miserable. It was rainy and hot... but inside was actually pretty fun! They had all these iPhone 3Gs out to play with and computers there to go online with. Deff kept me entertained =)

 

[JPark]

Add Arizona to the list

All 4 of Arizona's are showing sold out of all 3 models too. Glad I got mine on Saturday!

 

[hexonxonx]

I am so tired of mundane iphone stories on the front page. I love ya macrumors, but please put these stories where they belong, on the 2nd page or dedicated iphone page.

You may wish to start ignoring them then. Contrary to your beliefs, lots of people do wish to read about all Mac News.

 

[kennycheng93]

Apple company store

Does Apple company store sell iPhone 3G?

I'm thinking about going there to get mine.

 

[iCantwait]

sold out Aust wide... Ebay it *cough* usd$1400 for mine *cough* Buy it*cough*

 

[juanster]

last time i checked (yesterday morning) rRogers was also sold out through out Canada of 16gigs, they weren't even taking orders for more, they were still taking orders on 8gb ones tho..

 

[cmgallacher]

Arizona is out too.

 

[daneoni]

I called the flagship store on regents street like 2 days ago and they had all models in stock i got there (not to buy one but rather play with one) and they had a line of about 20/30 people and it must've have been the slowest line on the planet but it was doable if anyone wanted to buy. Most stores are stocked here, problem is most people are upgrading and they need O2/CPW for that and none of their stores are stocked as far as i can tell

For a company that keeps hammering 'think different' i'm surprised they've bowed to pressure and now sell phones like any other regular manufacturer. The at-home activation was cool and set Apple apart, now its just....

The whole announcement/release has been 'meh' for me. Really not that interested.

 

[iTeen]

Today there was only a little line (~10) at the Apple store here in Seattle (University Village) and that was just after opening time. And they had all iPhone models in stock still.

 

[peterdevries]

I took July 11th off. Got to the apple store in a small town outside of Sacramento. i laughed at all the dorks waiting outside, and I still do, but I was the one crying when the manager came out and said "We only have 40 iPhones". I looked at him from my 50th spot in line and said, "On the release day, you only have 40 phones ... wow"!

I headed on down the road to another town right outside of Sacramento. I waited in line for an hour and a half for their manager to tell us, "sorry folks ... we are all out"! I left but, people still stayed.

I came home at 10 am in disgust and called the apple store in Sacramento at noon. The gal told me they were fully stocked and to come on down. Well, I cam on down and saw a line that was longer than half the mall.

My wife and I said we needed to get out of town to go camping. But, on our way we passed through 1 more town with an apple store. Santa Rosa Ca. was the mecha! We arrived at 6:00 pm, waited in line for an hour, got into the store, bought 2 iPhones, and left happy. Santa Rosa store sold out at 7:30 pm! That place was great!

Who's the dork here? You drove countless miles (good for the environment...) and got in line 3 times and spent more time in it than I did.

 

[THX1139]

Welcome to iPhoneRumors.com

I miss the olden days when we didn't have to wade through 2 pages of iPhone crap to get to the Mac stuff.

Someone should start a new MacRumors type website because this one has lost its focus.

 

[PCMacUser]

I was told by Vodafone yesterday that every shop in Auckland had run out. The online store had run out of everything by yesterday afternoon - although they seem to have more today.

I notice that they have quietly dropped that plan from the web site.

Good spotting! I wonder if the bad press forced them to remove it?

 

[csimmons]

Stock outside of US even worse...

This is just simple economics, The price isn't currently set where supply hits demand and as a result we have excess demand.

How to solve:

- Increase production (i am sure apple would if they could.)
- Increase price.

I think apple have got the price wrong again....

How is the stock outside of the US?

I can only speak of my experience here in Stuttgart, Germany:

iPhones are available through T-Mobile here, and are sold at T-Punkt shops, and the retail chains GRAVIS (Europe's largest Mac reseller), Media Markt and Saturn (comparable to Best Buy in the US). Every single outlet that sells the iPhone (roughly 14 locations in the greater Stuttgart area) is sold out, and no one can say when they will get more stock.

From a PR standpoint this could be seen as great for Apple / T-Mobile, in that it generates more lust for the product. When you consider though, that the vast majority of these outlets only got on average 10 phones (!), then one could definitely describe the situation as a severe lack of preparation on the part of Apple; the sales people that I talked to told me that they wanted more initial stock, but that Apple was unwilling (or unable?) to supply them with enough product.

I personally believe that Apple based their initial stock projections for the 3G iPhone on the sales levels of the 2G model; i.e., the 2G iPhone didn't sell so well in Germany compared to other european countries, therefore they thought Germany could get by with fewer 3G units. Big mistake on their part, IMO.

 

[xtrmtrk]

A Month???

I went to the Bellevue, Washington store this evening to buy a phone and was told they were totally sold out and didn't expect white 16GB for 2 to 4 WEEKS. WEEKS!!!! I can't imagine how much money they will be loosing. Hard to believe. I think I'll check back in periodically just in case.

 

[Sin]

I went to the Bellevue, Washington store this evening to buy a phone and was told they were totally sold out and didn't expect white 16GB for 2 to 4 WEEKS. WEEKS!!!! I can't imagine how much money they will be loosing. Hard to believe. I think I'll check back in periodically just in case.

Welcome to the rest of the world.

Actually, 2-4 weeks is better than the estimate anyone in the UK has who wants to upgrade to a white 3G...

Personally I'd actually prefer a black one, but there aren't any of those available either, nor any clue at all as to when more stock might arrive. Could be today, could be next week. Doesn't matter as there still isn't a sane way to get in line for them - any sightings of stock in an O2 store will immediately result in another free for all.

 

[tjcampbell]

Still no luck here in London.

 

[iAlan]

My local Softbank store was sold out. Not surprising of course. But what surprised me was when I asked when they would receive more iPhones. The employees blank stare said it best! Normally, in Japan, they will jump at the chance to estimate when they will have more stock and then take your order. In this case, the employees at this store simply had no idea. It seems the demand is much larger than the supply right now.

The Shinjuku Softbank store was out of stock on Friday, and as I was walking by today i asked when they expect more stock, and just like Sushi mentioned above - blank stares and a lot of sucking of air through teeth. Same at Bic Camera and Yodabashi Camera (both of which have Softbank counters)

I guess I will have to continue waiting - really pissed that i had an off-site training day last Friday followed by golf on Saturday. I guess free food, alcohol and sports isn't a bad thing, i just want to get me an iPhone 3G

 

[DarkNetworks]

What's the big deal about having an iPhone 3G?

 

[Tara Davis]

I've been trying to buy a 16GB phone since Saturday.

According to the "availability tracker", not only were they sold out, but none of Minnesota's FOUR Apple stores has had a single 16GB model available since then. None.

One store had a few 8GB phones for a few minutes on Monday. That's it.

Apple, why do you hate small midwestern states?

 

[winmacguy]

I was told by Vodafone yesterday that every shop in Auckland had run out. The online store had run out of everything by yesterday afternoon - although they seem to have more today.



I notice that they have quietly dropped that plan from the web site.

Indeed you're right! They have dropped it. I just checked...

 

[Veri]

No longer a side project, Macrumors will probably more aggressively target for pageviews.

I hate it when people make assumptions like this.

In my previous post, I was observing that certain iPhone stories were gaining front page, while news for those interested in the Mac was at Page 2. The most significant example I gave was the first announcement+distribution of Snow Leopard. Meanwhile, the still unpatched ARDAgent vulnerability publicised around 20 June allows any app root access without a password. On 7 July, Axel Springer AG announced a complete shift to Mac, making it Apple's second largest corporate customer. Both these items were relegated to MacBytes.

That's not going to happen. The front page is the front page. In the end, it deals with big news and rumors related to Apple.

If the "big" metric is on pure volume, then I would expect iPhone to dominate. But I'd hope for a "big" metric that treats particular market segments separately, e.g. the Mac home/home office user, or the employee with a Mac at work. Other Slashdot-style news sites benefit from categorising first, then creaming off the top from each category.

People are standing in line at Apple stores 5 days after its release. If there's a line of people standing at Apple stores 5 days after the next MacBook Pro is released, I'll write a story about that too.

Frequent updates on one particular topic are great and I've been enjoying following the iPhone posts even though I'm not planning to get one and have no financial interest in Apple. I like MacRumors - when it's not informative, it's entertaining. But I do feel that selecting items according to aggregate popularity, while increasing pageviews, might alienate particular segments.