Demand for the device is so strong that Apple sold out of its initial inventory in an hour and pushed back its shipping date for such pre-orders. http://news.yahoo.com/iphone-5-sells-apple-delays-ship-date-090806480.html
And yet you can still go on Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and get the phone on the 21st. Know what that means? Apple is creating an artificial demand on the phone by limiting their own supply on 9/21 as to create the "line spectacle".
OH NO!@!@!@! That is pure speculation based on dates but I'm guessing all the people that ordered within the first couple hours get theirs on 9/21.
i tried the store for about 30 seconds then jumped on the app and got it ay 7:07am lol! every time i tried it gave an error even though it went through! strange,
If you check on the Verizon Order Status thread, you'll see that people have had their ship dates pushed back from 9/21 to 9/26. I know I did.
Yup and now the dates are back to 9/21. Mine went to 9/26 and is now 9/21. We'll see what happens though.
Perhaps, or perhaps they allocated a large volume to the carriers this time around, expecting them to pick up some of the slack. Tim Cook is much less likely than Steve Jobs to try to hold back supply to create a spectacle. Remember the new iPad launch this year? There were very short lines, if at all, and yet they sold a lot more than the first weekend of the iPad 2 when lines were around the block everywhere. Also, AT&T is quoting "as soon as the 21st" so who knows what that really means.
Apple obviously holds a large quantity of stock for retail openings. If they didn't people would accuse them of "playing games with loyal customers" next Friday instead. I think we'll have to wait for official word of the sales numbers before we start accusing anyone of foul play. If they really did blow through millions of pre-orders in an hour, then that is impressive. At the end of the day, they can do as they wish.
I don't know how the carriers really sell the phones, but I figured they buy a certain amount of stock from Apple beforehand? So then technically those phones are already "sold" from Apple's perspective. I could be wrong, but that was what I thought. Plus the launch-day stock.
Guess who supplies ATT, Verizon, and Sprint. Apple could just have easily restricted their numbers as well.
Well, people most associate iPhone with Apple and not their carrier so most people will order there, so it's not surprising that Apple's allotment is first to go... Apple has to have a certain allotment for their stores and for the carriers on launch day, do you really think that they would rather not sell all that they have? They're already very well established and have a product that people are clamoring for, they don't need to create artificial demand.
no it doesnt, it means apple only has so many preorders for their online store, so many for verizon, att, sprint. lol no conspiracy here. The phone has prolly only been in production for a month or two.
Selling out in 1 hour is meaningless unless we know how many units they had for sale. I imagine it's a LOT, but still...
I put 10 Oranges on display at my Fruit Stand and they "sold out" in 1hr I put 100 Oranges on display at my Fruit Stand and they "sold out" in 10hrs Now, which story should I send to my small time newspaper?
Sprint is still showing delivery by 9/21. I ordered mine last night through Apple @ 3 AM CST. Should I cancel through Apple and reorder through Sprint? Or just stick with my order?
I had to change my payment method for my order (too sleepy at 5am to figure out which blue visa from wells fargo was the right one) and they confirmed the 21st no problem. Think maybe Apple shifted more stock to the carriers so Apple did not have work out the logistics on this one and placed it more on the carriers back? I mean they still sell the same amount of phones, but I would imagine it would be easier to fill 1 purchase order for a carrier vs. millions of little orders.
how do people even know their order status? when i check mine on the ATT website it just says "processing". thats all. it doesnt tell me when its expected to ship or anything.
Apple stores usually have the largest amount of stock anyway. This isn't new. The ATT corporate store near me only had 40 4S last year.
I'm sure Apple has a certain allotment that they sell for pre-orders and then they stop at that point. The real test will be when it goes on sale 9/21 in stores to see how long it will take to sell out. Since i have to wait until Oct 7th to get my iphone 5 since im not upgrade eligible yet i am hoping that stock will be available and that i'm not on back order.
I don't get why people are having a hard time understanding that At&t, Verizon, and Sprint online stores only need to stock their version of the phone. So of course they would have more stock. With the 4s there was one phone for all carriers. With the 5 there are 3 versions, one for each LTE carrier on top of that each phone comes in 3 size variations and 2 color variations. So Apple would in theory have less of each phone since they are stocking all variations as opposed to the individual carriers which only need to stock their version. Apple isn't trying to screw anyone, they don't need to build hype. They do however, need to have enough stock to be in the hundreds and hundreds of retail stores come next Friday. They can't allocate 10 million phones to Apple.com preorders.
You gotta remember new phones are made every day. Apple has to estimate when shipments clear from china and how soon they may be able to process and deliver these to us. It's not like they have all the phones right now that were preordered.
A lot of people want unlocked iphones.. in different countries too, so I can see Apple actually selling out but not actually cell phone providers. by 3pm today Verizon & other carriers will be out too.. and be shipping October 5th, mark my words.