iPhone5 it's sold out
F you Apple marketing. They do this ***** on purpose to grab headlines, by limiting supply on launch, to say it sold out.
Oh really? So, when they release numbers
every year, over and over again, showing that they sold more iPhones in less time than in previous years past, that's all just a lie?
It's a lot harder than you think to judge just how much demand is going to be out there. Especially when you have people shrilly harping about whoa horrible flop it's going to be and how
no one wants the iPhone 5.
Apple knows full well roughly how many they need to have ready for a world wide launch. If it it's 8 million iPhone5's selling the first week, they will just have 7 million ready, knowing full well they could have 10 million ready and waiting, but wanna grab that big news headline, saying it's sold out.
I think Apple is well aware of what it needs to be able to provide to market. The real problem is that it's no small feat to organize multiple vendors,
one of which threatened to sue to block the sale of the phone before it even goes on sale, to make 8-10 million phones, and have them delivered right on time to everyone who buys one. Vacations must be cancelled. extra staffing must be found. And that's true not just at Apple or Foxconn, but at AT&T, Sprint, Best Buy, Radio Shack, FedEx, UPS...
On top of this, everyone has to hope the defect rate on screens/radios/chips/glass/sapphire lenses/connectors/aluminum parts isn't too high to slow down production.
These phones aren't made by fairies sprinkling pixie dust on piles of molten glass and metal. Actual humans are assembling them, and even if they're mistreated, you can still only crack the whip so hard.
Marketing / Sales 101; limit supply for higher demand.
That works only when you dominate the market, and no one else even comes close to supplying what you do.
Right now, Economics 101 applies: Every person denied the opportunity to buy an iPhone due to product shortages is a potential lost customer. The longer one doesn't have a confirmed order, or an iPhone in-hand, the longer they have to consider the alternatives (android, Windows). And every lost customer buying something else is lost money to Apple.
Apple has more to gain from happy customers getting their iPhones (many of whom will line up to wait anyway), than lots of customers who are frustrated and can't get what they wanted to buy. And I'm pretty sure they're aware of that.