AT&T has announced that the company experienced extraordinary demand for iPhone 4S with more than 200,000 preorders in the first 12 hours alone.
According to AT&T, iPhone 4S is the most successful iPhone launch AT&T has ever had.
AT&T said in a statement, “It’s obvious customers like AT&T’s 4G network, which is the only one that lets their iPhone download twice as fast and talk and surf simultaneously.”
Source: AT&T Inc.
MacDailyNews Take: So, is this due to a Steve Jobs’ halo effect or did the general public actually grasp what makes iPhone 4S so special — even if it does look just like iPhone 4, isn’t named “5,” and lacks a silver model 😉 — or some mixture of both?
Regardless of the reason(s), congrats to Apple for yet another blockbuster success!
Related article:
AT&T ‘working with Apple’ to display ’4G’ in iPhone 4S status bar – October 7, 2011
Told ya on Tuesday it would sell like wildfire even when MDN was dissing the presentation on that particular day. 😉 Go on ahead and delete my comment again like you did that last time too while you’re at it….
What’s painfully obvious to most, except it seems to Rob, is that the equation changed drastically on Wednesday, so we’ll never know if MDN was right or not. History, however, is firmly of MDN’s side. They are correct about Apple most of the time. Plus, in numerous analysts’ notes, I’ve read reports of people saying they were going to buy an iPhone 4S as a tribute to Jobs. 4S = For Steve.
What’s painfully obvious to many, except is seems to Bob, is the fact that MDN does routinely delete posts and when challenged, denies it.
And, yet, your post remains here in all of its baseless idiocy. You offer no proof of your accusations, yet the very existence of your post refutes your claim.
Errrr excuse me. The proper word is refudiate. Can’t people spell on this site or was that ansutocorrect dituaion?
Wow. Refudiate? Who’s correcting whom? Try repudiate. With a P. Refudiate was invented by none other than Sarah Palin.
@st jezebel…. I didn’t know Sarah has been around since 1891..
http://thewritingresource.net/2010/11/18/should-you-use-refudiate/
“It also offers an outline of refudiate’s use, noting that it was first used in print in the Fort Worth Gazette in 1891: “It is the first declaration of how the party stands, and in great measure a refudiation of the charges of dickering.” Sarah Palin is only the latest, if most vocal, person to use it.”
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86071158/1891-06-14/ed-1/seq-12/
If you want to READ the paper…
oh noes…. you’ve been Refudiated!
but you don’t care..
Repudiate is in the Apple dictionary app. Refudiate is not. Of course, there are a lot of valid words that do not appear in the dictionary app…
@FTB – A typo from 1891 and an utterance from Palin and I am supposed to accept this ridiculous word? Youbetcha…not.
@Kingmel
do a little research… 1891 was the FIRST use of it, it’s been used many times before Palin did.
Nice response fucking lawyer asshole. Isnt it time for your hourly ass rape?
Don’t hate me just because I’m far smarter, far better educated, and far, far richer than you, Zuccotti Park squatter.
It pains me to have to point out to a lawyer that one example is insufficient evidence to discredit an assertion of censorship. This is especially true since we do not know the content of the post that was allegedly censored.
I can state with certainty that I have had several posts deleted over the past several years. I strongly suspect censorship on the part of MDN. But that is their right as the site owner and moderator. Sometimes I wish that MDN would exercise that right more frequently.
and FYI, thats why I take screenshots of many of my posts that prove people or MDN wrong… (Like St Jezebel below… Idiot proved wrong, SS taken 😛 ) I have a TON of screenshots of posts that MDN removes… God forbid we ever DARE ask why MDN refuses to update their own App… even after publicly stating they are working on a fix to release “soon”…. 7 months later…. STILL nothing.
It is rather simple and straightforward to be correct on Apple most of the time – you bet on the home team. MDN was not right regarding their negative comments on the 4S, and I seriously doubt that a significant number of people are going to buy a 4S just as a tribute to Steve. The 4S is selling because it is the best iPhone available, and that makes it the best smartphone available.
“What’s painfully obvious to most, except it seems to Rob, is that the equation changed drastically on Wednesday, so we’ll never know if MDN was right or not. ”
Buying a fuckin phone out of pity/sympathy for Jobs? Really? Come on. Wednesday changed alot, but boost their sales? Come on.
MDN pretends they are libertarian.. but love to quell speech he doesn’t like.
While yea- it’s his site and he can do as he likes.. he’s still a hypocrite. Must burn his cheeks when he’s honest with himself.. if he ever is.
See my response to the aptly-named “Nob” above, Nob #2.
Totally, I couldn’t believe it when everyone was whining and complaining about the presentation and how they didn’t get an iPhone 5, even MDN!!!
Everyone threatening to get something else, but now they are praising Siri, even, MDN!!!
Siri will be awesome in time, it will change how we interact with our phones and eventually our Macs. This is what Steve saw that people could really use.
Actually, MDN did not complain about not getting an iPhone 5.
Before pecking out your next waste of space here, I suggest you first learn how to read.
Superior Being hmmmm, I have learned to read and I suggest you do the same.
actually they directed their response to Tim Cook.. saying he needed to take charge of the media etc.
they did NOT bash Apple for no iPhone 5.
“Debacle. You either leak “no iPhone 5″ to a credible outlet in order to tamp down anticipation beforehand or you name the damn thing “iPhone 5,” “
How long have you people been following Apple, really have you not observed anything from the last ten years?
Steve was extremely secretive about what would come out during the presentations. I for one liked that, and still hope that remains. Its nice getting a surprise in these days of “I want instant gratification and I want it now”
Its the media that needs a whipping, Apple didn’t let them run wild, their imaginations did. If they would just chill out and wait to see what Apple is going to unveil everything would be fine, but no they have to speculate and dig and get everyones imagination whipped up into a frenzy. Also a massive amount of the public has no idea about these sites, and when the new iPhone 4S was unveiled they thought it was great like everyone should have.
Apple didn’t have to manage the media, the media must manage its damn self.
When the mass media splash the news of Steve Jobs’ death, highlighting his contributions to mankind, and for once recognizing his genius, millions of people who do not follow any tech news would take notice of the uniqueness of Apple’s standing in the products that they use, whether or not they are manufactured by Apple or others: they would be shocked to know that Windows and Androids themselves are the illegitimate cousins of Apple. This halo effect would definitely make the iPhone 4S a must-have and a eye-opener to many who had not considered Apple’s products in their lifetime before.
Just ordered mine, delivery still promised 10/14 at apple.com. ATT site wouldn’t commit to delivery date. And yes. a halo effect indeed. Any bad PR for the 4S has been obliterated by the sad news about Steve and all the coverage. Even on exit, one last marketing coup.
Just pre-ordered mine too (to replace my 3GS)
For once, I’m glade I have AT&T for the faster speed. Coverage Isn’t bad where I live.
Hopefully, when I’m at the local Apple Store in Crystal Court on the 14th covering (shooting) the lines of people waiting for their 4GS for the local newspaper, I’ll already have mine in my pocket. 🙂
. . . er, make that 4S. I hate typos.
4.S or 4.5, whatever you like
Yes halo effect is why i ordered one
Suggest everybody reads the John Gruber/Daring Fireball assessment of the iPhone 4S event (written before Wednesday) which provides a balanced and sensible assessment. Self evidently no one is going to upstage an SJ style presentation so we had better get used to it. Did the Apple team do a competent job. Definitely. In the circumstances of what they knew, they were outstanding. Are Apple in safe hands, you bet they are. Will there be a holo effect, without doubt, and I will probably join it as part of my tribute
I planned to order mine months ago to replace my 3GS.
I’m getting one too 🙂
not bad for a disappointing presentation and product.
The number of people who viewed the presentation and consider it somehow inadequate is utterly insignificant compared to the millions who will buy the 4S. Uncounted legions of owners have no idea who Steve Jobs was. They just know that the iPhone is the best device of its kind. He himself would have no quarrel with that. I ordered two and will get a third in December.
Now with the mass media’s coverage of Steve Jobs’ contributions to mankind and his genius in guiding Apple into a powerhouse, now millions of people, who were ignorant before, are getting the right picture. Definitely the halo effect will be powerful.
Disappointing? Maybe being low key was appropriate considering that everybody on stage was aware that word of Steve’s death might come at any moment.
THIS is exactly what I thought after I heard of SJ’s passing.
I watched the event later (on the 4th) even posted a few comments about the event that night, I gave Tim a pass due to being his first event and all… HE was dry, the rest were ok.
I noticed the Reserved chair… but only put it together the next day after Steve Passed. I’m pretty sure Steve’s health was right at the top of Tim’s mind the entire day… and being on stage and seeing that empty chair, only made it worse for him.
I’d bet Tim knew, and maybe some of the other people on stage knew. But I doubt they would tell everyone, someone would accidentally say something they shouldn’t.
2-3 events from now if Tim is the same on stage, ok… now we have a problem.
Tech-heads do not represent the average paying consumer. Apple knows this better than any company around. You can have the most advanced product in the world, but if it’s too difficult for the average consumer to use efficiently, then it probably won’t sell in large numbers. Most consumers do not know whether they’re buying cutting-edge products or not. I believe that any average consumer moving from a standard cellphone to a smartphone could be easily overwhelmed and not know how to use half the features it has.
Anyone saying that the iPhone 4S is a disappointment would have to be a diehard tech-head that follows the latest advances in the smartphone industry. That’s a compliment and totally unrealistic in the normal consumer world. I’m sure that if the 4S works as promised reviewers will praise it as being a top-class smartphone. I can’t wait to see an actual test comparison between the Galaxy S II and the iPhone 4S and see if the 4S is that big of a disappointment to users.
Congratulation to Apple Team! Oh and you tech bloggers who dissed the iP4S because you were stupid enough to believe your own made up rumor…quit your day job.
Haha! You nailed it.
Read it and weep, fun boys.
How’s that possible?!!! It doesn’t have a 4-inch screen!! There must be a mistake!!
Seriously, though, I think the big demand is due to a mix of Jobs’s passing and the fact that, even if it wasn’t named “5”, this is clearly another great product. I do think more people ordered the phone on its own merits – I don’t want to sound cynical, but I think if you ask people to put their (big) money where their mourning is, the number of takers would drop dramatically.
On the same note, I hope the company will eventually come up with a product that is named after the great man, preferably a future and special edition of the Mac.
And a little aside here, if you’ll pardon me – I just Boot Camped my new Mac mini, and ran Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus on the Windows 7 side, thinking that it would not affect the Mac side. Well, I was wrong. It went into the Mac partition and messed up a number of my Mac apps. Lucky for me I noticed that it seemed to be scanning my Mac drive and stopped it immediately, so the “damage” was limited.
So for those of you who think that Boot Camping creates an iron curtain between the two OSs, it does not, at least as far as running anti-virus scans seem to go.
I know, I know – serves me right for still using Windows. But what to do? There’s still some need for that in my professional work …..
Boot camp has HFS+ drivers that allow a Windows boot camp machine to read the Mac volume but not write to it. Unless you have some additional software on the boot camp side to enable writing to HFS, It can’t touch your mac partition. Apple specifically did this so that the mac partitions would not be accessible to the windows viruses.
Thanks for that info, doc. It’s pretty interesting, and I hope useful for those who have Boot Camped their machines. Let me provide some additional info. I wouldn’t know which kind of software would enable writing to HFS, but what I have on the Windows side is the Adobe C5 suite, Skype and a few other bits and pieces.
What happened after the anti-virus scan was that my Mac went back to a previous version – at least the desktop did – and my iDVD app, which I had been using just previous to the scan, literally froze. I had to get rid of some recently-saved data for my iDVD to work again.
Is it not possible for the anti-virus scan to not recognise Mac components as legitimate and “neutralize” them? Incidentally, I also have two external HDs attached to the mini, one for use with the Mac and the other for use with the Windows. I notice that both HDs show up on both desktops.
The best iphone on the market got 2x as fast, much better camera, SIRI and 2x the RAM…. sure , would have liked a cool new design and bigger screen but this is not a slight upgrade…I’m gettin mine day 1!
I think it’s bs that most people bought it as a tribute. Who the hell has that kind of money? People bought it because they didn’t pay attention to the rumors and bought it because it’s a good phone. The processor is twice as fast, the GPU is a lot faster, it has double the storage capacity, it has a much better camera, it has voice control that appears to work, and on AT&T the data promises to be a lot faster. And although it’s not a factor in the AT&T numbers, the fact that it’s available on Sprint will sell a bunch. This product was never the dud the analysts were griping about. The analysts were just living up to the first four letters of their profession. The tech media was all disappointed because idiots like Daring Fireball and Tech Crunch (and others) wen’t hyperbolic on what was going to happen. But it should have been clear that Apple is saving the 5G for LTE, which is barely available right now.
Agree!
“Who the hell has that kind of money?”
Millions of Americans, literally. Actually, make that tens of millions.
I was referring to money to use as a tribute to someone they didn’t know. People can afford the phone and are buying the phone. But tribute isn’t a large factor in peoples’ decision to spend that money.
As much as I admire and miss Steve Jobs, I wouldn’t buy an extra iPhone because he passed away. That doesn’t make sense to me or to virtually everyone, but a handfull of people. It’s not a logical conclusion to buy the latest product to morn his death. Weird conclusions abound.
yeah I made up my mind to buy the iPhone 4S prior to the 4th honestly.. I just figured i’d wait till Nov 24th when my current contract expires from the iPhone 4.
After watching the Event, I was 95% sure how/when I was going to buy it. Nov 24th, buy it outright so I have no contract to deal with when Apple does release the iPhone 5. June/July or Sept/Oct next year.
Then Steve Passed..
the other 5% kicked in. Yep that IS what i’m doing.
My Gravatar, is also the Lockscreen picture on my iPhone. Thats my Tribute to Steve, not the iPhone 4S. (But i’m still going to refer to it as the 4 Steve)
YES.
Anyone that thinks its some sort of “tribute” thing is nuts.
They said the same about the 3GS and the iPad. How many times we got to prove you idiots wrong?
I believe the price point of the 32Gb model is priced to move well. The presentation was fairly much a repeat. Scott has a good enthusiastic feel to iOS5, its ready, iCloud is ready and iPhone4s is impressive with a dual-core A5; Siri takes the show though.
I bet the halo effect of Steve and Siri account for the record of sales in 12 hours.
Um, wouldn’t that actually be the most successful phone launch of ANY brand for AT&T?
Just got mine ordered!!:)
“even if it does look just like iPhone 4”
Hey, the iPhone 4 is the best looking phone ever, timeless. It was inspired by the iconic M-series Leica, which has kept the same look for 6 decades.They may change materials, make it thinner, and enlarge the display, but I hope they respect the iPh4’s beautiful shape.
You have completely missed the context of MDN’s Take.
Whoosh!
Wish my “failures” were so successful.
Keep doing what your doing Tim. 😉
If you order via AT&T website beware the order form does not ask for a shipping address. AT&T in their vast -wisdom assumes your shipping address is the same as your billing address.
mixture of both
I had prepared to purchase whatever comes out this year, regardless.
I also feel a sense of duty to “keep Steve’s dreams alive”. So, there’s that.
I also think the before perceived “debacle” is not such a debacle in light of all the information now available. “They” knew. 🙁 “They” were up there, probably doing what he wanted them to be doing, all the while, they knew. 🙁
I would have preferred a 5. but beign an owner of a 3gs which is basically impossible to use (crashes over crashes, frozen screen, 10 sec delay sometime) I can’t afford to wait another 6/8 months until the new iphone arrives. I should have probably switched to android. but too hard to do.
Don’r know what to think about the naysayers. Perhaps they like to believe and bet on fairy tales.
I just know for a fact that no one promised an iPhone 5.
I have an iPhone 4. I’m pleased with the iPhone 4S. Can’t wait to get me one.
I’m the owner of a 4. I ordered a 4S because I could use more speed, 1080p, video stabilization, twice the RAM, higher resolution photos, and Siri looks promising. Plus, all my 4 accessories will work with the 4S. The 4S didn’t blow my mind like the 4, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a very useful device. If the feature set doesn’t appeal to someone, he/she shouldn’t worry. After all, there will be an iPhone 5…next year. Also, the iPhone4 to iPhone4S upgrade reminds me of the way Apple (and all other computer manufacturers) upgrades its computers: There’s usually a step or two between each major iteration. Therefore, I don’t feel ‘cheated’ by the 4S.
Steve Jobs may be indeed be dead but it seems to be in the background somewhere still on the Jobs. Ya gotta admire a guy like that. I wished I met him.
Steve knew that the iPad2 was his last hurrah on stage. He prepared the team. He knew the limitations he kept the course. It doesn’t hurt to build on what you already love. The Mac has been around for decades. Let’s hope that the master of marketing, the man who literally birthed this company called Apple, prepared the team for the storm ahead by roadmapping the rapid dropping of hits throughout the product line culminating in what will be a sure hit iPhone 5 and iPad 3 with Siri 2.0 on every new product and the next OS X Human with Siri 2.0 built in. Running on the Gen X cellular network at incredible Korean dowload speeds. The final iphone will just be a super coated piece of tempered glass 12 mm thick with rounded edges, running iOS 6.0 with Siri 3 with 64 Gb memory and quad core A7 processors all by next Summer. The next ipad will be as thin as the ipod touch and weigh 33% less than ipad 2. It will have an 8 mp camera on back and 5 mp front faceing for FaceTime and now with up to 8 people on a single call. There is a long way to go with the lineup that Steve leaves behind and with the fanatics out here, I think that Apple will prosper and it’s best days may indeed be ahead. Don’t underestimate the will of a man who knows what needs to get done and also knows that his own time will not allow him to see it all come to fruition. As I look back on the extreme care Apple has taken to hold on to their cash it appears that this was all part of the master plan. Steve knew that things could get rough if there was doubt. He took care of the Company until the very end. He thought of everything. Hopefully he was able to see his team perform the 4Steve iPhone event. Those guys did Rock Star work considering the strain they were under. I can’t imagine knowing what they did, when they did. I exploded into sobs and tears as I learned of the passing of one of my few living Heros while doing an keynote presentation on my iPad. A CNN message alert popped on screen saying that Steve Jobs had died. I had the clarity to realize what was happening and I grabbed a screen shot with my iPad 2 because I knew that moment mattered in my life. I needed to know that marker. I keep very few. The deaths of my friends or family members and some of those are fuzzy, but when John Lennon died I marked that. I still have the Rolling Stone that came out that week. When Jerry Garcia died I was in my car near Atlantic Beach Florida. I found this news out while working in Miami FL. The first space shuttle explosion. These events stick in your memory. I am sorry to ramble but I am still trying to cope with the reality. I care so little about so many things, but this was major. I ordered my daughter an iphone 4Steve and am excited for her. Also my wife gets an iphone 4 in the process. I still have a few months, but also cant wait to get my hands on the 4S myself. I feel sad that what I crave and anticipate as much as Rush, Steve won’t get to see. The final release of another Apple blockbuster product is something I will always feel thankful to Steve for showing talented people the way to think different and create not just for function, but the art and usability of a product as well. We may yet see the day when Apple TV is no longer just a hobby. Thanks Mr Jobs. Thank you so much! You have been promoted.
4S = For Steve.
Ordered my TWO 4Ses both white one 64GB one 16GB.
Both are unlocked and bought in Canada so they should work on VZN, Sprint and ATT.
By the way, unlocked version in US will not be available until November and it also says on Apples site that the unlocked versions will be GSM only. Whereas the site in Canada has unlocked phones available now and states NOTHING about the unlocked version being GSM only. So my question to anyone who knows the answer is……”Is my assumption about the unlocked Canadian phones (i.e. being able to work as both CDM and GSM) correct?” Not that it matters all that much, just wondering.