“AT&T Inc. sold almost all its initial stock of Apple Inc.’s iPhone within hours of the device going on sale, an AT&T spokesman said on Saturday,” Reuters reports. “An Apple spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the number of iPhones sold at its 162 U.S. outlets.”
“‘Virtually all of our stores sold out of the iPhone last night,’ AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said, declining to specify how many units had been sold,” Reuters reports.
“AT&T… runs about 1,800 stores in the United States,” Reuters reports.
Asked about problems that some iPhone buyers were having with activating their phones, Siegel said the “vast majority” of customers were able to begin using their phones within minutes,” Reuters reports. “‘There are some whose activation process is being delayed and that’s something that can happen in a launch like this and we’re resolving those on a case-by-case basis,’ Siegel said.”
Full article here.
Yes, the bloodbath has commenced.
@ therepguy Do you reckon the New York Philharmonic orchestra will be performing free minuets? ha! ha! haaa!!!!
Now that would be shocking to the cognoscenti!
And these are just the, um, zealots.
The normal consumers haven’t even showed up yet. Give them a month or so.
This is the moment, comrades. (And I use that term sincerely, despite my affection for this forum’s greatest troll, Sputnik.) All that “beleaguered,” bleeding six colors in the mid-’90’s? That’s all over now. It’s gone. Let’s all just sit back and savor it.
(Myself, I’m waiting for the first iPhone with a hard drive. I’ll get one when it can replace my 60 GB 4G iPod, with all of my music. At least until I change my mind in a moment of weakness. Which will probably happen about a week from now.)
“The Balmy one can teach Apple a lesson today!”
There is NOTHING that the classless one could teach Apple… NOTHING!
Monkey Boy couldn’t teach a monkey how to eat a banana.
This is already, far and away, the most successful launch of a consumer electronics product ever.
-jcr
This is already, far and away, the most successful launch of a consumer electronics product ever.
-jcr
This is already, far and away, the most successful launch of a consumer electronics product ever.
-jcr
This is already, far and away, the most successful launch of a consumer electronics product ever.
-jcr
Four minutes and I was up and running. Had an error message first time around but after a reboot of the computer, it was a snap. Typing is weird but getting the hang of it. I’m typing from my iPhone . This is sweet.
“But the brag that AT&T ran out of iPhones simply reflects that Apple has historically never had its act together with being able to keep up with volume demand for its popular products, in my opinion.” – Reality Check
Oh what insight. For you to criticise Apple and their decision making is a joke that only you don’t see.
And you also don’t appear to see that restricting availability helps to stoke yet greater demand.
I have now to presume that Reality Check works for Microsoft. Probably a decent engineer but absolute crap at everything else.
The problems with phone numbers porting and AT&T getting the numbers together on FamilyTalk plans are evidence of why Steve calls these folks “orifices.”
Great flawless Apple execution, and all the problems are on the cellular side…..
My local AT&T store had 50 8GBs and 20 4GBs with 70 people in line by 5:30. All the 8GBs went first.
It seems as though there are 4GB models left. The guy at the Apple store said people are opting to come back later for 8GB models.
My Auburn, Maine ATT store had 30 iPhones, only 20-8GBs and 10-4GBs. The 8GBs sold in the first hour, and i picked up the very last 4GB at 9pm, after I saw Ratatouille.
3 mins to activate, with a new number.
I don’t have USB2 on my old TiPB, and it took ages to transfer all my stuff.
just got home from an 8 hour round trip to the “local” apple store. walked in got in line (4 back) bought 2 8gbs & a pair of encase sleeves. out in about 10 minutes. most people in line already knew what they wanted and didn’t venture near the display. the 10 display iphones had people 2 & 3 deep to touch one. looking forward to setting them up tonite. xmas in july. can you beat that?
mw/school: the mobile industry is being taken to school by apple
I walked by the SoHo Apple Store this afternoon (Sat.). It was insane. It’s always busy, since I walk by fairly often. I was there a couple of times this week getting a new MacBook Pro… BUT I’ve never EVER seen it that packed! Totally insane. I just kept walking.
Dropped into the small AT&T store in my neighborhood on 77th & Broadway… y’know, one of those small phone stores that never has anyone in them and you wonder how they afford to keep such places open and staffed.
Well, today at 5:30pm there was a line to the door… maybe 10 people with another 10 trying to maneuver around the displays. There were several peopl showing their iPhones to other people in the store RAVING about how much they loved them, how much FUN they are and had spent all night playing.
Nearly everyone has a cell phone and nearly everyone tolerates or outright HATES their phone. Just imagine a phone that is FUN to use? I’ve owned Motorola, Nokia, Sony Ericsson… they were ALL irritating in many ways.
You can BET that the initial iPhone release is just like the Navy Seals going in to “soften” a target before the big assault. Wait until all those hundreds of thousands of people start showing everyone who asks and tell them how much they LOVE their iPhones. This will make the iPod seem like small potatoes.
Apple will sell every last one of them and still need to crank out more!
Like others, I want a hard drive based one so i can replace my 5.5 gen 80GB iPod.
I got home last night with my new iphone in hand. I walked up to the counter, gave credit card and walked out..they emailed me a reciept from their handheld card scanner. I got home cut open the bottom square of plastic off so I could keep the rest of the shrink wrap intact. Then I slid the top off and took the phone out along with all of the other contents. Next, I hooked it up to iTunes 7.3 and got the message that I needed a SIM card. Long story short. I spoke with support at Apple after exhaustive online searching. They had not heard of a phone not having the SIM installed. I took the phone back to apple this morning and got ZERO hassle or questions. Just a new phone. After getting home with the new phone I am set up with a new number and good to go in just a few minutes. Later today Apple called me back from tech support, apologized for the inconvenience and gave me a name and direct extension if I have any more problems.
Now, I can’t say I am happy to have been on the phone for 1 Hour and 42 minutes or the 25 mile each way trip to exchange, but I really appreciated such effort during what is understandably a very tough situation to deal with. The first few days with the launch of what may turn out to be the most anticipated device EVER will soon start to go smoother. I am VERY VERY happy and …. oh yeah….this baby is SMOKIN’!!! Bravo!!! HOME RUN!!! GOALLLLLL!!!!!
Thanks Apple
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I love all this complaining about Apple not planning the right quantity for the first fscking day. Come on, give me a break. Revolutionary new product, how the heck can anyone accurately predict how many will sell? How much money would you be willing to invest?
Let’s see, if they predicted to sell 400,000 and made 600,000 but sold all 600,000, they were wrong and planned poorly?? What if they predicted to sell 400,000, made the 600,000 but only sold 100,000. The wall street jackasses would be all over them… hello… Zune???
We’ll see once the weekend is over, regardless, I’m loving my iPhone!
My local AT&T store ran out of 8GB iPhones but a quick trip to an Apple store corrected the problem as they seemed to have plenty. Seriously, the experience at AT&T stores severely sucks when compared to purchasing it at an Apple store.
I opted to go to the Apple Store in a local mall this morning instead of yesterday just before 9AM. I think a lot of folks did not know the Apple Stores were open today at 9AM. There was a line of about 10 people when they opened the store and it took only about 2 minutes to purchase. I am an existing AT&T customer on a family plan. I attempted to activate my iPhone via iTunes at about 8PM EST and got a message in iTunes and an e-mail stating they are processing my activation. I had a company discounted plan and I had to waive that discount to activate. I am still waiting for e-mail confirmation that I can use the iPhone. I really hope this does not take the 72 hours stated by another post. That is really crazy!!!
Anyone else experiencing long delays in activation? Is it only happening to existing AT&T customers?
I got skunked at an AT&T store one block from my home in Alexandria VA on Friday Night. Picked up an 8 gig iPhone from Westfarms Mall in West Hartford, CT on Sat AM. Am activating now…waiting for AT&T to finish activation (a curent customer)
Just after 10m this morning I walked straight up to the counter of my local Apple store and walked out a couple of minutes later with an 8gb iPhone. (They had plenty left.) Activation from home about 30 minutes later took 2-3 minutes, adding a data plan to our existing family plan with no issues or delays, at all. So far the iPhone experience has been very painless.
You’re right, Crabapple, the Balmy one could teach Jobso something about how to keep appropriate stock in the stores: Control demand by product characteristics!
Hey Guys,
Thought you may like an idea how to help fix this Issue of not being registered.
restart mac, renew your Ip address, and try again.
PS: Who wants a free email :> iphonewebmail.com
I have a sad feeling that we’ll never know how many iPhones are being sold from the quarterly reporting and that Apple will simply roll them into the iPod figures.
If that’s the case, the only way you’ll really be able to tell how the iPhone is doing will be by checking the average revenue per unit on the iPod line of the report (IIRC, it’s around $169/unit at the moment), although the other clue will be the penetration of the iPhone version of Safari on the stats produced by the companies that keep track of such things.
My personal theory is that, once the first million units are in the hands of consumers – which I suspect will be by close of business on Sunday or midday on Monday, Apple will continue to move around 40,000 units/day until the end of October and that there will then be a spike to around 55-65K units in the run-up to Xmas.
On that basis, Apple will move upwards of 8.5 million iPhones by the end of 2007 which means that Apple will make mincemeat of the 2008 calendar year target of 10 million units.
Why am I aiming low?
Because I believe that – whilst the reviews are good – consumers will see the few qualifications on those reviews and choose to wait for an iPhone 2.0 which will iron out some issues and probably be a feature-update as well. In any case, 8.5 million units in a half-year isn’t really low given that Apple is starting from zero and the stated aims for calendar 2008 are so moderate.
Rudge “The problem was that nobody bothered to ask the store managers how many iPhones that they were given. That seemed like a very important thing to ask all of these people. Oh well.”
At the AT&T Store where I got mine, they had 60 of the 8GB version and 30 of the 4GB version. I was 30th in line, and no one in front of me wanted the 4GB version, even the first person in line, a 15yo girl was getting the 8GB.
I bet that Apple will sell at LEAST 3 of the 8GB versions for every 4GB version. Maybe not in the long run, but certainly in the initial wave of buyers.