Electronista reports, “The explosion can largely be credited to Android’s popularity in the US… Whether or not Google’s partners can sustain this level of production and challenge larger incumbents like Apple and RIM isn’t certain. Apple has over 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders just for its launch day and isn’t including walk-in sales or third-party retailers; it also is shipping only to several countries in June. Shipments should expand in July and through the rest of the year.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Surely when Steve Jobs feels the time is right to buy out AT&T’s exclusive U.S. stranglehold and get on with things, he’ll make his move, right? After all, losing 160,000+ per day to fake iPhones with long-term contracts (not to mention the fake app investments that will work to keep people from buying real iPhones someday) must have some future cost that will eventually negate all of the wonderful advantages that being shackled to AT&T Mobility brings to Apple and U.S. iPhone users. Seriously, Steve, you could open the iPhone up to multiple U.S. carriers and then just have every Apple salesperson punch each iPhone buyer in the mouth, if you like inflicting unnecessary pain on us so much. We’d take a one-time shot to the kisser in place of all of the wasted time, dropped calls, and needless frustration.
You mean give away ,not sell because it’s always a buy one get one free deal.
People want an iPhone but they don’t want AT&T;! They’re gonna go anywhere but AT&T;and if it means an iPhone wannabe that’s what they’ll do. The sooner Jobs gets inboard with Verizon the better. Do it now, Steve-o!!!
Take a look at the poll in the left column. I know it isn’t very scientific but…
What I find interesting is, the highest category to date is the seventeen-hundred people who answered NO. It isn’t likely they would have answered in that category had they bought any iPhone at all. If the 3G was their first phone, I’m sure they would have found and answered that category. Like I said, it’s not scientific.
The second highest category is the thousand people who are first-time buyers, of iPhone 4!
Then as if to drive the point home, the third highest are those who have bought all four iterations of the iPhone and probably renewed their contracts more than once.
That speaks volumes with regard to who the carrier is. In spite of the plethora of negative ad campaigns against AT&T, as well as all the carrier-bashing that has taken place in the last three-years, people are still buying the iPhone, in spite of what they hear about the carrier.
What does that tell you?
@ Lotis Eleven
Relaxe a little bit. Apple is never going to sell all the smart phones. It is not their goal.
Microsoft took over at a time when prople needed compatibility in the worst way. There was no internet. There was no email. If you could not insert your floppy and open the file you were out of luck.
Compatibility just happens these days. The Achillies Heal of M$ and now of Google is spyware and viruses. Apple’s user experience is the best and it is a safe place to be. I gladly pay for that.
“Bad plan. Once you lose them it’s much harder to switch them – especially if they buy a bunch of Android apps – than if you simply got them on their first smartphone. Steve should know better.”
That explanation doesn’t seem to have effect on iPhone users with a good collection of Apple App Store apps from defecting to Android (or at least saying they are going there) due to AT&T;poor service/call connection/etc.
If iPhone users (not Apple diehard fanboys) but regular folks are going to ditch iPhone for Android, they can come back to iPhone if Apple opens it up to the other carriers. Right?
If they love the phone but hate the carrier, if it comes to their carrier of choice, wouldn’t they possibly go back to something they love? Maybe??
I don’t thing Steve has anything to worry over? Apple is just honoring their exclusivity deal with AT&T;and when it’s up (without Apple breaching) they can go courting other carriers…
I wish Google well. Competition is a good thing: Android is a hit with the commodity boxters and Windows Phone 7 is coming real soon now.
My iPhone arrived today. I’m pretty happy so far.
@Lotus
Facts are facts.
Be prepared to get laughed out of the forum, AGAIN!
Apple is beating Android in every metric, in every poll, and everyone is starting to get their iPhone 4s, and already the media is glowing about Apple and their latest iteration. Droid X? Not so much.
Just in the last few days, the App Store has been flooded by the developers with iPhone 4-capable apps, all of which the world hasn’t even heard about yet. Soon we’ll see some pretty compelling commercials about the nature of these apps and that will only increase interest in the iPhone.
Words cannot describe how dumb it was of Motorola to roll out Droid X in the same week as the iPhone’s release!
Those who have been putting off a smartphone purchase, just to see what Apple had in mind this time around, will finally make the leap from cell-phone to smartphone.
iPhone is the juggernaut, not Android and your wrong about M$ v Apple 2.0.
People aren’t going to get locked in to a two-year contract over a wannabe iPhone. Even though the cost of owning today’s smartphone, including data plans is about the same as the cost of a 1990’s era PC, a contract is involved so that takes much of the edge off your proclamation.
Another thing, when Flash makes its debut on Android 2.2 this summer, ANY hiccups will be magnified unmercifully by the press. MDN will certainly be the first to say, I told you so.
I think you should tone down your rhetoric at least until the end of the holiday shopping season.
@G4.
Time will tell. Not you.
Well, L can tell you some facts…
1.- In most of the countries I have been in America, even in poor countries, you see a lot of iPod Touch and iPhones. I have NEVER see an ANDROID phone in my entire life.
2.- Every time if have to fly, you only see iPhones and iPods in the airports.
That is a fact, not an estimated…
Another thing, keep in mind you’re speaking for a segment of the tech-buying public who appreciates a device that isn’t a closed system. A device that gives you the freedom to tweak every single aspect of it, to make it your own.
Out of the 160,000 Androids activated in May, how many of them were people who bought Androids because they don’t care for Apple’s closed-system? 1 percent? 2 tops?
How many are buying Androids because that’s the best product their carrier has to offer?
Of them, how many can’t discern the difference between an Apple smartphone and a Motorola smartphone?
How many of them will buy an Android and then wonder why they still can’t access the App store from iTunes?
The real question you have to ask yourself is, how many people have left AT&T just to get an Android from one of the other carriers?
Also, if Android is such a significant piece of kit, and they’re selling hundreds-of-thousands of them, why isn’t Verizon’s network buckling from the weight of that device? Could it be its impact isn’t all that significant? The way things are going we should see a significant degradation on the other carriers networks by Christmas.
Dollars-to-donuts, when iPhone is released to Verizon, it will degrade their network by an order of magnitude.
@Lotus
Time will tell. Not you.
Oh but we should listen to you, the one who came back to tell us, I told you so?
Oh by the way, what facts do you have to support your claims. I’m sure we’d all like to hear them, including Steve Jobs.
I could swear I hears Syeve Jobs say recently, in an interview, that the carrier technology issues would unfortunately get worse on the near term before they get better.., was it at wwdc , all things D..,.?
Wow this guys are huge liars too?
160,000 morons a day? Very hard to believe! If true, the world is doomed. Way too many morons.
Breeze, it was at all things digital.
The Verizon event today was completely lame. First, they talk about Flash 10.1, which isn’t yet available for the Droid X. Then, they talk about Froyo. Again, not available on the Droid X. Just about everything they talked about isn’t available yet. Schmidt talks about experiencing the entire web. Right now, no one on a mobile device experiences the entire web.
@MDN –
You forget, if it wasn’t for AT&T;- we would not have the iPhone.
No telephone company would give Apple the chance to do it the Apple way, no one but AT&T;.
Once the iPhone launched and it was a success everyone was bidding for the iPhone.
And Verizon???? They would have locked it into the verizon store, no visual voicemail and no iTunes.
Just remember what company made this possible the next time you berate AT&T;.
Remember, also, that most Droidgeeks change phones more than once a year, some everytime a phone comes out, so a lot of those Droid sales are just droids getting the next newest thing. iPhone revs once per year, guaranteeing a full year or more between phone changes.
@ Superior Being “Bad plan. Once you lose them it’s much harder to switch them – especially if they buy a bunch of Android apps”
Yeah just wait til large numbers of early buyers of android phones decide to get an new android phone because the have all these apps already…..and how do we transfer those apps over to are new android phone…..ooops. At least someone wrote a handy app that will generate a list of all your old apps and email it to your new phone so you can download them all again!! No syncing means NO backup!!
Yes the new version will let you store apps on the memory card but thats not very helpful if your old phone isn’t running it.(50% aren’t running the current version now) Or if none of the versions of your old app will run on your new phone because of hardware differences. lets face it long term droid will always disappoint.
For years, lots of my friends & relatives had MP3 players, PCs, and various phones…who are now using iPods, iPads, Macs and iPhones. Apple stores report over 50% of new purchases are switchers.
People who buy cheap, or who are locked into another ecosystem eventually learn and switch over.
Nothing like millions of multiple models of Android phones and operating systems to fuel future moves to Apple, as people become educated to which products are superior.
@breeze
It was at D8 in response to a question from the audience.
MDN seriously whats the problem?
AT&T;went with Apple back when verizon didn’t that means they get exclusive rights to the iPhone for x number of years. AT&T;allowed the iPhone to actually BE a phone.
They drop calls, so does (insert name of carrier here) they dare to charge us (over charge?) for the service they provide. They look out for their best business interests, how DARE they!!!!
I have had many carriers over the years AT&T;is no worse than any other.
So SERIOUSLY what actual (not Imagined) evil have they done to the editors or what ever we call the folks that are MDN?
I too have learned not to click on ATT stories because they are simply a rant about the evil empire, and got caught on this one.
You have a good iPad app, but eventually I will get tired of the childness of the rants.
Dump ATT as soon as MDN dumps political commentary and gets a web page and hosting service that can actually deliver content in a reasonable time
MDN – the ATT of mac pages
@G4Dualie
The last laugh will belong to Lotus Eleven! In 12 months time, Andoid phones will dominate the smart phone market. The consumer wants choice of design and features. A handset purchase is a very personal, each consumer differs from another. This fact alone points to the limits of a monoculture i-phone.
@ Lotus…
Windows in the 90’s was a de facto standard, Android is not. Microsoft used its monopoly position to strong arm hardware vendors into exclusively supplying Windows-based computers. Google is not in that position and cannot control the market.
People are not tied to their smart phones as they were to the computers sitting on their desk at work. Most people change phones every time their contract ends. The smart phone market is a thriving one in which there are many major vendors with different platforms. This is nothing like the desktop computer wars of the 90’s and there’s no reason to fear history will repeat itself.
@ Lotus Eleven
You don’t get it. Apple is not in direct competition with Google, when it comes to the smartphone business. Apple is competing with the other smartphone makers, such as RIMM, Nokia, HTC, Motorola, etc. To be #1, Apple doesn’t need to have more iOS phone in use than Android phones, it just has to sell more phones or make more money (depending on how you measure success) than RIMM, Nokia, HTC, Motorola, etc. Google doesn’t even make money when an Android phone is sold, unless it happens to be a Nexus One (which is really an HTC phone in disguise).
Well, you might say the percentage of Android phones matters, because a higher percentage means more apps and more developers. Well, I would say that in the real world, developers are flocking to the iOS platform and the gap between iOS and Android is widening each day, not shrinking. Part of the reason is because Apple has created a controlled and unified environment where developers can thrive with minimal distractions and fragmentation of the platform. Part of the reason is because iPod touch and iPad greatly extend the iOS platform beyond just mobile phones. And the final NEW part is because of iAd, which is Apple’s value-added service for developers to help them to make money from popular free apps, thereby making development of free apps worth their time and effort. Since the majority of apps are free, MORE and BETTER free apps benefits the platform and its users.
So who really cares how many Android phones are being sold? Apple sells all the iPhones it makes and is probably close to maxing out production capacity. Everyone cannot buy an iPhone, because there wouldn’t enough to go around. Therefore, the majority of smartphone buyers have to buy something else, so it might as well be an Android phone, or a Blackberry, or whatever. I don’t think the folks at Apple really care. I don’t think their strategy has a bullet point that says “iPhone units sales must exceed the combined sales of all Android phones.”
Also, since I brought up iAd, THAT is Apple method of attack against Google, not the iPhone itself. Google gives away Android for free. But they make money from advertising. Apple makes its profit mostly from hardware sales. iAd is like the iTunes Store and App Store. It will generate revenue, but it doesn’t need to be a profit center. Like with the iTunes Store and the App Store, Apple will run iAd as a service, this time for its legion of developers. Apple will be competing with Google in advertising, but Apple doesn’t need to make a profit (because Apple’s profit comes from selling iPhones, iPods, and Macs). Who has the advantage there?