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iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Sell Out
Perhaps to no one's surprise, the just-announced iPhone 4S has been been leaping off the shelves ... in advance of it ever hitting shelves at all. In fact, as reported by numerous sources (here's the WSJ's version), the company's pre-launch inventory has all been sold — and they only started taking the orders on Friday.
WTF are you even talking about? iProducts have been selling out for a while now. How is this news?
Perhaps to one one's surprise
Slashdot, please get rid of rubbish like 'timothy' and hire editors.
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Has anyone thought that maybe Apple purposefully restricts inventory at release, thereby driving demand faster to "get in first", and also to build hype about how it sells out? Knowing what is coming, and that you'll sell millions per month after initial release, it shouldn't be such a big logistical issue to make 10 million for initial release, versus 7 million. But then, you lose the power of the marketing line "we've sold out already!" to continue driving demand...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
If they had sold them on eBay, they wouldn't have run out.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
I currently work in a call centre for a mobile operator that has around 45% of the UKs iPhone customers (should be easy enough to work out who!), I've been speaking to people on a daily basis for months who have enquired about pre-ordering whatever the next iPhone turned out to be. The stats are a big anti-climax, but since the announcement I've been speaking to plenty of people who are upset that we're not taking pre-orders and are threatening to go to the competition.
Sure the majority of tech savvy people are disappointed with the 4S announcement and were expecting something more, but the majority of iPhone users I've spoken to about it (taking at least 30 calls a day) want one and are returning orders or putting off upgrading in the hopes of getting one, my colleagues have been experiencing the same.
The average slashdot user wont see what the big deal about the 4S is, most of our friends and colleagues wont either, but your average consumer who's been waiting for the latest iGadget is still going to lap it up, it's new, it's shiny, it's expensive and it's Apple so it MUST be the best!
I've spoken to dozens of people in my office and they all say they haven't placed a pre-order and are not interested in the 4S at all.
Wow...that's like....EVERYONE!
I'm a pleased Nexus S owner myself, but I don't understand all the negativity directed toward the iPhone 4S. It has the same simplicity and UI that people seem to love, along with nifty new software like Siri. People have rarely bought iPhone for its gaudy specs anyway, but even if they did, Apple gave it a good state-of-the-art dual-core processor, good GPU, and 1GB of RAM. Sounds very solid and competitive to me - what's bad about that? They didn't change the exterior or the name? So what?
The only glaringly obvious omission seems to be sticking with 3G instead of adding LTE or HSPA+ support. But, that's not really unexpected, given Apple's history of waiting for greater adoption of 3G before making the 3G iPhone, and tendency to favor battery life with their engineering decisions.
So, why so negative? It just sounds like some of the same old "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." cynicism. It's a good product. It is not a surprise at all that people like it!
You're very clever, young man, very clever. But it's conspiracies all the way down!
Many tech pundits should be surprised. They were so busy writing about what a disappointment iPhone 4S was that they neglected to notice the fact that preorders sold out in one day.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
"Consumers sour on Apple: Unsuccessful launch leads to glut of 4S supply"
"Apple i4S a flop"
"Apple at the end of its line? i4s overstock causes book to bill ratios to drop in Q1'12"
"Apple has lost its spark: failure to sell out like other products proves i4s is a failure: stock down 20% on concerns of apple's future"
And so on...
its a lose lose.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
I'm not sure if Google and Samsung were being overly sensitive or if Apple was being callous.
Call me a cynic, but...
If Apple had asked Steve Jobs whether to delay the release of the iPhone 4S, what would he have said? "No way!". If Google and Samsung had asked Steve Jobs whether to delay the release of their next phone, what would he have said? "Of course, for at least two years!".
Seriously, nobody thinks that Steve Jobs would have wanted them to delay anything, so I don't think anything was delayed out of sensitivity.
Whenever Apple introduces a new model or product, there's never enough to meet demand. To fans, that must look like quite a desirable achievement, and why not? Selling out seems the definition of maximum success.
But why doesn't Apple just make more? They aren't making the maximum amount. They're leaving some customers with money and no satisfaction. What Apple does is underestimate the needs of their customers. And is encouraged by all the PR from the "selling out - maximum success" fallacy.
Since the 1980s Apple has been scaring businesses away from using their products for this very reason. Which business wants to depend on PCs for every one of 150 people quickly hired in Q4, but then those amazing Macs just aren't available? Who cares how good they are when you can't get them? This is not some speculative argument. I worked for Northern Telecom in the mid 1990s, when it was (famously) Apple's biggest customer. I was part of an R&D group that was in the debate there to drop Apple for Microsoft (and, I think, HP) instead. The reason was the undependable Apple supply chain. The risk (that often came true) of no PC on the desks of new hires was a constant roadblock there. And this was a company very well dedicated to Apple, in public and in capital investments. They dropped Apple.
So long as Apple keeps having this problem, and keeps treating it like a triumph, Apple will continue to be ignored by serious businesses.
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make install -not war
Channel stuffing isn't when the phones go from the factory in Shanghai directly to the buyer via FedEx. There's no channel being stuffed there. FedEx isn't the channel. The channel is retailers and distributors.
Channel stuffing would be dumping truckloads of iPhones on Best Buy and Radio Shack and AT&T and Verizon stores, in quantities far exceeding any known demand.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Channel stuffing... like when we hear about hundreds of thousands of Blackberry PlayBooks being shipped, but don't see anyone actually using one?
Or rather when we hear about hundreds of thousands of Windows Phone 7 shipments, but have never seen one in use?
etc. etc. These are pre-orders from people with credit card numbers. Not Motorola bloviating about how many Xooms they've sent to Best Buy. These are actual sales.
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