Anyone who thinks that aluminum is automatically better than composite fiber throughout the expected life of the airframe. would do well to remember Aloha Flight 243. That's the plane on which the cabin roof ripped off in 1988. The plane was older, of course -- but I thought that was Rather's point: that as CF ages, it will become failure-prone while aluminum wouldn't.
Nothing is perfect. Heck, even I'm getting a little more failure-prone as I age.
AT&T and Apple both knew that the iPhone would be immensely popular, but neither company apparently realized how big initial demand would be.
The Chicago Tribune reports today that "before the phone's debut analysts expected Apple to sell 50,000 to 200,000 units" during the rollout, but initial reports are that 500,000 units were in customer hands within the first few hours. (see http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-070702i phone,0,1339325.story?coll=chi-business-hed)
One problem was that both companies were not only introducing a new product, but a new activation method -- take it home and activate it yourself using iTunes. Store employees were not allowed to open the box or even break the shrink-wrap; it was all up to customers -- all of whom were obviously untrained in the process, and some of whom were probably less technically qualified than others.
To make matters even more complicated, at least half of the iPhone first-day buyers were coming from other cell phone providers (see http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/02/500-000-iphones -sold-so-far-but-can-apple-keep-up/), the AT&T activation server was swamped. According to a friend who works for the company, all half-a-million buyers wanted to activate at the same time.
Under those circumstances, what could anyone expect but difficulty?
One reason I'm waiting until Christmas to get mine...
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Anyone who thinks that aluminum is automatically better than composite fiber throughout the expected life of the airframe. would do well to remember Aloha Flight 243. That's the plane on which the cabin roof ripped off in 1988. The plane was older, of course -- but I thought that was Rather's point: that as CF ages, it will become failure-prone while aluminum wouldn't. Nothing is perfect. Heck, even I'm getting a little more failure-prone as I age.
AT&T and Apple both knew that the iPhone would be immensely popular, but neither company apparently realized how big initial demand would be. The Chicago Tribune reports today that "before the phone's debut analysts expected Apple to sell 50,000 to 200,000 units" during the rollout, but initial reports are that 500,000 units were in customer hands within the first few hours. (see http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-070702i phone,0,1339325.story?coll=chi-business-hed)
One problem was that both companies were not only introducing a new product, but a new activation method -- take it home and activate it yourself using iTunes. Store employees were not allowed to open the box or even break the shrink-wrap; it was all up to customers -- all of whom were obviously untrained in the process, and some of whom were probably less technically qualified than others.
To make matters even more complicated, at least half of the iPhone first-day buyers were coming from other cell phone providers (see http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/02/500-000-iphones -sold-so-far-but-can-apple-keep-up/), the AT&T activation server was swamped. According to a friend who works for the company, all half-a-million buyers wanted to activate at the same time.
Under those circumstances, what could anyone expect but difficulty?
One reason I'm waiting until Christmas to get mine ...
So they finally found some. Time to hang up the cape ...