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AlBlue’s Blog

Macs, Modularity and More

iPhone sales for the first week?

Mac 2007 Iphone

I'm sure Apple have been paying attention to the media storm surrounding the iPhone. This is one of those rare occasions where they've announced a device before it's shipping; in most cases, hardware announcements are followed by "this is available today" or "will be available in two weeks", but in order to get FCC certification for the phone, there was an enforced 6 month period between going public and having it available to the public. Speculation and comment during that time has probably led to the biggest collection of news coverage of any of Apple's products, which both increases the hype and also the ensuing media frenzy.

I'm curious to know how many units are waiting in Apple's (and AT&T's) stores across the US right now; my bet would be that there's between quarter and half a million units, with denser populations around the larger cities and on the East/West coasts. Yet the public has already started lining up outside the Apple stores in order to get their hands on one; and it wouldn't surprise me for there to be many several that have sold out before the end of the day, if not the first week. I doubt that the on-line Apple store is going to have a delivery time of much more than '1-2 weeks' that will get met after the first wave of shipments comes in; the ones who queue at stores will be the first ones to get their hands on them.

Of course, the first day/weekend will be an outlier. It will be more interesting to see how many are sold in the first month, so by the end of July, will the number be 1 million, 2 million or 5 million? If the end-of-year target for 10 million is to be met, you'd have to hope that the first month nets 2 million+, because the first wave of early adopters represent the last six month's customers waiting for the release.

Anyway, the future is definitely here; the call plan is approximately what I'm paying for at the moment in the UK, and I'd snap up an iPhone if there was a UK carrier for it. In fact, regardless of which carrier gets the business (and I suspect that T-mobile is probably in the lead) I'll be switching over to them when the iPhone is released here.

Once again, Apple is revolutionising the industry. First it was computers, then it was music, then video, and now phone. About the only consumer industry that they've not gone towards at the moment is the audio/visual one; and the Apple TV is a toe-dip into that arena. How long will it be before you can buy a plasma/LCD TV with an Apple TV already installed into the unit?