Over the past few days I’ve been keeping an eye on the inventory pages on Apple.com. This handy service shows which Apple stores have the new iPhone in stock, and which models are actually on the shelf.
One thing I’ve constantly seen is that the 16GB iPhone sold out almost everywhere, in both colors (with the black version selling out first).
When Apple introduced the first generation iPhone, they started with a 4GB and 8GB version, and just like now, the larger one was the biggest seller. Just 2 months after its introduction, the 4GB version was discontinued. due to lack of customer interest.
So I have to wonder whether Apple really learned from their mistake? Of whether they are doing this on purpose? Sure, they had to make some concessions to keep that magical $199 price point, but they could have anticipated that demand for the larger one would massive. Of course, knowing Apple, this is all part of their grand scheme. Either way, it’s pretty crappy because a lot of people walk into an Apple store and when faced with just one choice of iPhone (8GB), they’ll decide they don’t want to spend another 4 hours in line and pick the one they didn’t really want. That’s dedication for ya!
My guess is that in 2 months Apple will discontinue the 8GB 3G iPhone, and that by December we’ll see a new 32GB version show up. Just in time for Christmas…
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This evening I decided to check out my closest AT&T corporate store. The first indication something was wrong was the total calm and serenity inside. In the store were 9 reps and myself. People have either given up on the prospect of scoring an iPhone tonight, or they are just too tired to leave the house in this 90 degree weather.
Of course, they were out of iPhones, but when pressed how long it would take to get one, the guy acted pretty weird. At first he told me it would be 5–7 business days.
Then when I let him know I wanted 4 new lines (I bluffed), he let slip that he’d have more tomorrow morning. Of course, I dug even deeper asking what time they’d be delivered. And then he screwed up; he told me they already had them in the back, but that he couldn’t sell them yet.
Seems like Apple and AT&T took lessons at the “Bestbuy school for artificial Wii shortages”. Sleazy.
Update: The Boy Genius Report already reported on this: AT&T stores are getting daily allotments, so most stores will indeed already have their Saturday iPhones in stock today, with the Sunday ones arriving tomorrow. Still a pretty poor way of doing business.To tell customers TODAY that they are out of stock and that they need to order now and wait a week but then go ahead and sell them tomorrow to other customers is just pathetic.
FWIW; he says that AT&T stores will be getting between 20 and 150 iPhones, with most Apple stores receiving at least 2000!
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This photo is of my local Apple store. The estimated wait is currently over 5 hours (at 11:30am) and I counted at least 250 people in line. I chatted briefly with some of the people at the front of the line, expecting them to be latecomers, but it turns out they had been waiting since 8:15am (when they arrived they were around 35th in the line).
My next stop was an AT&T store, where things were not much better. The line is about 50 people long, and once again they only let a few people into the store at a time. The best part? They don’t actually have any more iPhones but the store staff are not telling anyone this (verbally or with a simple sign). Instead, you wait in line for 2-3 hours, order one, then get sent home with a “it’ll be here some time next week”. People walking out are leaving with nothing more than a printout of their order, but none of the folks in line seem to care.
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The 3G iPhone is here, and so is the new Apple "app store". This repository of applications written just for the iPhone and iPod touch was launched with over 500 applications. Some pretty nice (like the remote control app), and some just plain dumb (like the "hold this button app").
But what has surprised me most, is that some companies jumped on the opportunity to develop for the iPhone, but have ignored all other phones or made unfair pricing decisions. Let’s look at a few:
Weatherbug Mobile
This application is great - it delivers live weather, from local weather stations. It’s one of the launch apps for the iPhone, and it is free. Which is great if you own an iPhone. But owners of a Blackberry have to pay $39.99 a year, for access to the same data. Pretty unfair if you ask me.
Ebay
Ebay clearly understand the power of mobile access to their auctions. So they launched with a free iPhone application that shows all your buying, selling and watching activity. Of course, there is no explanation why they never bothered to create this application for the Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile or Symbian.
The only bright side is that non iPhone users are not missing much, the application is horrible and already one of the lowest ranked in the app store.
Yelp
Yelp is a local search engine and social networking site. People rate and explain local services and stores. It’s become a pretty valuable site with honest and up to date ratings of local businesses. On the iPhone it is GPS enabled and has built in mapping.
But once again, not available on any other platform. GPS has been available in Windows Mobile, Symbian and Blackberry smartphones for well over a year. So why didn’t they ever take the time to write it for those platforms first?
Applications for the iPhone is a long overdue feature, so I’m happy they finally made this available. But I just can’t help being disappointed that so many developers are spending money and resources on just one platform. It reeks of "me too" and clearly some companies just want to be part of the cool crowd. Having your app on a Blackberry just isn’t cool enough for Ebay, Yellow Pages, PayPal, Smugmug and loads of other companies.
Very disappointing.
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Last year new iPhone customers were greeted with long lines at the store, and long lines once they got home. Some iPhones too as long as 36 hours to be activated through iTunes.
But this year AT&T and Apple seem to be working hard to beat last years dismal record. At the moment, iPhones can not be activated in store. Around 8:30am I stopped by at the local AT&T store (where there were only 10 people in line). They were telling people that the activation system was “down” and that they had only managed to activate one phone so far.
There are more reports of people experiencing issues reaching the iTunes activation service, including people who have upgraded their current iPhone to the new 2.0 software. Those poor people now have a phone that worked 10 minutes ago, but is stuck in bricked mode (which means it can only make emergency calls).
So, if you plan to head out and get a new iPhone, or sit at home to upgrade your current one, be patient. You may be in for a bumpy ride.
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10 Jul
Posted by scottc as 3G, Apple, Blackberry, iPhone
Gizmodo posted a trollish article this afternoon where chief Apple fan Jesus Diaz claims the newest and greatest from Apple will “kill the Blackberry”.
First of all, I don’t usually take anything from them that serious, they are after all pretty rabid Apple fans. But looking at things from a technical perspective, I still can’t find any logic in the post.
According to Diaz:
Until now, the only thing that separated the BlackBerry from the iPhone-apart from the iPhone’s better, faster and more powerful operating system-was the push email on the BlackBerry
Wow, that’s just silly in so many ways. Lets look at a couple of reasons why I think he’s incorrect:
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The iPhone app store is up (you’ll need to download the newest version of iTunes to access it), and there are already three pages of travel applications available, at least half of them are free!
Not surprisingly, no US airline too the time to develop an flight lookup application yet. The first (and currently only) airline with their own iPhone application is BA!
Of course, once the new firmware and the 3G iPhone are officially available we’ll start to see more apps find their way to the new store.
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That’s right - The Apple developed “Exchange for the rest of us” should/could be live some time tomorrow.
Of course, Apple forgot that third party Exchange services have been around for years (I myself use Mail2web.com), but like with most Apple products, they’ll let everyone believe they invented it.
Anyway, if you want to snag a Mobile Me account for your new iPhone 3G then tomorrow might be the time to do so. It’ll give you some time to get used to all the beautiful features.
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Rogers (Canada’s only GSM provider) has caved to the pressure from customers and Apple. For a limited time (July 11th till August 31st) they’ll be offering a pretty generous 6Gb data plan for the iPhone for just $30. That’s actually better than the AT&T plan, which has an unofficial cap at 5Gb. Of course, as with most Candian plans, customers will still need to sign a 3 year agreement.
Customers attending launch day events at these Rogers Plus stores will be treated to a free early bird breakfast and have a chance to win Rogers Wireless prizes. Effective July 11, and as a limited time promotional offer for customers who activate by August 31 on a three year contract, a data-only offering of 6GB of data for $30 per month is being made available that can be added to any in-market voice plan. For example, with 6GB of data, iPhone 3G users can visit 35,952 web pages, or send and receive 157,286 emails, or watch 6,292 minutes of YouTube videos each and every month.(xx) New Canadian iPhone 3G customers will also have the choice to select from Rogers Wireless’ existing voice and smartphone data plans and/or additional features to best suit their needs, or from Rogers Wireless’ value bundled plans specifically for iPhone 3G.
Color me impressed, I just hope they’ll offer a similar plan for Blackberry users when they introduce the Bold, because they have been asking for better data plans for years, and it seems pretty unfair to ignore them too. I guess it just shows what the power of the Internet (and bad PR) can be.
Source: Gizmodo (Thanks DallasBill)
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Looks like Apple is finally picking sides in the Canadian battle for better iPhone plans. They have allocated just enough iPhones to supply every Rogers store with 10-20 3G iPhones, and will not be selling them in the Canadian Apple stores.
This is of course all because Rogers feels that its customers don’t deserve a cheap iPhone plan, and that a 3 year contract can be justified. Apparently Apple agrees with the 51 thousand people that filled in an online petition (seems kind of low…). Of course, the official Apple comment is "We have nothing to do with the service plans. Those are Rogers’ plans".
Source: AppleInsider
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