600,000 iPhone 4's pre-ordered on AT&T
AT&T has already sold out of pre-order iPhone 4's, having had some 600,000 people in the US sign up for one of the spangly handsets (though I doubt anyone who finds one in a bar now will get $5,000 for it).
Apple say it's the largest number of pre-orders they've ever taken in a single day and AT&T say it's ten times the number of iPhone 3GS handsets that were pre-ordered.
Here is where I'd like to offer a little calm and raise the point that this is not all down to the fact that the iPhone 4 is the best thing since sliced bread.
Obviously the popularity of the iPhone is as strong as it ever has been and, as such, a new version of this handset is only going to make hundreds of thousands of people (Facebookers and teenagers mostly) go weak at the knees.
Apple's achieved something much better though that is making the iPhone 4 stand out for other reasons. Since the launch of the original iPhone Apple have been extremely successful in popularising the smart phone. This has reached such extremes now that almost every new phone that comes out is a smart phone and the task of finding one that actually looks like a traditional mobile phone, with buttons and the like, is becoming increasingly difficult.
So rather than slag off the iPhone 4 I would suggest that a great many people are buying it simply because it's got the Apple badge on it and they're now ready to make the jump from a traditional mobile to a smart phone.
This is a great result for Apple as it means they will no longer have to always offer the best hardware in a market where standing out is becoming increasingly difficult. Their name and reputation are now enough to carry them through and this will probably be the case for a good few years yet.
Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 has an enormous mountain to climb in this regard and while other companies may claim to be doing very well with smart phone sales, if you consider that they're really only producing smart phones these days the answer why is fairly clear.
This is still an enormous number of sales for a product that's not even out yet (perhaps I should put the Apple branding on my new book?) and both Apple and AT&T can be extremely pleased.
Source : Engadget
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Yes, of course they’ve had that many orders and have run out – BS!! They’re just playing the hype game with fake numbers and pretend shortages and yet again the herd takes it all in like it were gospel.
You really think companies don’t now realise this is a simple way to gouge more publicity for their tat?
instead of talking about how Apple is great, I would say that they failed to respond to their customers’ needs.
If I had work yesterday and I was not able to preorder the new gen of iphone, why should I wait another week and now a month to get it.
This is a complete fail.
I am now thinking about waiting for symbian or meego with all the problems Apple is encountring