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.

Have mobile providers have faked a sell out ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is either fake or at the very least exaggerated.
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.

I wouldn't put it past the carriers to fake a sell out (which would be incredibly easy to do).

Don't get me wrong the 4S has its good points, but its just to little to late.

So yea, i wouldn't put it past apple and/or the carriers to simply fake a sell out. I bet they have done it before too.

Apple Always Screws Up the Supply Chain

[Doc Ruby]

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.

Re:Apple Always Screws Up the Supply Chain

[Antisyzygy]

The problem is that Apple makes their products seem scarce artificially. They have tried to seem like a small "for the consumer" company, they try to seem like they cater to their "elite" customers whims, they have a reputation for producing products for the wealthier, their advertising tends to portray Mac users as some kind of savvy elite class, and then even though they know their products routinely sell out, they don't even bother to try and get production up so it will accommodate demand. Im sorry, but Apple products are over-priced for what their actual costs are. Apple has the highest profit margin of any company because it doesn't sell its stuff cheaply, and it does so by over-limiting supply and over-inflating demand.