Manufacturing Glitch Slows iPhone Production.

[macaddicted]

Manufacturing Glitch Slows iPhone Production.

Wanted to pass this along. No clue as to the quality of the source.

From the article:
We expect sell-outs and complaints about lack of availability of the phone. On this point, we have stumbled across some info that leads us to beleive that HonHai is having trouble manufacturing to schedule and is running behind due to some part delays. It appears that the initial 12 million unit run rate will not be available by June 15. Get your iPhone if you can…

Now I'm not experienced in large scale manufacturing, but is this entire first run for the US market? Or are they building 3G units for the non-US market at the same time? The US is getting them soon, Europe sometime in the fall and Asia in early '08. 10 million is the goal in '08 so why such a huge production run?

 

[sprescott1974]

after reading the actual post i call FUD. i'll believe it more when i see macrumors or appleinsider corraborating this from independent sources.

 

[BoughtAAPL@4.00]

Look, Jobs was talking 10 million sold by the end of 2008. If the initial order was for 12 million, it certainly wouldn't have a delivery date of all 12 million by June 15.

Apple will, of course, blow those estimates away. This ain't no Apple TV. There will be shortages, but the magnitude depends on whether a 3G upgrade path is available. If there is not much of a barrier (and the key point here is Jobs making the point to take revenue over 24 months, including his statement "We want to provide many of these new features and applications at no additional charge to users.") that removes any disincentive to buying the 1.0 version.

This is one of the biggest tech launches in history. If the upgrade is free it will, in fact, be the biggest hardware launch in history. I am willing to bet money (as I have in buying July $100 calls in April) that Jobs will specifically address the 3G concern on June 11, if not the All Things Digital discussion on Wednesday (http://allthingsd.com/); I'd expect Walt Mossberg would ask that question outright and will suggest that right now: http://kara.allthingsd.com/20070523/questions-for-steve-and-bill-ron-conway-investor/

 

[whooleytoo]

Look, Jobs was talking 10 million sold by the end of 2008. If the initial order was for 12 million, it certainly wouldn't have a delivery date of all 12 million by June 15.

I have to agree. They predict 10m in first year sales, but are manufacturing 12m for the launch date? Given how Apple is obsessive about stock-turnover, this report is way off the mark.

 

[gnasher729]

I have to agree. They predict 10m in first year sales, but are manufacturing 12m for the launch date? Given how Apple is obsessive about stock-turnover, this report is way off the mark.

And how likely is it that Apple wants to have products with a sale price of six billion dollars / bill of materials around three billion dollars sitting around in a warehouse? With the first generation of a product, where nobody actually _knows_ how many will be sold, with the possibility of some design error that will be only found when the phones are in customers hands?

 

[Nutter]

There will be shortages, but the magnitude depends on whether a 3G upgrade path is available.

3G can't be added by a software upgrade. It requires different hardware. The first generation iPhone will never be able to do 3G, sadly...

 

[Turkish]

Not one stitch of fact in the whole article.

"We think," We assume," blah de blah de blah.

The whole piece is BS.

 

[BoughtAAPL@4.00]

3G can't be added by a software upgrade. It requires different hardware. The first generation iPhone will never be able to do 3G, sadly...

Yes different hardware is required.

That's not to say that it won't be able to do 3G, though...let's Think Different™ on this. What is the biggest disincentive to the iPhone right off the bat (ignoring pricing arguments)? That it won't be 3G and Jobs said 3G will be coming later in the year. What does that do to initial sales? Especially with every product review harping on the slow network speed with "Wait for 3G" comments? And then, when 3G finally comes out and everyone realizes their 1.0 model is highly depreciated and comparitively pokey, you get all that anti-Apple backlash and vocal "slow slow slow" complaints.

Next consider that the phone will require different hardware outside the US, too. Hmmm. How do we address both of these issues? Design the phone with a hardware upgrade path.

When we Think Different about the cell phone experience, we should also be looking at the manufacturing. With the multitude of cheap regular cell phones out there, there has never been a 2G/3G issue because the things are so darn cheap that you would just buy a new one anyway. So there has never been a need to engineer a hardware upgrade path into the phone. It doesn't occur to us that it's even possible.

I'm not saying that Apple has done this or is going to do this. But I am saying, I wouldn't rule it out. Apple can not afford to have the iPhone get off to anything other than a stellar start, and this would be one way to achieve it. A trade-up program from Day 1 would also work. Of course, a surprise "3G from the outset" announcement on June 11 would work even better.

 

[neven]

A trade-up program from Day 1 would also work. Of course, a surprise "3G from the outset" announcement on June 11 would work even better.

I think it would be great if we could upgrade our iPhones to 3G, even if it were a (reasonably priced) paid upgrade. However, I really doubt it.

I think the FCC papers showed that 3G was not currently implemented, so that probably rules out a surprise inclusion of it in the June version. I expect to be surprised by software features, but the hardware is probably going to be exactly what Steve outlined.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

and this is surprising because..

Apple has a long known history of crappy delivery of new products on the "said release date" apple does what I would call a lot of paper launches and to me June 15th is just a paper launch.