Only 146,000 iPhone activations Opening Weekend

[milo]

So who took advantage of the dip as a buying opportunity?

Currently up over 8% to 149 in after hours trading. Record quarter for both overall profits and even mac sales. And Apple hasn't even started getting the recurring monthly income from ATT.

So how exactly is the iPhone a "flop"? You'd think people would have learned from the people who naysayed the iPod and ended up with egg on their face.

 

[macidiot]

Well, this is a well-reasoned post!

Among a half dozen other things i could say about it consider this: Apple's network feeds of its own events (macworld keynotes, for ex) often stutter or drop because of capacity challenges. Is Apple pathetic? Or, perhaps, is your analysis of AT&Ts ability to process orders in about a second just a little over the top?

I'm not an AT&T booster, just eager to see a little more intelligent (informed? mature? sober?) posts on the forum.

Excuse me, I was one of the people that AT&T made stand in line for hours, only to be told first, that they were out of iPhones, then only out of 8GB phones, and one of the last to actually get a phone. There were plenty of people behind me...

Apparently, AT&T instructed stores to not divulge amount of stock. Deliberately making people stand in line, knowing full well they would not have iPhones for them.

Additionally, a large reason for the wait was the PATHETIC sales system. Not to mention ill-prepared employees. Overall, a completely amateurish effort from AT&T.

And again, AT&T knew exactly how much supply they had and still failed to properly prepare employees, failed to properly prepare their POS system, failed to properly develop and test their activation system, failed to fully test the voicemail system, it goes on and on.

Of course, AT&T only had SIX months to get ready...

FYI, purchasing on day one from and Apple store was painless other than the initial wait for the doors to open. The actual sales transaction was 5-10 minutes.

So NO, my comment was not over the top. I did not expect it to take 1 second to process. However I did expect it to be quicker than 20-30 minutes. Color me crazy, but in the world I live in, a credit card transaction at virtually any retail store in the US does NOT take 20 minutes to process.

Further, AT&T owns and operates about 1800 stores. Assuming an average of 5 registers (the store I went to was a "flagship" store and had 7 registers running), they were overloaded by a maximum total of 9000 simultaneous transactions. Are you kidding?

And your comparison to Apple internet feeds is absurd. AT&T was not impacted by 1 million plus people attempting to access one site at the same moment. Try 9000.

The difference here is that I speak from first hand knowledge. Which apparently, you do not, first hand or otherwise.

 

[rob@robburns.co]

Sorry, but you're wrong. The Nokia 770 has a 4.3" screen at 800x480, so that is about 200dpi.

I couldn't find any confirmation of the Nokia 770's actual resolution. I also could find very little evidence of displays at 200dpi resolution. I did find mention that IBM has one:

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/1975.wss

I also found mention that Samsung now has a display in the range of the iPhone from March 2007:

http://www.phonearea.net/2007-03-29...isplay-that-automatically-adjusts-brightness/

It is possible that Nokia is just using the same confusion perpetuated on PC consumers for years to claim the device has this resolution (by emulating the resolution). Safari on the iPhone does a similar thing to give the iPhone something like a 480 dpi resolution. Again that's playing with the numbers that PC vendors play with all of the time. It doesn't really give it a 480 dpi resolution. It only has a 160 dpi resolution. Nothing can make it higher in software alone.

 

[kdarling]

I couldn't find any confirmation of the Nokia 770's actual resolution. (... snip ...) It is possible that Nokia is just using the same confusion perpetuated on PC consumers for years to claim the device has this resolution (by emulating the resolution).

No sir. All the devices we listed are 800x400+ Other phones coming out soon will have at least 720x480.

Some Windows Mobile handheld devices have had 640x480 for several years now.

That's why I was a little surprised at the iPhone's 480x320 screen. Not exactly pushing the state of the art.

 

[danny_w]

That's why I was a little surprised at the iPhone's 480x320 screen. Not exactly pushing the state of the art.

But then, Apple's laptop screens aren't exactly pushing state of the art either in resolution.

 

[rob@robburns.co]

No sir. All the devices we listed are 800x400+ Other phones coming out soon will have at least 720x480.

Some Windows Mobile handheld devices have had 640x480 for several years now.

That's why I was a little surprised at the iPhone's 480x320 screen. Not exactly pushing the state of the art.

Can you provide a link to that effect. I've been looking and I can't find any confirmation. I'm not saying you're wrong, but wouldn't you expect them to list the ppi/dpi of these devices as a big selling point. I would and yet I don't see it anywhere. Like I said, I found Samsung excited about a new display capable of 160 dpi from March 2007. They made it sound like that was state-of-the-art. Maybe that's wrong, but where's a link showing it's wrong.

 

[rob@robburns.co]

But then, Apple's laptop screens aren't exactly pushing state of the art either in resolution.

We need resolution independent OS before we can start to push the state-of-the-art in laptop or desktop resolutions. iPhone is already resolution independent. The desktop OS will take some time to transition.

 

[kdarling]

Can you provide a link to that effect.

Here's an example of a production handheld LCD with 800x480:

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20061227/125955/

 

[rob@robburns.co]

Here's an example of a production handheld LCD with 800x480:

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20061227/125955/

That's an article from 7 months ago announcing Hitachi's new display. Though I don't doubt it's in production now, it does also say that it consumes more power than a traditional LCD display. So I'm not sure why you would necessarily want a higher res display. My impression of the iPhone display (and other's have said this too) is that it's clear and crisp. Some have described as beautiful. So why would Apple need to put in a display that only sucks more battery in there? Just for technically impressive stats?

This article seems to tout it because it can display the same about of real estate as a VGA display. However, with resolution independence, the iPhone can display that and more. So I'm not sure if that's an advantage either.

 

[michelepri]

Seriously, where are you getting your information? Some coffee house in Europe surrounded by goats?

US cell phone technology is behind "some" parts of the world because of a few things:

Competition. Unlike Europe, which mandated one technology, the US has more than one. This is partly because Europe had the "advantage" of being significantly BEHIND the US early on and was able to start with a clean slate and select from several more mature technologies. US companies had significant analog infrastructures and multiple companies (as in more than 10). They had cell technology rolled out (and had to pay for the investment) when people in Europe were excited just to have a plain telephone.

Size. The US is huge. It costs a lot of money to put up enough cell towers to provide 100% coverage. Italy is what, the size of Florida?

The US is not communist/socialist. Therefore, the US government does not heavily subsidize cellular infrastructure. Nor does it pay for broadband buildout or have a national airline.

And Enron? Seriously?

Wake me up when Italy becomes a first world country.

I didn't say the US were behind in every field. In fact I use Apple computers and Europe hasn't even produced a decent operating system yet. But to come out with your statements one needs to really distort reality.

And Italy might be smaller than Florida, but if you take the size of Russia + EU + UK I think we get a larger area than all of the US.

Europe is communist? Our telecommunications infrastructure were built under a communist plan? This was eastern Europe in the 1970s. In modern days most Eastern countries have strong democracy and frankly speaking most of them, including Russia, have a more reliable electoral system than the US. Besides, I live in Germany. So sure You can claim that Italy and all other European countries are not first world, but it's only matter of definition. Unlike the US, most Europeans have homes, food, health insurance and can vote for their leaders. And on top of that they have better and faster cellular networks

But I don't mean to be offensive because I have always loved the Us and the creative forces working there (oh well, maybe just California). But I believe we have a much more competitive structure here in communications.

 

[nimicus]

From Brest, France to Samara, Russia (just as an example) 2,353 miles (3,787km). New York, NY to San Francisco, CA 2,567 (4,130km). Please don't play the dumb. American (I can say that because I'm an American).

Who's playing dumb, maybe I just didn't know Russia was considered part of Europe. Especially considering most of it is in the Asian continent. I should be burned at the stake for not knowing .

 

[macidiot]

I didn't say the US were behind in every field. In fact I use Apple computers and Europe hasn't even produced a decent operating system yet. But to come out with your statements one needs to really distort reality.

And Italy might be smaller than Florida, but if you take the size of Russia + EU + UK I think we get a larger area than all of the US.

Europe is communist? Our telecommunications infrastructure were built under a communist plan? This was eastern Europe in the 1970s. In modern days most Eastern countries have strong democracy and frankly speaking most of them, including Russia, have a more reliable electoral system than the US. Besides, I live in Germany. So sure You can claim that Italy and all other European countries are not first world, but it's only matter of definition. Unlike the US, most Europeans have homes, food, health insurance and can vote for their leaders. And on top of that they have better and faster cellular networks

But I don't mean to be offensive because I have always loved the Us and the creative forces working there (oh well, maybe just California). But I believe we have a much more competitive structure here in communications.

If you look at my post, I stated more than one reason why the digital rollout has lagged other countries.

Russia, eastern Europe, Italy, Germany, China, Korea, wherever had the advantage of starting with a clean slate and being able to pick a developed, mature technology.

The US had a significant analog infrastructure along with having to sort out the various technologies (which it still hasn't done).

I said communist/socialist because European governments mandated using gsm. There was no choice for the telecoms. Mostly I meant socialist. Additionally, other than maybe the UK, each european country has one monopolistic telecom, with close ties to the government. In the US, for better or worse, there are multiple telecoms competing. It is worse in the sense that infrastructure buildout is expensive, and having multiple companies with more than one technology building multiple networks is somewhat redundant. We have Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint each building out separate networks covering the same areas. T-Mobile kind of piggybacks with AT&T (and vice versa).

You do not have a more competitive cellular structure there. It is less competitive. However, it is probably more reliable and faster. It is also more expensive, I believe.

Additionally, yes, Russia is big. But I'm pretty sure they don't have 100% cellular coverage. In fact, I don't even think they have 100% road access or even indoor plumbing.

FYI, EU + western Russia (Moscow and west) is still smaller than the US.

The EU is about 40% the size of the US. Less than half the size of the US.

Surface area of EU - 3.9 million square km.
Surface area of US - 9.6 million square km. (I do not know if that includes Alaska and Hawaii)

Europeans, unless they have been in the US for awhile don't seem to understand the size of the US. As a matter of fact, a lot of Americans don't either. This applies to things like cars. Europeans ask why don't we have trains and why do we use cars so much. It's because we are spread out over a much greater area.

Los Angeles county alone is 12,000 square km. Almost half the size of Belgium.

 

[-hh]

The EU is about 40% the size of the US. Less than half the size of the US.

Surface area of EU - 3.9 million square km.
Surface area of US - 9.6 million square km. (I do not know if that includes Alaska and Hawaii)

9.6M km^2 converts to 3.7 million square miles, but as per the 2000 Censis, the USA is officially 3,537,438.44 square miles when including Alaska and Hawaii. Nevertheless, consider it to be "close enough" for sake of this argument.

For Europe, while the EU may be only 3.9M km^2 (I'm assuming this is correct), the area of Europe including non-EU countries such as Sweden & Norway...is 4,065,945 square miles (10.5 million km^2), which makes it bigger than the USA including Alaska.

I don't recall the numbers anymore, but when you remove Alaska and Scandanavia, the USA and Europe are still roughly the same general size.

Europeans, unless they have been in the US for awhile don't seem to understand the size of the US. As a matter of fact, a lot of Americans don't either. This applies to things like cars. Europeans ask why don't we have trains and why do we use cars so much. It's because we are spread out over a much greater area.

A fair point, but what also needs to be considered is that most of Europe was settled before the invention of the automobile, so their city centers are pedestrian-friendly in general scale, plus the socio-political climate has long encouraged mass transit far much more than the USA. Most Americans don't realize that the reason why gasoline is so expensive in Europe is because of taxes that help pay for their far-superior passenger train infrastructure.


-hh

 

[macidiot]

9.6M km^2 converts to 3.7 million square miles, but as per the 2000 Censis, the USA is officially 3,537,438.44 square miles when including Alaska and Hawaii. Nevertheless, consider it to be "close enough" for sake of this argument.

For Europe, while the EU may be only 3.9M km^2 (I'm assuming this is correct), the area of Europe including non-EU countries such as Sweden & Norway...is 4,065,945 square miles (10.5 million km^2), which makes it bigger than the USA including Alaska.

I don't recall the numbers anymore, but when you remove Alaska and Scandanavia, the USA and Europe are still roughly the same general size.




A fair point, but what also needs to be considered is that most of Europe was settled before the invention of the automobile, so their city centers are pedestrian-friendly in general scale, plus the socio-political climate has long encouraged mass transit far much more than the USA. Most Americans don't realize that the reason why gasoline is so expensive in Europe is because of taxes that help pay for their far-superior passenger train infrastructure.


-hh

Well, I got the figures here:

http://europa.eu/abc/keyfigures/sizeandpopulation/howbig/index_en.htm

It seems to include all 25 EU countries. This is from the EU site itself.

The numbers seems to include Sweden and Finland, but not Norway.

Where are you getting your figures?

 

[-hh]

Well, I got the figures here:

http://europa.eu/abc/keyfigures/sizeandpopulation/howbig/index_en.htm

It seems to include all 25 EU countries. This is from the EU site itself.

The numbers seems to include Sweden and Finland, but not Norway.

Where are you getting your figures?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe has a value of 10.2m km^2, and the reason for difference can be found in this phrase:

To the east, Europe is generally divided from Asia by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and by the Caspian Sea.

Geographically, that definition includes far Western portions of Russia.

Sorry 'bout that. Just goes to show how there's geographical borders and then there's political borders.

BTW, if you wanted to add Norway to your number, it's 323,802 km^2, as per http://globaledge.msu.edu/countryInsights/country.asp?CountryID=67


-hh

 

[rob@robburns.co]

I said communist/socialist because European governments mandated using gsm. There was no choice for the telecoms. Mostly I meant socialist. Additionally, other than maybe the UK, each european country has one monopolistic telecom, with close ties to the government. In the US, for better or worse, there are multiple telecoms competing. It is worse in the sense that infrastructure buildout is expensive, and having multiple companies with more than one technology building multiple networks is somewhat redundant. We have Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint each building out separate networks covering the same areas. T-Mobile kind of piggybacks with AT&T (and vice versa).

The word you're looking for is not socialist or communist: it's capitalist. It's still capitalism when a monopoly industry like telecom is handled either directly by the government or through a single monopoly franchise enterprise. The opposite term for the US approach is corporatist (not to say Europe doesn't suffer from this too). That's where large corporate interests control the government so that public goods such as monopoly industries are turned over to a handful of corporations as a mechanism for hyper-profit.

 

[megfilmworks]

No sir. All the devices we listed are 800x400+ Other phones coming out soon will have at least 720x480.

Some Windows Mobile handheld devices have had 640x480 for several years now.

That's why I was a little surprised at the iPhone's 480x320 screen. Not exactly pushing the state of the art.

If that is true, why does the iPhone screen look sooo much better than the Nokia??

 

[kdarling]

(About the fact that some devices have higher screen res)
If that is true, why does the iPhone screen look sooo much better than the Nokia??

Which Nokia?

 

[blitzkrieg79]

Let me first say that I find your nickname repulsive. I don't know how many readers here are from Poland, but they will find it more than repulsive. As will Dutch, Belgians, French, and of course Germans. German invasion of Poland, start of World War II, tens of millions killed and murdered, and that is what you choose as your nick. Very nice indeed.

About your comparison with Gateway: That is just ridiculous. Gateway produces cheap computers that anybody could build in their garage just as cheap and probably in better quality. Apple sell everything from the best laptops you can find to eight core supercomputers in a box. Apple also sells their own operating system and a range of highly successful software. So in number of computers sold in the USA, Gateway just about manages to match Apple (for the last time this year; Gateway sales are shrinking, I wonder why). In US hardware revenues, Gateway is way behind. In worldwide revenues, they are much further behind. In computer related revenues, it's no comparison. In profits? Gateway's last year profits were about $10mil. That's about one hour of iPhone sales.

I don't think you understood my point, Apple currently, is probably the only computer company that is actually intuitive and brings in some nice fresh designs instead of usual ugly, misproportioned pc boxes. But all their innovation doesn't translate to marketshare. I know they are a highly profitable company but just about 10 years ago, if it weren't for Steve Jobs, this company would end up just like Atari, Amiga, and all the other non-Windows/non-x86 computers.

I compared to Gateway because according to latest statistics, those companies are about equal in market share, I know gateway is pretty much a crappy company but what does it say about Apples computer business? Currently they are more busy with iPods, IPhones, iTVs, iEverything but not computers. When was the last time Apple introduced a totally fresh new computer design (whether laptop/desktop) all of the designs are still carried over from the good ol' PowerPC days.

I am not downing Apple but their latest attempts in the computer world didn't translate to a significant increase in PC marketshare. People were predicting that by switching to x86 Apple within a year or two would be at 8-10%, not even close. Reality is that Apple is diversifying away from computer business which pretty much makes me a bit sad (I know it's great for all the share holders) but to me Apple will always be about computers first.

Anyway, as far as my name goes, you are the first one to actually bring any attention to it and I've been here for a while now. Blitzkrieg = lightning war (all out attack), introduced by Germany WW2 and practiced by all modern nations eversince, I don't think it's offensive, it was just a name of a strategy, by going this path the words Germany, Russia, Volkswagen (just to name a few) should also be offensive, I am all well aware of that. Think and say what you will but it sure was effective, and guess what, I am from one of those "offended" countries. And how is this any different from the strategy that modern US military uses? I know being politically correct is the current trend now, but thats why we also have the highest number of people seeking psychological help because now it's a crime to fully express yourself and say what you really think whether it's good or bad. These days they may even think of me as a terrorist with current censorship and state of paranoia.

 

[aristobrat]

I am not downing Apple but their latest attempts in the computer world didn't translate to a significant increase in PC marketshare. People were predicting that by switching to x86 Apple within a year or two would be at 8-10%, not even close.

... like how some people were predicting that 500,000 iPhones would be sold over the launch weekend?

I don't get what an increased marketshare would bring Apple. Even more earnings for the share holders? Yay!

 

[Sobe]

I don't get all the hysteria anyway.

They could have only sold one...to me...and I'd be plenty happy.

The only reason people care about the numbers is that you have anti-iPhone/anti-apple people who want it to fail and you have pro-iPhone/pro-apple people who want it to succeed.

As each piece of information trickles out you get new revelations on how much apple sucks or how wonderful it is.

 

[George Bailey]

... like how some people were predicting that 500,000 iPhones would be sold over the launch weekend?

Well they sold 270,000 by the end of Saturday. How many did they sell on Sunday? Even it if was only half as many that's still 400,000.

 

[blitzkrieg79]

... like how some people were predicting that 500,000 iPhones would be sold over the launch weekend?

I don't get what an increased marketshare would bring Apple. Even more earnings for the share holders? Yay!

Considering that Apple promotes it's own OS, Mac OS X, increased market shar would not only mean bigger profits but it would also likely mean bigger interest from software developers, instead of cheap PC ports maybe we would have more software written directly to Mac OS X witho significant performance hits. More users = more software. Like right, now I gotta use a PC just because I am heavy AutoCAD user and my company uses the same software (Autodesk AutoCAD 2006) which is only available for PC. I prefer the Mac platform but basically lack of necessary software made me buy a PC.

As far as iPhone is concerned, I played around with it in an Apple store, it's a great product but in my right mind I would never spend $600 on what essentialy is a souped up cell phone considering that most other igh quality phones are offered with significant discounts when you sign up to yearly plans.

 

[ctakim]

I don't think you understood my point, Apple currently, is probably the only computer company that is actually intuitive and brings in some nice fresh designs instead of usual ugly, misproportioned pc boxes. But all their innovation doesn't translate to marketshare. I know they are a highly profitable company but just about 10 years ago, if it weren't for Steve Jobs, this company would end up just like Atari, Amiga, and all the other non-Windows/non-x86 computers.

I am not downing Apple but their latest attempts in the computer world didn't translate to a significant increase in PC marketshare. People were predicting that by switching to x86 Apple within a year or two would be at 8-10%, not even close. Reality is that Apple is diversifying away from computer business which pretty much makes me a bit sad (I know it's great for all the share holders) but to me Apple will always be about computers first.

Au contraire, I think that this is a tremendously bright time for Apple as a computer company. They just released sales numbers that were tremendous for mac computers in the last quarter and the market share is slowly increasing. Anyone who predicted that their market share would over triple in a year because of the switch to an Intel processer is just plan idiotic.

The iPhone and iPod success is having a halo effect on their computers so I don't think you have to worry a bit about Apple abandoning their roots.

 

[aristobrat]

More users = more software. Like right, now I gotta use a PC just because I am heavy AutoCAD user and my company uses the same software (Autodesk AutoCAD 2006) which is only available for PC. I prefer the Mac platform but basically lack of necessary software made me buy a PC.

Maybe. That point definitely can be made for your profession, but there are other professions where the Mac (regardless of its minority marketsize) is the predominate platform -- i.e. the best software is written for it, not Windows. I'm not sure it's a bulletproof assumption that if Mac had the majority marketshare that Autodesk would be guaranteed to start writing AutoCAD for it. But who knows.

As far as iPhone is concerned, I played around with it in an Apple store, it's a great product but in my right mind I would never spend $600 on what essentialy is a souped up cell phone considering that most other igh quality phones are offered with significant discounts when you sign up to yearly plans.

FWIW, with AT&T and Verizon, the significant discounts applied up-front to other PDA phones are washed out with a monthly data plan that's 2x more expensive than the iPhones.

A $600 iPhone + $480 (24 months x $20) worth of data fees = $1080
A $99 heavily-discounted device + $960 (24 months x $40) worth of data fees = $1059

... so you end up paying $21 less for the non-iPhone in the end ...

Of course this analogy goes out the window for Sprint, as their data plans are less expensive than the iPhones, but just saying that the iPhones undiscounted price isn't always a bad deal.