iPhone sellers open doors, greeted by cheers
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SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK  - Hundreds of gadget fans, or their paid stand-ins, lined up on Friday to be the first buyers of Apple Inc.'s iPhone, a music and video playing phone expected to reshape the mobile industry.
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Among consumers, the excitement around Apple Inc.'s iPhone, launching on Friday, centers on its cool looks and innovative interface. In the cell phone industry, the iPhone will be closely watched because it breaks several conventions governing the relationships between handset manufacturers, carriers and consumers. If successful, Apple could end up changing the way phones and the industry work.
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During its quarterly earnings conference call Monday, Apple Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook estimated that 250,000 iPhones were sold to people with the intention of unlocking them, adding that most of those sales happened after the $200 price drop.
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People who bought IPhones hoping to resell them for a profit find few takers.
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Apple Inc. has sold its millionth iPhone less than three months after the deviceâs debut, allaying investor concerns that demand had slowed.
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As iDay approaches -- when Apple&#39;s much-publicized iPhone goes on sale -- AT&T Wireless is getting all hands on deck. The phone giant has added 2,000 extra salespeople to its store workforce for the June 29 launch, and its tactics sound more like those of a four-star general than a cell phone retailer.
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Apple Inc. began selling its iPhone Friday, ending six months of waiting by consumers and rival smartphone vendors.
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Apple launched its new iPhone in US retail stores Friday to brisk demand as some New Yorkers lined up to get their hands on the latest offering from the computer and gadget maker which packs a cell phone, music player and web browser.
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(InfoWorld) - The surest sign marketing hype surroundingÂ Apple's iPhoneÂ has outdone itself is that a small island on the Pacific rim is abuzz over the device, despite the fact it won't be on sale here until next year at the earliest. Part of the reason for the excitement is the number of technology savvy users in Taiwan who want to get their hands on one. The most popular Internet auction site on the island, run by Yahoo Taiwan, boasts six different iPhone sellers. One auctioneer is offering the smartphones at NT$32,000 (US$975), on pre-order. At a rival Web auction site, Ruten.com.tw, one seller has a 4GB iPhone for NT$25,000. Most of the sellers are up-front about the fact users may not be able to use the iPhone for phone calls in Taiwan, for now. "You may only be able to use the camera and music player function of the iPhone," writes one seller. That may not deter buyers. Not only is the iPhone viewed as a status symbol, many Taiwanese often travel to the U.S. for business, and a number of people own second homes in places such as California. They could sign an AT&T iPhone service agreement on a trip to the U.S. The popularity of the Apple product is easy to see every day, in newspaper headlines and on the cover of magazines, including Business Next, which says a lot about the other reason the handset is so popular in Taiwan. Taiwanese companies play a vital role in the production of the device, and rumors of which company is making what component on the iPhone are moving stock prices daily in Taiwan. Apple is sourcing a number of parts from the island, and has asked iPod manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.Â to assemble the iPhones in China, analysts say. In fact, the stock market boom that has taken hold in Taiwan recently has been attributed partly to iPhone hype. Stock traders hope the iPhone sells millions of units, because companies on the island stand to win from every handset sale. Largan Precision Co., for example, supplies camera lenses and modules for the iPhone, according to CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets in Taipei. Foxconn Technology Co.Â is a provider of metal casing for the handsets, while Unimicron Technology is supplying printed circuit boards for the device and Cheng Uei Precision Industry is making its chargers and cables, the investment house says. The stock prices of many of these have soared in the months leading up to its launch, but are in a holding pattern now as investors wait to see how the iPhone fares in the market. Estimates of iPhone sales vary widely. Citigroup Research, a division of Citigroup Global Markets, estimates iPhone sales will reach 3.5 million in 2007 and 8.5 million in 2008. That's ahead of Apple's own prediction of 10 million over the same period. Deutsche Bank is even more positive about the iPhone. The investment firm expects 7.5 million of them to ship this year and 12 million in 2008, according to a report dated June 22. An even more optimistic forecast comes from financial services company Credit Suisse, which predicts iPhone shipments will reach 5 million this year and 15 million next year. "Apple's iPhone, expected to launch at AT&T on June 29, is clearly the most widely anticipated product the industry has seen for many years, potentially ever," wrote Credit Suisse analyst Michael Ounjian, in a June 5 report on the device. Lehman Brothers offered a more conservative estimate, saying Apple's own 10 million figure "may be difficult to reach" but that the figure "is achievable" in a June 21 report. The investment house believes Apple will start offering the iPhone in Europe sometime in the last three months of this year, and that it will begin sales in Asia in 2008. Apple has not said when it will start shipping the iPhone overseas. The iPhone, a smartphone with built-in iPod music player functions, goes on sale in the U.S. at 6 p.m. Friday. Apple is offering two models, a 4GB model costing US$499 and an 8GB model at US$599. Users will have to sign a two-year contract with AT&TÂ for phone service. Â
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Writing for USA Today, Edward Baig finds iPhone âindeed worth lusting after.â Apple, he says, âhas delivered a prodigyâa slender fashion phone, a slick iPod, and an Internet experience unlike any before it on a mobile handset.â âThe most chic cellphone Iâve seen,â iPhone is âa breeze to set up and fun to use, evident from the moment you slide your finger across the screen to unlock it. Itâs a wonderful widescreen iPod and fabulous picture viewer.â And he tells us that âmaking calls was surprisingly simple. You can flick through your list of contacts or favorites â¦ and then tap on a name to make a call or send a text message. The keys of the virtual keypad are large enough so that dialing a number manually â or punching in a code to access voice mail remotely â is easy. I rarely made a mistake.â He awards iPhone 3.5 stars out of 4.
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A new study outlines exactly who the potential buyers are for the iPhone--it's a big audience.
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Reaping the benefits as buyers turn to smart phones
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âThe best recent advance in the mobile telecommunications user space came not from a mobile telecom company but from Apple Inc. â the iPhone.â  That, according to David Benjamin (EE Times) was the conclusion reached by a âblue-ribbon panel of human behavior and technology experts at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.â And, Benjamin points out, âAnup Murarka, director of technical marketing for Adobe, cited a study showing that 77 percent of iPhone purchasers described themselves as âvery satisfiedâ with their user experience.â
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Some of those in line for the much-coveted Apple handset are doing so to put the device on eBay and donate the proceeds to charity.
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Customers clamoring to get their hands on Apple Inc.'s highly anticipated iPhone better make sure they're at the right store.
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Apple said yesterday it has sold a million of its popular iPhones, reassuring investors who were worried that last week's price cut meant sales had been weak.
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SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK  - Thousands of U.S. gadget fans flocked to stores on Friday to be the first buyers of Apple's iPhone, a music-playing and Web-browsing device expected to shake up the mobile industry.