Thats an anecdote. The online trackers say differently. They should have been better this time as they shouldn't have had to ramp up so slowly - the 4S being broadly similar to the 4. That said, since previous customers have grown exponentially, this may be reflecting that.
There are others in this thread with similar experience: the online trackers are not giving accurate information, there is clearly more stock than what appears.
Whitmore said his research has found that the iPhone 4S is selling strongly in the international countries where it recently debuted.
My Little Anecdote: There was a roped-off queue of about a dozen people for "outright purchase" of the iPhone 4S at the George St store. Whereas the carrier outlets all seemed to be out of stock.
Off topic but - as an ex MBP a new MB Air owner now suffering the massive suckage of USB backups - why doesn't Apple add a Thunderbolt port to a new edition of Time Capsule, with Firewire etc. ports? ... OK, just answered my own question and it is the Mac mini http://www.apple.com/macmini/features.html#wifi (and you get an extra computer for "free").
I have a hard time believing these stock shortages. Everywhere I've gone, there's plenty of stock. It's a lot easier to find in stock than the 4 was, that's for sure.
I've been waiting for 2 weeks (so far) from Best Buy to have stock to replace my 4S with a nasty yellow screen. No stores within 30 miles near me has had a phone make an exchange for me, I've been checking everyday. I need ATT 32GB in either color, which seems to be the hardest to come by as I've seen availability on other carrier/capacities on and off, but for the most part it's out of stock daily around here.
But I do blame Apple. I blame them for not doing more to stop the 3rd-party man-on-the-street resellers. I agree, it is VERY easy to spot this, so I blame Apple for turning a blind eye. If any passerby can see what is going on, Apple can. Apple has shown that they can get the police to work for them to investigate stolen prototypes, so they should get the NYPD on the case! Ha.
I hate scalpers / unauthorized resellers as much as anybody. Any company involved with retail main job is to sell as much product as they can.
How many companies have ever tried try to hinder purchase at full retail to any customer? Why should Apple even try to stop them and it wouldn't be easy to try nor would the effort be worthwhile or cost effective. The 2 a day limit at least slows them down.
i agree, but Apple should restrict you to a certain number of purchases per month or year. It shouldn't allow you to hire 20 people to each buy you 2 per day to resell. That hurts their brand. Is that such a difficult concept?
Of course you are personally going to pay the cost to setup, maintain and enforce this new stupid policy that you think Apple should have, right? Didn't think so.
My experience has been to take your chances at the store level. Pre-ordering usually just takes more time.
I'm not sure that we're talking about the same thing here. I did pre-order my current 3Gs from the online Apple Store, then picked it up at my local Apple Store on release day. But, that's not what I was talking about in this case. You may not be aware of the Apple Store app for the iPhone, but, that's the avenue that was recommended to me by the folks at my Apple Store. As for taking time, it only took a few seconds to go to the app, tap "reserve iPhone", then tap iPhone 4s, and the app takes me to my chosen local Apple Store where it lists the phone as available to be reserved, or "not avaialble to reserve". This is supposed to be an indicator of what is available to sell at each Apple Store location, and it allows you to switch locations to check out other Apple Stores in case they might have what you're looking for. It's all quite painless, and as I said, it only takes seconds to find out if the store has available stock or not. This is quite different from pre-ordering from the Mother Ship at Apple.
To be fair, I've not yet seen the "available to be reserved" response using the said app, so I might not have the wording correct. I have seen the "not available to reserve" every time I've tried the app over the last week or so. I now see that you need to hit the app right at 2100 hrs if you hope to get in on the next day's incoming stock. I have not yet been that timely, which could explain why I've not yet been successful.
According to what I was told by the folks at my Apple Store, if that app says that the model that I'm looking for is not available for reserve at that store, then there is no other stock at that store, so going there would be pointless.
Comments
Thats an anecdote. The online trackers say differently. They should have been better this time as they shouldn't have had to ramp up so slowly - the 4S being broadly similar to the 4. That said, since previous customers have grown exponentially, this may be reflecting that.
There are others in this thread with similar experience: the online trackers are not giving accurate information, there is clearly more stock than what appears.
Whitmore said his research has found that the iPhone 4S is selling strongly in the international countries where it recently debuted.
My Little Anecdote: There was a roped-off queue of about a dozen people for "outright purchase" of the iPhone 4S at the George St store. Whereas the carrier outlets all seemed to be out of stock.
Off topic but - as an ex MBP a new MB Air owner now suffering the massive suckage of USB backups - why doesn't Apple add a Thunderbolt port to a new edition of Time Capsule, with Firewire etc. ports? ... OK, just answered my own question and it is the Mac mini http://www.apple.com/macmini/features.html#wifi (and you get an extra computer for "free").
I have a hard time believing these stock shortages. Everywhere I've gone, there's plenty of stock. It's a lot easier to find in stock than the 4 was, that's for sure.
I've been waiting for 2 weeks (so far) from Best Buy to have stock to replace my 4S with a nasty yellow screen. No stores within 30 miles near me has had a phone make an exchange for me, I've been checking everyday. I need ATT 32GB in either color, which seems to be the hardest to come by as I've seen availability on other carrier/capacities on and off, but for the most part it's out of stock daily around here.
But I do blame Apple. I blame them for not doing more to stop the 3rd-party man-on-the-street resellers. I agree, it is VERY easy to spot this, so I blame Apple for turning a blind eye. If any passerby can see what is going on, Apple can. Apple has shown that they can get the police to work for them to investigate stolen prototypes, so they should get the NYPD on the case! Ha.
I hate scalpers / unauthorized resellers as much as anybody. Any company involved with retail main job is to sell as much product as they can.
How many companies have ever tried try to hinder purchase at full retail to any customer? Why should Apple even try to stop them and it wouldn't be easy to try nor would the effort be worthwhile or cost effective. The 2 a day limit at least slows them down.
i agree, but Apple should restrict you to a certain number of purchases per month or year. It shouldn't allow you to hire 20 people to each buy you 2 per day to resell. That hurts their brand. Is that such a difficult concept?
Of course you are personally going to pay the cost to setup, maintain and enforce this new stupid policy that you think Apple should have, right? Didn't think so.
My experience has been to take your chances at the store level. Pre-ordering usually just takes more time.
I'm not sure that we're talking about the same thing here. I did pre-order my current 3Gs from the online Apple Store, then picked it up at my local Apple Store on release day. But, that's not what I was talking about in this case. You may not be aware of the Apple Store app for the iPhone, but, that's the avenue that was recommended to me by the folks at my Apple Store. As for taking time, it only took a few seconds to go to the app, tap "reserve iPhone", then tap iPhone 4s, and the app takes me to my chosen local Apple Store where it lists the phone as available to be reserved, or "not avaialble to reserve". This is supposed to be an indicator of what is available to sell at each Apple Store location, and it allows you to switch locations to check out other Apple Stores in case they might have what you're looking for. It's all quite painless, and as I said, it only takes seconds to find out if the store has available stock or not. This is quite different from pre-ordering from the Mother Ship at Apple.
To be fair, I've not yet seen the "available to be reserved" response using the said app, so I might not have the wording correct. I have seen the "not available to reserve" every time I've tried the app over the last week or so. I now see that you need to hit the app right at 2100 hrs if you hope to get in on the next day's incoming stock. I have not yet been that timely, which could explain why I've not yet been successful.
According to what I was told by the folks at my Apple Store, if that app says that the model that I'm looking for is not available for reserve at that store, then there is no other stock at that store, so going there would be pointless.