Apple's shipping times for both 21.5" & 27" iMac improve to 1-3 days
Estimated shipping times for both of Apple's new iMac models dramatically improved on Saturday, going from weeks to just one to three business days.
The changes apply to both the 21.5-inch model and the 27-inch variety, in all of the default available processor speeds. Just this week, the 21.5-inch model was estimated to ship in two to three weeks, while the 27-inch model was advertised to take up to a month to ship.
The first signs that iMac availability was improving came in January, when Apple saw its overall domestic Mac sales surge up 31 percent year over year. The new iMacs debuted in December in extremely limited supply, which contributed to a 17 percent drop in sales in the holiday quarter.
The new iMacs were plagued with production issues when new, thinner desktops went on sale. It's been reported that those issues came from a unique screen lamination process utilized in the design.
With shipping times for the iMacs having dramatically improved, any improvements to production could pave the way for a redesigned Thunderbolt Display that would feature the same slim profile as the new iMacs. Apple's current model of the 27-inch Thunderbolt Display has been in limited supply at resellers in recent months, and a drawdown in inventory frequently signals Apple is planning to introduce new hardware to the market.
As for the Mac, analysts generally expect that Apple will see sales rebound this quarter thanks to improved availability of the new iMac models. The company also recently improved speeds and cut prices on its Retina MacBook Pro models, which is expected to help boost sales.
The changes apply to both the 21.5-inch model and the 27-inch variety, in all of the default available processor speeds. Just this week, the 21.5-inch model was estimated to ship in two to three weeks, while the 27-inch model was advertised to take up to a month to ship.
The first signs that iMac availability was improving came in January, when Apple saw its overall domestic Mac sales surge up 31 percent year over year. The new iMacs debuted in December in extremely limited supply, which contributed to a 17 percent drop in sales in the holiday quarter.
The new iMacs were plagued with production issues when new, thinner desktops went on sale. It's been reported that those issues came from a unique screen lamination process utilized in the design.
With shipping times for the iMacs having dramatically improved, any improvements to production could pave the way for a redesigned Thunderbolt Display that would feature the same slim profile as the new iMacs. Apple's current model of the 27-inch Thunderbolt Display has been in limited supply at resellers in recent months, and a drawdown in inventory frequently signals Apple is planning to introduce new hardware to the market.
As for the Mac, analysts generally expect that Apple will see sales rebound this quarter thanks to improved availability of the new iMac models. The company also recently improved speeds and cut prices on its Retina MacBook Pro models, which is expected to help boost sales.
Comments
2) I'm surprised that they didn't do the typical stepping down by one week for each model until they reached 1-3 days.
They definitely do but it might not be Nationalism so much as the US is clearly their single largest network for any given product at this point. On top of that it might be the nation they have the least per unit overhead due to regulations and economies of scale differences as packaged Macs for other countries are slightly different.
It appears to be just US and Canada. Presumably Apple has managed to build up stock levels in their North American warehouses so they have enough standard configuration models to meet expected demand. If anything is customised, the delivery estimate drops back to 2-3 weeks, therefore manufacturing in China still has a backlog.
NZ and Australia are still 2-3 or 3-4 weeks. Not sure why the UK is worse.
Hopefully countries outside North America will have better availability of standard configuration models soon, then we should start to see the lead time decrease on custom configurations.
Any changes to the configuration will result in a 2-3 week deliver still. Even changing it from a magic mouse to trackpad triggered it. They are just stockpiling low-end configuration.
I am waiting for Samsung now to sell a carbon clone of the IMac.
Did you order anything other than the base model with no changes?
Made in the USA iMacs? That would explain shorter North American delivery times.
Or was it just Mac Pro's that were going to get made in the USA?
Yep. Read sflocal's post too late. Up'd CPU, change graphics, up'd to 32GB RAM and of course went to the flash storage. It's worth the wait. The article is lacking.
I'm loving mine. I can't believe I was using a 13" display for so long and liking it. At first it was weird to turn my head to see another part of the display but now it's natural. In fact, I'm considering getting a 2nd 27" display so I can put Terminal on that screen so I can have even more room for my main apps.
Gonna wait for the display refresh that has to be eminent. I do want better multidisplay support in the OS.
I was able to get the 2GB VRAM high-end model from a store a couple of weeks ago. One store in the area (Portland, OR) was consistently out of stock, but they called around and sent me to a relatively nearby store that had enough. Online RAM's cheaper anyway, so I went that route. HDD configs are still custom, but you should try the stores in person if you can.
For the record, the screen is gorgeous. That hype about 60% less glare is true. I'm tempted to add a second display when they update the Thunderbolts, because I'm male you can never have too much screen real estate.
Yeah, I can't fathom why if you make one display fullscreen it will blank any other display. Seems counter-intuitive to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dempson
NZ and Australia are still 2-3 or 3-4 weeks. Not sure why the UK is worse.
I have no idea why.
I believe Leo Laporte of TWiT fame recently made the observation that reduced shipping times for the iMac will be interpreted by our friends, the Wall Street anal-ists, as proof of dropping demand for Apple products.
You might not like the fact that the height differs if you put a 27" TB display next to a 27" iMac.
Wrong pic, but you get the picture:
I agree, they totally screwed up fullscreen:
I know they were producing at least SOME iMacs in the US. There were a few articles floating around showing the "made in the USA" on iMacs some time back.