Silicon Alley Insider - Peter Kafka | July 15, 2008 9:12 AM

Want a new iPhone? You’d better be patient - or live on one of the coasts. Apple has run out of the new machines at 117 of its 188 stores. Fortune:

As of 6:00 a.m. EDT Tuesday, all three models (8GB black, 16 GB black or white) of the hot-selling device were sold out in 21 states, according to Jim Neal, a retired PR man living near Kansas City who took the time to check each of Apple’s 188 U.S. retail stores using the company’s iPhone availability widgets.

“All told,” he writes, “117 Apple stores reported having sold out of all models and only 27 stores indicated they had all three models in stock.”

Read the rest of this entry »

FORTUNE - Mac news from outside, July 13, 2008, 10:15 am

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Let the guessing game begin!

On Sunday morning, with one more day of weekend sales to go, analysts and other Apple watchers were already weighing in with their estimates for the iPhone 3Gs three-day launch.

First out of the block was RBC Capital Market’s Mike Abramsky, who issued his best guess on Friday. Based on pent-up demand, expanded distribution, and lower pricing, he predicted that worldwide sales for the first weekend would be more than 1 million units. (link)

Read the rest of this entry »

Silicon Alley Insider - Henry Blodget | July 11, 2008 1:54 PM

One of our kind Boston-based hedge-fund contributors files this report:

I did a little lunchtime research to see how the iphone release is going and here are my findings:

AT&T store: Long line of about 30 people at the AT&T store on Boylston, security guard outside, line appeared to be moving a bit slowly and people in line were anxiously asking store folks if they were sold out of any of the memory size/colors yet. Clerk said, “no” but he seemed a little panicked and unconvinced this state would last. Looked as if there were about 10 people in process inside.

Read the rest of this entry »

Silicon Alley Insider - Dan Frommer | July 11, 2008 12:10 PM

No surprise: Apple seems to have stocked its own retail stores with many more new iPhone 3Gs than it gave out to carrier partner AT&T.

As of noon Friday, ten of ten AT&T (T) stores we contacted in Manhattan and Brooklyn were already sold out of iPhones — or didn’t have enough left for the people in line.

One crazy rep did suggest coming back tomorrow. Apparently said rep didn’t understand how this works: People who want to buy a 3G iPhone today want to buy an 3G iPhone today.

Read the rest of this entry »

Silicon Alley Insider - Dan Frommer | July 11, 2008 10:08 AM

Apple’s iPhone 3G is now on sale, and demand is high — even at our tiny local AT&T store, more than 70 people had lined up before sales kicked off at 8 a.m.

So how many iPhones will Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) sell this weekend? Unlike last year’s iPhone 1.0 launch, when most analysts aimed embarrassingly high, we haven’t seen many estimates.But RBC analyst Mike Abramsky takes a stab today: He predicts Apple will ship 1+ million iPhones this weekend?

Read the rest of this entry »

FORTUNE - Mac news from outside - July 11, 2008, 5:56 am

I bought an iPhone for myself today. This was a live blog to chronicle the event, posted in reverse order with the most recent items on top.

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt

11:47 a.m. The iPhone just beeped. I’m in. Entered my e-mail address and the sync is in progress. That ends this blog.

POSTSCRIPT from Brooklyn: I counted roughly 230 people in line as I left the Apple Store, none of whom were among the 150 who were queued up at 5:00 a.m. (a woman coming in as I left said she’d been waiting since 7:30). I put the total count at somewhere between 380 and 500. It was a friendly, patient crowd — the usual New York mix of ages and colors — although by the time I left the people at the end were wondering how long they would stick with it if it kept moving so slowly.

Read the rest of this entry »

Silicon Alley Insider - Vasanth Sridharan | July 10, 2008 3:43 PM

Most of us can get an iPhone 3G for $199 when it comes out on Friday. But some AT&T customers — ones who didn’t buy the first iPhone, and who aren’t eligible for an upgrade — will have to pay an extra $200.

If you’re one those people, and you have more time than money, and you’re not worried about the consequences of tricking your carrier, here’s an ultra-complicated workaround that *might* trick AT&T into giving you the discounted price. It takes a lot of time, incredibly understanding friends, and there are absolutely no guarantees that it will work. So don’t complain to us if this fails:

Read the rest of this entry »