3G iphone launch for June 9 "confirmed"

"Confirmed" by Gizmodo, which means about jack, but still all the signs point to WWDC.

iPhone 3G Launch Date Confirmed

Comments

Pent-up demand?

Am I the only one who finds it odd that Apple would let the iPhone effectively go off the market for a month -- given that supplies dried up last week, and June 9 is another three weeks off -- in order to launch the 3G version? Yes, the clued shopper may well be waiting for the much-rumored 3G, and the fanboys (like me) already have their first-gen iPhones, but there's surely still a group of people that wants/needs an iPhone right now, and they can't buy one. Is this some channel-manipulation scheme by Apple to improve their numbers by having blowout sales numbers when the iPhone comes back on the market, or is that granting too much credit for being able to control the market? Did they just plain screw up by not building enough of the old model?

I disagree. If anything

I disagree. If anything WWDC's timing is a customer happiness date.

I look at it like this:

a) the need time to retool fabs and pump out stockpiles before a new model, but can't do it before xmas.
b) they can't ship the new model too close after the holidays or risk another unhappy customer revolt.
c) excess inventory after a 3G launches has a value approaching zero. Short of ebaying them, they are worthless.

If anything, it seems very logical to me. Honestly, I am still holding off a little on one, but a 3G drops and I will say screw it and get one.

iPhone timing

I sort of agree with both of you, and no, that's not a complete cop-out ;).

What I mean is the three weeks+ seems strange to me, seems like they might have timed it better - and maybe they tried to, but the news leaked and the number of people waiting is more than we think (joe public too may have caught on).

Also, I think they may want to avoid having angry customers, like they did previously when they dropped the price - those who JUST bought the non fancy more expensive phone days before the new one comes out. But that said, I again think a month or such is a long time for any such strategy.

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