Comments on: AT&T, Apple differ on the iPhone gap

Apple reported selling 270,000 iPhones the first weekend, while AT&T activated only 146,000 by midnight June 30. Where did those other 124,000 iPhones go?

[escaport]

Given as Gifts?

I had 4 phones. I know that I gave one to a family member on the
Sunday after the release. I wasn't able to see them until then.
Another I sold on that Monday. My wife and I activate our other
two on opening day. I was in line with several others who were
doing similar types of gifting.

[jridder]

Looking for a story where one doesn't exist...

You guys are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Its very simply, the phones didn't activate or were being held back from activation for other reasons. I personally had 2 of the phones that didn't active for 2 weeks. This is what happens when you release a product 2 days before the end of a financial quarter. Unfortunately we won't find out for another 8 weeks what sales looked like.

[Frank Plambeck]

IPhone / AT&T discrepancies

This is not a hard question or solution at all. Many, MANY people
bought as many iPhones as they could (fearing a shortage) and also
for a little speculation. Remember people trying to resell a $600
phone for $1,000. As a result, these speculators are sitting on
them, have not activated them and are hoping to recoup some of
their losses.

[Troll Hard]

Maddox rips the iPhone

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone

Not for the weak of heart, and most likely not safe for work. View it at home. Anyway Maddox finds something better than an iPhone.

[tedk7]

Maddox is a shock jock without a contract

The subject line says it all.

Who cares what he has to say? He's a dork who uses nasty language
and big ego to generate clicks. He's like a standup comic, only
without the funny part.

[SeizeCTRL]

LMAO

I love Maddox... great little spew he had there over the iPhone. Couldn't agree more :]

[PaulLevi]

wifi and iPod without activation?

I would say that has to account for some of the discrepancy ... http://www.iphonematters.com/article/iphone_and_att_another_explanation_123/

[DrtyDogg]

As stated earlier

You have to hack the phone to do that and it took over a week for the hack to be figured out. Unless people where just sitting on them until someone figured a way around Apple's protection.

[erezhustla]

Soon You will be able to toss your iphone into the nearest river

As soon as the Google Cell Phone is released, people will be tossing their iPhones, Razrs and every other cell phone into the nearest river. Why pay all that money for a phone when you can have the same kind of service for free?

Do the right thing and buy a relevant doman names from ebay right now & earn money in the future !!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Google-Cellular-Google-Cell-Phone-com-8-domain-names_W0QQitemZ120144690732QQihZ002QQcategoryZ11153QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[tedk7]

Get real

Google has exactly one profitable product/service and the most
massively inflated stock price on the market. It's a very profitable
one, but that's all.

They blow their profits on hiring more academic dweebs and
dotcom-era office comforts. One day they will come crashing back
to earth.

* this comes from a google employee

[aintnorainbowdorothy]

iPhony and AT&T

The iPhone activation was difficult according to a friend who bought one. Going through iTunes was excruciating he said. My question is why would anyone want an iPod that simply can also make a phone call? It's not a Smartphone. It's just an iPod Nano with dialing features. I checked his phone out and that was what it seemed to me. The Blackberry and even the Treo already had that feature. And I can easily plug my iPod or Zune into my LG 8300 and listen to music on the go. Not to mention the fact that I didn't have the long wait to activate the phone. I wonder which figures lie the most. AT&T's or Apple's. Or could it be both. Hmm.

[tedk7]

You're simply wrong

"My question is why would anyone want an iPod that simply can
also make a phone call? It's not a Smartphone. It's just an iPod
Nano with dialing features."

Do your homework next time before stuffing your foot in your
mouth.

[Celliwill]

AT&T and the iPhone

I don't get what the issue is here. First, the quarter ended on a
Saturday, leaving a second weekend day for activations and
purchases. Second, the number of activations would not, at a single
point in time, equal the number of sales when the product is not
activated at the time of sale, which is the case with other
cellphones. And, finally, we are only dealing with 30 hours. There is
way too much over-thinking going on! In order to get a more
accurate picture, we'll just have to wait for the end of the
September quarter. Gosh, enough already.

[-hh]

The "issue" is people's bad math skills :-)

There really isn't any issue with these products.

It is incredibly obvious that that you have to buy a phone before you activate it, so the latter number is ALWAYS going to be smaller than the first.

This is merely freshman high school Algebra - - its the chapter on "Sets and Subsets".

The issue here is that Tom Krazit was sooo profoundly surprised by all of this that he wrote an article about it all. However, because there really isn't anything newsworthy here, its either an attempt by Mr. Krazit to contrive an eyeball grabbing headline, or to remind the world that he flunked high school Algebra.

Either way, this merely turns out to be simply YA useless CNET "Editor" who proves that his works are no longer worth my time reading.

Another CNET 'Editor' into the killfile.


-hh

[johnnydfred]

What're you...stupid???

This story doesn't even merit a post, so I'm not even going to
reward it with a reply ? other than, again, "What're you...Stupid?"

[imwonson]

Mountain out of a molehill

I was 40th in line at my local Apple Store. After 4.5 hours, I had purchased 3 iPhones, one for myself and two for friends who could not get away from work. One friend lives on the East Coast. He activated his iPhone a week after it was purchased. The other friend had a couple of weeks left on his 2 year contract with another carrier, so he activated his iPhone two weeks after it was purchased.

This is a non story, the proper measurement would be how many iPhones have been sold to date and how many have been activated. The first 30 hours are irrelevant.

[Tom Krazit]

How did you buy 3 iPhones at an Apple store?

Apple was only letting people buy two iPhones on launch day.

[Llib Setag]

AT&T's iPhone shinanigans

Bellevue WA:
AT&T stores selling iPhones on the 30 hour crush demanded that:
1. All iPhone customers sign up AND activate all iPhones in their stores prior to leaving. (no do it yourself iTunes option. Selling most expensive AT&T plans as much as possible.)
2. All iPhone customers must buy 2 AT&T iPhone accessories per phone as part of their purchase.
3. AT&T iPhone customer lines moved very, very slow as compared to Apple Store iPhone customer lines in same Bellevue Square Mall, because of their "demands."
4. AT&T salespeople were attempting to take customers from Apple line to go to AT&T Store for iPhones.
5. Long delays in activation of iPhone by AT&T (even for current AT&T / Cingular customers...)
AT&T were NOT prepared for the Apple iPhone customer surge at all...
6. Next generation of iPhone should be open to OTHER carriers in USA.

[gefitz]

And, still, the idiots waited...

All this, and still people crammed their butts into that store to shell out their money.

Whatever...sounds like AT&T fairly doing what the market will bear. If people are dumb enough to fall for their "schemes", then more power to the owners of this store for milking suckers for all they've got.

I don't feel sorry at all for consumers in this case: these aren't poor, disadvantaged...they're the rich brats of society that have money to burn. Instead of investing their money, they dump it into crap like this because it's the fad of the moment. They get what they deserve.

[imacpwr]

Who cares....???????????

How many millions of units are they hoping to sell...?? The
difference you're talking about will be a drop in the bucket before
long.

[technewsjunkie]

I have them

It's a conspiracy!

[jhlmata]

A few ideas..

The gap is huge, but here's a few ideas of where it may come from:
- People buying them for future birthday gifts, christmas presents, etc.
- People buying the iphone for its ipod and internet capabilities. This would include people from outside the US that are not able to use the phone capabilities or people that have a contract with another carrier and are probably waiting for their contract to be over.

Anyway, regardless of the correct amount, it's a LOT of iphones sold.

[Fil0403]

You forgot the most important one...

You tried, but you forgot the most important idea: people getting their hands on a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone before opening the iPhone box, LOL.

Anyway, regardless of the current amount, it's an INSIGNIFICANT number of mobiles phone compared to Nokia and Windows Mobile mobiles market share.

[Fil0403]

Of course they do

The 126,000 iPhone buyers the article refers to probably (were lucky and) got their hands on a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone before opening the iPhone box. ROTFLMAO

[jesmac418]

AT&T hurt iPhone sales

I am not saying AT&T is a really bad choice to partner with. But I am saying that without choice of wireless carriers the iPhone will not be nearly the money maker Apple had hoped. In fact I would say the most disappointed would be AT&T which hoped this would bring many more new customers over to them.
Since the iPhone really does not compete with the Blackberry in business, how many consumer's really can afford a $600 phone? In my years as a wireless customer I have yet to spend more that $20 on a phone.Other than the techno geeks and wealthy people who won't miss the $600 and the $1400 for two years service. Who else really needs this phone?

[gefitz]

Ask the SEC "Who Cares?"...

Since the stock price shortly after the I"Phone"s announced sales absolutely skyrocketed, I'm sure the SEC is in the short list.

I wonder how many owners of Apple stock sold immediately after the stock price jumped as a result of the questionable sales numbers? The SEC knows this number for sure, and I'm sure they're following up....

[bcosgrove]

batteries?

Any techno geek that is running out to buy the first gen of the iPhone has been inundated with the suggestions to charge your lithium battery overnight before you use it for the first time. I'm not sure if it was written in the iPhone's instructions or not; but if I were a new purchaser, I would almost certainly make sure it had a full charge before using it. I would guess a large percentage of people didn't activate on day one, because it was plugged into the wall.

[Thomas, David]

Poor Story, Why was it Written That Way

Tom, and Marg,

Seriously, do you believe that a "small" percentage of iPhone
purchasers had problems with activations?! You work for CNET,
so it is entirely impossible for you to believe this to be true.
Talk to Declan.

Of course AT&T only activated 146,000 phones from Friday to
Saturday. People who purchased the phone on Friday were still
waiting for activation not just on Friday, or Saturday. Some were
waiting for activation all the way till Wednesday.


Yes, AT&T, an Apple differ. Especially using that RIDICULOUS
comparison. What would actually make SENSE, is to find out
how many activations AT&T has made PERIOD.


Very bad story.