The iPhone 5, which Apple unveiled this week after months of intense consumer anticipation went on pre-order at midnight on Friday and within one hour Apple announced that it had sold out of its first batch of the next-gen handsets.
Some deliriously happy customers got lucky and managed to snag a new phone before the sell-out, many would-be customers were genuinely upset to have missed out when several Web sites belonging to iPhone 5 retailers crashed due to high levels of traffic and still other consumers sat back and sneered at those who they felt were falling over themselves to fall victim to what they saw as merely an Apple marketing ploy to hype up the new iPhone.
Numerous people have posted comments in response to various news reports about the worldwide Apple feeding frenzy and here's a look at what some of them had to say.
"I put in my order at about 12:40am and got quoted the 2-3 week shipping date. Balls!"
"I was up at 11:50pm to pre-order the iPhone 5 for my wife. No problems whatsoever. Not true for the other unfortunate souls that waited."
"The [Apple] site didn't even go live for me until around 12:30am, so somewhere inside of 10-15 minutes they sold out of their entire pre-order stock?"
"Might the increased iPhone 5 leaks have contributed to the numbers of early pre-orders?"
"We all know that Apple...limits the number of pre-orders, especially in this case, to try to create hype, up the sales so people would wait in line in front of the stores...making [Apple] look great. Standard marketing move by Apple. They have been doing this forever."
"I ordered my iPhone 5 on my iPhone 4s through the app and had no issues at all. The entire process took about three minutes. My girlfriend tried to order the iPhone 5 on the Spring Web site and it was a disaster. The Web site took 5 minutes to pull up and then she couldn't do anything except get on a waiting list...It's a trip how two people sitting right next to each other could have completely different experiences ordering this phone."
"It's truly sad that Apple couldn't keep their Web site up! After two hours of waiting...I finally thought 'let me try the Apple store app' and it worked! I got my order number and my iPhone 5 is pre-ordered! But shame on AT&T and Apple for a Web site hassle!"
"Apple should know better. Why didn't they just make 40 million handsets before pre-order time? This is just frustrating. Will any tech company ever make enough to supply the initial rush?"
"One thing you have to give Apple credit for, they're the best marketing company in the history of the world. Let's just PLAN to be sold out in a few hours...like they couldn't have had enough [iPhone 5 supply] ready for 30 days worth of sales, without ANY risk of not selling them. Clear and obvious PLOY."
"You'd think that after six iPhone releases, Apple would get it in their head that they need to have more in-stock when they announce a release day so they can ship them all out ASAP and have them all arrive on release day. The happier the customer is, the more often they'll come back for more."
"[Apple is] hoping that limiting the initial supply will create more long-term demand and command higher prices, and they're right. They know EXACTLY how to manipulate the iDiots for maximum profit."
"Sounds like [Apple] mis-managed their roll-out inventory. They will probably lose some customers to upgrading to a top Android phone."
So as you can tell by this consumer comment roundup, the reaction to the news of Apple selling out its pre-order stock is widely mixed. Latinos Post wants to know what our readers think about Friday's craze to snatch up the iPhone 5 before anybody else. Please take a minute and comment below.
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