iPhones hard to find

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 13 May 2008 12:19

Your IT - Mobility

Tried ordering an iPhone lately? They're "Currently Unavailable" at the US and UK online Apple Stores. What's going on?

We're also seeing reports that the handset is out of stock at Apple's physical stores too.

A popular theory is that this indicates the 3G iPhone is about to be launched, but I'm sceptical.

Look at what happened when the iPhone first debuted. Apple revealed the handset so it could make a big splash before the FCC released any information about compliance testing.

That worked so well, why wouldn't the company do it again? Even if the 3G version is announced in a few weeks as widely anticipated, I don't expect it to go on sale for a few months.

So do you think Apple is going to stop selling iPhones completely in the interim? No chance!

I reckon that either there is either a supply issue, or Apple's about to introduce an 'iPhone 1.1' with the new software and possibly extra memory - it's easy to envisage the 16G version becoming the low-end model, with a new 32G configuration as the upmarket alternative.

That would also explain the recent discounting seen in Europe.

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