Thursday, June 28, 2007

Apple restricts sales of iPhone

To 2 per person in the Apple store. For gaming consoles in the past, there have been trends where the newly awaited consoles are in short supply. This leads to unmet demand, and the price going up. What would normally happen is that people would buy these gaming consoles and then put them up for auction on eBay at a much higher rate. One would have expected something like this to happen for the iPhone as well, after all, it is one of the most awaited gizmos of all time. Apple however nipped this in the bud:


Apple on Thursday said customers buying the combination phone, multimedia player, and Web browser through one of its 164 retail stores in the U.S. will be limited to two on a first come, first served basis. The only other place where the phones can be purchased is through AT&T, which requires the buyer to sign up for a two-year service plan. AT&T is the exclusive wireless carrier for the iPhone in the United States.
People willing to endure hardship to be among the first to buy an iPhone started forming a line at 5 a.m. Monday outside Apple's flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York. The high demand has led to others running online ads on Craigslist, offering to either hold a place in line for iPhone customers, or to buy the phones outright for people willing to pay for the service.


This really sounds so strange. Is there a premium on buying it one the first day, as opposed to buying it a week later, when there have been some reviews that will help determine whether the gizmo is worth buying. If you were interested then, it would be easy to walk into an Apple store and buy it outright. One would think that policy is a logical policy, but there is no questioning a feeding frenzy around a new, must-have device.

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