Wednesday, July 25, 2007

AT&T and the Activation Scare for iPhone

Today, as I was reading the daily news, I saw this report from Bloomberg, stating that 146,000 iPhones were activated in the quarter according to AT&T. This was a severe disappointment for investors, who started selling Apple stock and bringing the stock price down (though it is still higher than when the iPhone was first introduced). Now investors are eagerly awaiting Apple's report, due out today after the close of the market, to see what they say on actual sales.

Personally, though I don't have an iPhone yet, I see the sales being higher than the activations reported by AT&T. Why? Because the activation was one of the first significant things hacked about the iPhone. That being said, it will probably not be significant, because there hasn't been a simple GUI process of doing it, at least until the iPhoneDev community came out with the iActivator, a GUI activation tool.

Also, it's important to note that these numbers represent the sales for the last two days of the quarter, and not sales until now. So if you are worried about your Apple stock, I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the reports by the goal of 2008. That is, of course, if the rumored updates to the iPhone will be made by the release of Leopard this October. Then the iPhone could be the hot Christmas gift of the season, and not necessarily as the phone.

Why am I pointing this out? Do I have Apple stock, and want it to go back up? Nope, it's just a topic that I've been interested in since I have wanted a mobile web tablet that integrates with my Apple computer. the iPhone has so much potential.. In fact, I think it would be a stroke of genius if Apple released an iPod with the same features, sans the phone and YouTube. ^_^ Should anyone from Apple be out there listening, it would be really nice!

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