Apple: White iPhone 4 Delayed to Later in 2010
Apple said early today that it won't be shipping white models of its iPhone 4 until later this year.
Borrowing on Shakespeare's maxim about brevity being the soul of wit, the company was typically opaque explaining the problem:
"White models of Apple's new iPhone® 4 have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected."
When Apple began shipping the iPhone in June, the company said the white-colored models would be available in late July. During its conference call after its earnings call earlier this week, Apple officials did not point to any manufacturing or sourcing problems which might extend the delay. However, the company did say it was struggling to keep up with tremendous demand for the new smartphone.
This is just the latest headache for Apple management since bringing the iPhone 4 to market. First, Apple was forced to prematurely curtail the online pre-order process when the transaction servers got overwhelmed. Then from the first day it went officially on sale, the iPhone 4 was accompanied by complaints about antenna reception complaints.
During the conference call with analysts, chief operating officer Tim Cook was unable to estimate when Apple expected to get supply aligned with demand.
"We honestly don't know is the answer. We have been pleasantly surprised at how fast this product has gotten out of the chute. If you look at how long it took us to sell the first million iPods, the 20-plus months versus the one month of iPad, it is a phenomenal difference," he said.
"It is not following a typical early adopter curve and then taking a long time to cross into the mainstream. So I don't know how high is high. Our guts tell us this market is very big, and we believe that iPad is really defining the market, and we to want take full advantage of it, and so we are investing enormous time and resource in increasing our capability and getting iPad out to as many people as we can."
The company said it sold 3.3 million iPads in the gadget's first quarter on the market, and people who want to buy one now are finding many stores out of stock. Online, the waiting time is seven to 10 business days.
Separately, Apple on Friday began taking orders for free iPhone 4 cases that CEO Steve Jobs promised a week ago. Customers have to download an application from Apple and then enter their iTunes or Apple ID password, before choosing from a menu of cases.
