According to mist reports Apple is talking up the event by saying they have been blown away by customer response to the iPhone 5. They are trying very hard to build up the case people want the new iPhone so much that they are selling out quickly. The problem with the announcement is that it has no numbers attached to it. Apple has a history of manipulating the information they give out to the public especially numbers. There have been many cases where Apple has chosen to use the format for the most impact. If the use of a percentage will help them that is what is presented, if a raw number is better that is what you get. The same can be said where the either would be a bad thing to present (does anyone remember the 4x performance claims over Tegra3?)
It is very likely that the raw numbers here are not what Apple wants to present to the public. Apple also likes to make statements and claims to the public to drive interest. Just look at the statements they have made continuously about Samsung. Apple plays a very psychological game with their marketing. However, their game of repetition might come back to haunt them. This year’s comment from Apple was: “Preorders for iPhone 5 have been incredible” followed by “We’ve been completely blown away by the customer response”. Last year during the iPhone 4S launch Phil Schiller said: “We are blown away with the incredible customer response to iPhone 4S. The first day pre-orders for iPhone 4S have been the most for any new product that Apple has ever launched and we are thrilled that customers love iPhone 4S as much as we do.”
We know that Apple carefully controls the message they present to the consumer. This is not an uncommon tactic, but Apple takes this to a level that no other company does. They have words that are not allowed for their staff and in their press releases. Even statements made by executives are controlled and often scripted. The announcement about pre-sales selling out it nothing new and it is following the same pattern that we saw in previous launches. Typically the most phones go to Apple stores with the next largest chunk going to presales. From there Apple carriers get the scraps that are left. During the iPhone 4s launch we talked to people at Radio Shack, Sprint, and a few other places and were told that on launch day a given store might not get more than 10 in a single shipment. AT&T usually fares much better during a launch than other carriers which still gives them an advantage.
Apple could release sales numbers on Monday, but we have a feeling that they might not this time. Still the great Apple PR machine will be ready to explain away any drop in sales or lack of supply available. Oddly enough the reasons that Apple will cite for these are also the same ones that some people are using right now to argue against the claim that Apple is short on supply (which allowed them to sell out preorders so quickly). This is their apparent aggressive launch. Apple can point to the larger number of countries the iPhone 5 is being launched in to claim (again) that global demand is amazing. We are sure they will be “blown away” when they sell out the stock they have right now in those countries so fast. Apple has played this game with every launch and it has always done well for them. Even when Apple’s activation servers crash they point to amazing demand and not a failing on their part. I guess Apple agrees with P.T. Barnum and uses it to their advantage…
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