When the Apple Store came back online yesterday after the announcement of the iPad 2, customers were a bit shocked to find out that Apple is not taking any pre-orders for the device until March 11th, the same day the product hits store shelves. Apple has always had a great track record of taking pre-orders on products after they’ve been announced, so we’ve been wondering just why they’ve changed policy this time. Could it be that they’re afraid they’re not going to have enough initial stock to satisfy store orders as well as online orders?
Rumors were flying around the web days before the event that Apple has been facing supply constraints for the iPad 2 and that the product was facing the serious possibility of being delayed until April or May. When Steve Jobs took the stage yesterday, he went out of his way to adamantly state that the iPad 2 would be launching worldwide in March, and not April or May. Is the move to eliminate pre-orders an effort to increase the lines at stores and build even more hype around the excitement of the launch? That could possibly be the answer but I think it’s a bit unlikely.
As Cult of Mac writer John Brownlee expressed earlier this morning, “What is the benefit of trying to fill millions of pre-orders all in one day when they can instead be processed and filled at a more leisurely pace over the course of two weeks? If Apple has plenty to go around, and we’ve already heard plenty of reports of supply bottlenecks, why make everything more stressful for themselves?”
Not everyone on the site agrees that Apple is facing supply constraints though. Another CoM writer, Lonnie Lazar stated, “I’ll eat my hat if anyone in America who wants an iPad 2 won’t be able to order it online on the 11th for overnight delivery on the 12th…Apple will manufacture demand and keep it inflated in any and every way possible; it’s part of their shticht.”
While this is all purely speculation with no confirmed information coming directly from Apple, we’re left to read the tea leaves and hypothesize what is going on behind the scenes to cause Apple to break away from the norm. To the frustration of many, Apple actually faced a few weeks of delays for pre-orders with the launch of the iPhone 4 last summer. It sounds like Apple is uncertain whether they’re going to be able to meet the initial demand for the iPad 2, and that the demand is going to be markedly greater than they originally assumed. Suffering through the lines at stores on March 11th will be customer’s best bet to get an iPad within the first few weeks of the product launch. It would come as no surprise if by the end of March 11th, customers trying to pre-order the iPad 2 aren’t met with a notice stating that the device won’t ship to them for 1-2 weeks.
The iPad 2 is poised to become Apple’s fastest selling product. Many hopeful customers passed on the first iPad, opting to wait until the second generation device was announced. The announcement of the first iPad was met with skepticism as to whether it was a relevant piece of technology. Over the past nine months that skepticism has now turned into optimism, with people jumping for the opportunity to own one. The iPad 2 fullfils all the needs of 90% of computer users (web, photos, music, video, and a bit of word processing), has a simplistic and intuitive interface, and comes at a great price. Surely 2011 will be the year of the iPad, we just hope there’s going to be enough to go around.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
34 responses to “Is Apple Facing Serious Supply Constraints on the iPad 2? [Speculation]”
Highly doubtful, but maybe they were so unimpressed with the lines outside of their store for the Verizon iPhone that lines will be forced to accumulate in masses for the iPad 2?
It’s a lot more fun to see thousands of people waiting outside your store than to take online orders. Plus the media would have a field day with this… just throwing it out there…
don’t think that anybody really thought there would be a lot of lines for the Verizon iPhone because it was just an iPhone 4. If it were the iPhone 5 then sure. Although I think there is a chance that they just wanna build lines
Wrong! Verizon and apple had loads of extra staff on release day for the verizon iphone. I read several articles claiming the stores had more employees than customers.
Do your colleagues have any other baseless opinions we should know about?
What’s the point of offering a preorder on a product that will be available in less than a week? How does that benefit Apple?
It’s simple marketing. Huge lines will make headlines across the world and get even more people interested in Apple’s latest thing. It’ll create buzz. And for that Apple will pay nothing, other than extra security for launch day.
It could be that the hassle of trying to make sure none were delivered before the release date was just not worth the trouble. In previous pre-order situations there were always a few delivered a day early.
It could also be the retail channels were adamant about being able to get some of what would have been pre-order customers through their doors instead of the Apple web store.
I am sure that Apple expected more lines for that launch but most expert analysts were spot on, in that most Verizon customers had waited this long for the iPhone that most would opt to wait for the iPhone 5. I myself being an apple ________, can say with 100% confidence that launch day, June 30, 2011 there will be more people in line for a Verizon iPhone 5 than for the ATT iPhone 5… Yes you can quote me as an ‘insider’.
You hit the nail on the head here. They want to show this is the tablet to get. No one is seeing lines for the Xoom or the Playbook.
I doubt they are really troubled by a handful of folks getting it a day or two early
The channels I could believe. Plus lets not forget all the negative PR that stirred up about the lack of lines over the Verizon iphone because folks were ordering online. Perhaps they want to avoid that by making sure there are big lines at the store. And going free for all with no reservations on units is probably easier on the staff because they don’t have to mark out units to cover holds, miss sales because the last whatever is on a reservation they have to keep on hold until closing, hand out tickets or handle two lines etc.
My guess is that once launch weekend is over they will have reservations and will probably send out a limited number of notices (say 100 a day) to try to control traffic into stores and have staff available for other purchases, etc.
Yep. I was on the mall that day and my local store had tons of staff. I actually heard a manager on her radio asking for volunteers from the opening staff to go home early
combination of waiting to see if Verizon gets the 5 in the summer and folks ordering online. Apparently the numbers were something like 6 to 1 over in store buys that weekend.
With iPad 2 being offered in Walmart, Best Buy, and Apple Stores as well as online, if Apple has sufficient supplies pre-orders are not necessary. Steve Jobs said himself that iPad 2 is the first dual core tablet shipping IN VOLUME.
“In volume” does not mean “we have more units than we know what to do with on March 11th.” Also, don’t be fooled into thinking they’re going to have a mountain of iPad 2 boxes on display at Walmart when you walk in on March 11th. Usually BestBuy and Walmart only get a couple of units in stock for the first few weeks until Apple has determined what the demand is and fed their own retail spaces first. If “in volume” meant the same thing as you’re trying to say it does then there would be no reason to not have pre-orders if they’re going to have extras left on the shelves. In fact your whole argument makes no sense in saying that pre-orders are not necessary. If the supply is much greater than the demand then you would want to setup pre-orders to get a better gauge on demand and open up more channels to sell your extra inventory. An iPad sitting on a shelf has a negative impact on Apple’s profits. Samsung SHIPPED 2 million Galaxy Tablets, but what they sold was actually far less than 2 million. This means that Samsung had to eat those units that remained on shelves. Apple is great at almost always having greater demand than supply (except maybe in the case of the Apple TV). Saying something like “well they don’t need to have pre-orders because they got way too many units,” makes absolutely no sense if your goal is to get all of your product sold as quickly as possible (and that is the goal of every business).
but additionally they probably had some go missing, late deliveries,etc.= bad PR
Apple would not be offering iPad 2 on launch day at Best Buy, Walmart, and Sam’s Club (and possibly VZ and ATT stores) if supply was constrained.
I think this is likely to create headlines that say, “The iPad 2 has outsold all of the other tablets on the market….in just two days.”