Just the Facts

There have been numerous articles about iPhone initial sales and almost all of them report the sales numbers in a very misleading way. I don't understand this. Why is it that so many folks don't get a decent grasp on the facts and present the full story? Is it ignorance, laziness or do the facts just not matter.

There have been many examples but the latest is by Courtney Weaver & Businessweek.

I tried posting a comment but after writing my reply in the incredibly small text input box (18 characters wide), I was told that my post was too long. WTF??? Is this SMS?

Here's what I would have posted if I had the room:

Interesting premise but poorly written post.

1. Apple had a great quarter but said that the iPhone contributed next to nothing towards revenue or income (the iPhone sales are being spread out over 24 months and whatever payments AT&T is making to Apple didn't start in the quarter).

So what makes you say "the iPhone still helped Apple report strong earnings for the quarter"?

2. Your iPhone sales vs estimates is very misleading.

Your wording, "While analysts expected Apple to sell between 500,000 and 700,000 phones during the iPhone's opening weekend, only 270,000 units were sold during the product's first two days." make it sound as though Apple sold 270K phones for the weekend (most people think the weekend has 2 days in it - Saturday and Sunday). Would it be so difficult to give your readers a clear picture of sales instead of misleading them?

The estimates you mention (the one Apple missed) were made AFTER the weekend. Nobody is on record (especially not APPLE who didn't make any predictions)for having predicted that many phones sold. The iPhone was the most successful launch of any cell phone in history and somehow you are saying it's a failure.

How come you don't mention who made these predictions (or include links)?

3. What is the point of including AT&T activation numbers in your post?