About That March iPad Release Date…
When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the iPad on Jan. 27, he said it would be “available” in 60 days, implying an on-sale date of March 25. By announcing a pre-sale date of March 12, as it did this morning, the company has technically fulfilled that promise–yet it is not delivering the device to customers until April 3, about a week later.
If the ship date was to be April 3, why didn’t Jobs say so at the January event?
Obviously, it’s impossible to say. Though it’s certainly interesting that Jobs couldn’t offer a hard ship date for a major product that was just two months out.
Does this mean Apple (AAPL) may have run into a bit of an iPad manufacturing hiccup after all? I suppose it’s possible. Cannaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek, who first reported alleged production issues with the iPad, certainly thinks so.
“In our previous note we discussed that the upcoming iPad launch may be somewhat limited as a manufacturing bottleneck has impacted production,” Misek wrote in a research note to clients this morning. “We also suggested that there is a possibility that the launch will be delayed by a month due to a limited number of units available.”
Updating his assessment, the analyst notes, “According to today’s announcement, iPad is delayed by a week in the U.S. and by a month for some international markets. We believe the delay was caused by an unspecified production problem at the iPad’s manufacturer as we indicated earlier this week.”
Or perhaps this is simply about Apple’s level of visibility into its supply chain. After all, you’d think if there really had been production issues with the device, we would have been looking at delays of far longer than just a few days.
Either way, it’s really not of consequence to the company in any material sense. At $218.50, Apple shares are up nearly four percent on news of the April ship date. Obviously, Wall Street doesn’t care whether the iPad is late or not. And in the end, does it really even matter?
UPDATE: John Gruber has some interesting thoughts on all this over at Daring Fireball.
Comments
If there was a delay of a month or more then I think we could have a news story here but a week is neither here or there.
Posted by lilscottieme at March 5th, 2010 at 6:38 pmI'm pretty sure he mentioned the date was dependent on the FCC's approval of the device. I assume that once they had approval they need XX number of days to ramp up production and ship the product from China. So the prediction was a week off — big deal!
Posted by calcanuck at March 5th, 2010 at 7:15 pmYou wrote a whole article about Apple being a week late on a product release. You couldn't find anything else negative to spin on?
EXTRA ! EXTRA! ….READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Posted by raycote at March 5th, 2010 at 9:02 pmCould have been a software problem.
Posted by davebarnes at March 5th, 2010 at 10:13 pmNot material anyway.
I'm sorry, where's the negative spin?
Posted by JohnPaczkowski at March 5th, 2010 at 11:01 pmI don't recall mention of FCC approval, but it's possible I missed it. Yes, not a big deal, as I said above; just interesting from a supply chain visibility standpoint.
Posted by JohnPaczkowski at March 5th, 2010 at 11:08 pm“Either way, it’s really not of consequence to the company in any material sense. At $218.50, Apple shares are up nearly four percent on news of the April ship date. Obviously, Wall Street doesn’t care whether the iPad is late or not. And in the end, does it really even matter?”
Posted by JohnPaczkowski at March 5th, 2010 at 11:10 pmApple delayed it on purpose, so everyone would write an article about it.
Brilliant Marketing Strategy. :o)
Posted by sean5155 at March 5th, 2010 at 11:35 pmAs complicated as the coming together of such a product is if they get it within a month they are doing good.
I do wonder why they wouldn't start pre-orders even sooner as a way to help plan volume, but that might interfere with desired “lines around the block” effect. Since I live 4 hours from an Apple store, if I were going to get one it would be by mail-order, so that would be the more interesting date for me.
Posted by macbeach at March 5th, 2010 at 11:40 pmI think it's incredible that he could say “2 months from now” and it would ship 2 months and 1 week later. There are so many variables, to be that close is shocking. I think this disproves the “supply chain problems” theory, not proves it. A few days here or there are more easily explained by logistics, like getting through customs.
Posted by JohnDoey at March 5th, 2010 at 11:56 pmJohn – I agree with the other posters here, you folks have nothing to report so you fabricate meaningless dribble. Seems like Walt is the only one in your business that has any brains.
Posted by aw80k at March 7th, 2010 at 1:24 am'Either way, it’s really not of consequence …………'
Wait, I see what you've done there – ? – nope, I don't.
Not to belabor the subject of your article I, along with 12/13ths of Posters, wonder why it is an issue, in your mind. Seriously, your point is?
Posted by Lance Smith at March 7th, 2010 at 6:53 am