I think it’s indicative of a long-term strategic marketing failure. Apple’s situation, if you ask me, is actually worse than the bluescreen moment - the bluescreen moment was a PR flop, but Windows 98 still come off the shelves at a breakneck pace. It didn’t actually piss off millions of loyal customers at the time when it happened.

1 million iPhones (let’s say it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-350m in revenue - not everyone paid $199 for the hardware) is a nice windfall in the short run, but accruing it at the cost of shitting on their loyal fan base might have implications in the long run. How many people are going to run out and get locked into a more expensive contract, dump more money on the next iPhone? Speaking of which, what’s the next iteration of the iPhone going to offer? Can we expect to pay a few hundred bucks for the iPhone COPY N PASTE edition?

I’m a big picture guy - I’m looking ahead to how this release will affect the next iteration of the iPhone product line. Will the confusion, technical difficulties, and significant cost/value gap from the 3G release screw apple when it comes time for another upward sustaining iteration of the iPhone? I say “absolutely it will.”

FYI, Palm has had an application store for the Treo line of phones for about three years. Their applications might not have the “OMG APPLE <3″ buzz, but they’ve been around for a long time.

1 million iPhone 3Gs sold in 3 days.
1.3 million new AT&T subscribers.

Did Apple not market as well as they should - maybe.
Is the pricing not a “deal” - probably.
Should Apple have been prepared for the high demand for their servers (iTunes, D/Ling 2.0 software) - absolutely.

This may have be a marketing problem, but it is a far cry from the Microsoft “Bluescreen” moment.

How can 1 million units sold be an “unmitigated disaster”?

Joe

PS - Show me a better all around cellphone/PDA with the equivalent to the App Store - there just is not any.

Tricking your customers is never good business practice.

no love,
Alanna