Katie MarsaliPhone 3GS stock runs dry over the weekend
Keeping to its now traditional approach of tracking iPhone supplies closely in the immediate wake of a launch, Apple has posted an iPhone 3GS availability tool that lists stock by store and by model — and which has hinted at continued strong demand for the third-generation handset a week after it first appeared.
As followed by ifo Apple Store, the weekend began with only minor shortages that saw 29 of 257 shops nationwide reporting any kind of limited availability. By Sunday evening, however, very few stores had any stocks of the white iPhone 3GS model while only the white 32GB model was available at more than 52 percent of stores. Black versions of 16GB and 32GB models were only available at just over a third of stores at 35 percent each, and about 39 stores had no stock whatsoever.
A day later, the situation had improved substantially, with only six stores reporting no iPhones in stock and only a small amount more going without one or more models.
Whether or not the situation will remain the same in weeks to come is hard to tell. Last year's iPhone 3G launch saw even more severe shortages around this time last year and maintained a similar dire state for weeks afterwards, but it's possible both that Apple has better prepared itself for its latest launch as well as that economic woes have kept certain customers out of stores.
These figures are updated hourly and so should be accurate for the iPhone maker's own supply, but they don't include AT&T, Best Buy or Walmart, all of whom play an important part in Apple's true sales numbers.
NVIDIA releases Adobe CS4 CUDA plugins for Macs
Owners of more recent Macs with fast video cards were given an extra speed advantage on Monday with a new set of Adobe Creative Suite 4 plugins.
The suite includes four plugins from third parties and centers on Elemental Accelerator 1.2, a video processing add-on. Those using Mac Pros with a Quadro FX 4800 video card can use the general-purpose computing feature of these graphics chipsets to accelerate video encoding for H.264-formatted videos well beyond what would be possible with the processor alone. NVIDIA estimates that the task can run 11 times faster than it would without the plugin.
The others, from Boris FX ,proDAD and Red Giant Software, provide less conspicuous gains but help out other key apps in Adobe's library, including After Effects, Flash and Photoshop.
Such plugins are a rarity for the Mac, which has supported CUDA since last year but has only occasionally been supported by widely available apps. The situation should change with the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard in September, when the universal OpenCL standard will encourage cross-platform support and let both ATI and NVIDIA cards run the same special code.
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117 Comments
I didn't pre-order or anything and I spur the moment called my Apple store last wednesday expecting them to be sold out of all iphone 3GS because AT&T had a 2 week wait but to my surprise they had them all in stock and I went about an hour later and picked up a white 32gig. It was fast but pretty unstable, it locked up a couple times randomly while in my pocket or desk and the battery life was just horrible, within 30 mins of unplugging it would be down 10% and thats on standby. I restored and started as a new Iphone but it still locked up and then to my surprise i missed a couple phone calls while it was sitting right next to me on "loud". I couldnt figure it out but then when pandora didn't work either I realized the speakers and headphone jack all went dead. I got it replaced yesterday and my new one hasn't locked up once and the battery life is up to par. Hasnt been charged since yesterday around 6 p.m. which is almost 24 hours and im still at 44%. Thats with a good amount of txting/phone calls/email/ and pandora streaming. Im pretty happy with the purchase now but im looking forward to 3.0.1
Also, I'm hoping that with the 3.0.1 update they turn on MMS for AT&tT. I know its not Apples fault but hopefully AT&T will be pushed and down talked enough by then to have it ready for the new update.
I didn't pre-order or anything and I spur the moment called my Apple store last wednesday expecting them to be sold out of all iphone 3GS because AT&T had a 2 week wait but to my surprise they had them all in stock and I went about an hour later and picked up a white 32gig. It was fast but pretty unstable, it locked up a couple times randomly while in my pocket or desk and the battery life was just horrible, within 30 mins of unplugging it would be down 10% and thats on standby. I restored and started as a new Iphone but it still locked up and then to my surprise i missed a couple phone calls while it was sitting right next to me on "loud". I couldnt figure it out but then when pandora didn't work either I realized the speakers and headphone jack all went dead. I got it replaced yesterday and my new one hasn't locked up once and the battery life is up to par. Hasnt been charged since yesterday around 6 p.m. which is almost 24 hours and im still at 44%. Thats with a good amount of txting/phone calls/email/ and pandora streaming. Im pretty happy with the purchase now but im looking forward to 3.0.1
Dude, I think you have the wrong site.
This is *not* the "yammering on about my personal troubles" site, it's an Apple rumour site.
It would have been nice if they would have put the availability link up there the weekend it launched (when I tried but failed to get one) and not the weekend after (when they had lots in stock I guess they weren't expecting this much demand. The whole activation process was a little messy though. \ You walk into the store not sure where to go. I saw an employee in an orange shirt and stopped them and said I'd like the 32GB Black iPhone. "OK, I'm going to take you over here to Aliya (another Orange shirt.)" Aliyah informs me I need to go wait by the table in the corner that has 8 iPhones on display. I go to that table unsure of how many people are just playing with the displays and how many are buying. Unsure where to stand I ask someone standing at one corner of the table and they explain the buyers stand in the southwest corner. I meander over there. Moo. I then ask my fellow iPhone companions how long they've been waiting there. "45 minutes," was the reply. I asked what exactly is it that we are waiting for and they say they don't know. Not satisfied with that answer, I go back to the special senior orange shirt employee and ask what we are actually waiting for. Of course, she looks confused and says, "the iPhone." I bite my tongue, remain polite and explain that I realize what I came here to purchase but want to know what is causing the current 45 minute wait to get said iPhone. Are we waiting on a new shipment? Are there any physically in stock? Does a magic poem need to be read? She informs me that we need to wait for a person in a teal shirt to get us the phone but they are all busy helping people with questions about computers. As anyone who has browsed through an Apple store knows, it is often filled with computer "shoppers" who will ask questions for 30 minutes straight but have no intention of ever actually buying anything. Kudos to Apple for answering all those questions but when you are ready to buy it's not efficient to have to wait for the same people. Anyway, 5 minutes go by when I see a teal-shirter getting done helping a laptop shopper. I try to waive him over to help one of the iPhone buyers in front of me but he informs me that the orange shirts control the workflow (I suddenly feel like a jet trying to maneuver on an aircraft carrier.) He goes to the master orange shirt and she confirms that the iPhone buyers are in fact next to be helped...yay. There are two women ahead of me. The first one says that all 5 of us are buying iPhones so he can bring out that many. "Sorry, I can only bring one at a time." D'oh! Oh well, hopefully it won't be too long. But, I got lucky. Just then 3 teal-shirts free up and the senior orange shirt woman lets two of them help some of us iPhone schleps. The activation goes fine and in total, I spent 30 minutes in the store. Not too bad but it seems like the process could have been made a little more clear so customers know that someone will be there to assist them. "Go stand by that table and wait," is not a good way to treat someone about to drop $300 to vote for your phone.
On a side note, it is interesting that the place was packed with laptop shoppers. I don't know how many of those translated into sales but I've never seen it that packed in there before.
The activation goes fine and in total, I spent 30 minutes in the store. Not too bad but it seems like the process could have been made a little more clear so customers know that someone will be there to assist them. "Go stand by that table and wait," is not a good way to treat someone about to drop $300 to vote for your phone.
I was in and out in about 5 mins. More than impressed as they were quite busy, but I was out quick so thats all that matters.