shortages

When asked about staggered product launches during the Q&A of Apple’s Q2 2013 earnings call today, Apple CEO Tim Cook admitted that he wished Apple would have postponed the launch of the new iMac until after the holiday season in order to avoid the significant delays that customers experienced in the initial months of launch:

I don’t spend a lot of time looking back… If we could run it over, i would have announced the iMac after the turn of the year… we felt our customers had to wait too long for that specific product… Where the iPad mini was in shortage in the December quarter, I would not have done that differently because we were able to get the product out to many customers that wanted it. In retrospect, I wish it [iMac] was after the turn of the year so customers would not have had to wait as long as they did.

When Apple first launched the all new, slimmed down iMac lineup leading up to the holidays in October of last year, Tim Cook quickly confirmed that Apple would run into some significant component constraints and delays for the product. The months following launch saw major delays with customers ordering the product having to wait weeks to receive their shipments and some models pushed back as far as December.

Update: Our own Mark Gurman seems to have put the kibosh on this one.

French language website MacBidouille claims to have some bad news from its retail sources. While they were expecting to see iMacs arrive Nov. 27 (we also heard a similar time frame—with availability beginning around Black Friday) for the 21.5-inchers and later in December for the 27-inchers, both may now miss the all-important holiday shopping season.

The source blames a welding process for the delays, which would push the iMacs into 2013. The new iMacs also have a redesigned display that features a new thinner lamination process.

We first noted the delays in new iMac production in October and questioned whether the devices would be announced at the iPad mini event. Interestingly, we also heard that Apple might introduce an updated Thunderbolt Display in the not-so distant future that may be tied to the launch of the 27-inch iMac. Stay tuned for more information on that soon.

Expand
Expanding
Close

When Apple originally announced the iPad mini, it said the LTE model would ship two weeks after the Nov. 2 launch date set for the Wi-Fi only models. It didn’t take long for Apple to extend estimated shipping dates to “2 weeks” following selling out of initial supplies. One lucky iPad mini user received their preorder already, but it appears Apple is facing major shortages leading up to the holidays. Especially for the cellular models…

As noted in the tweet below, several readers have noticed Apple has now removed the shipping date for their iPad mini LTE preorders. Previously, Apple provided a shipment date of November 23rd for many who preordered LTE iPad minis on day one. That date was already a week longer than Apple promised during the unveiling. Since providing that date, orders have now been updated to read “mid-November”, indicating Apple could be running into more delays than expected in manufacturing. Whatever the source of the shortage is, it looks like preorder customers might not receive their orders until after the 23rd.
Expand
Expanding
Close