In case you’ve been away, unable to get on the Internet or watch tv, Apple released an update to its flagship smartphone on Friday and more people decided to get one than “those in the know” originally thought. According to our favorite Apple site TUAW, sales of the iPhone 3GS may exceed the 500 K units as predicted by tech pundit Gene Munster, senior analyst at Piper Jaffray.
His research firm had originally predicted the 500 K number of units sold this weekend but now believes that figure is “conservative” based on early results. Between AT&T’s citing of ‘hundreds of thousands’ of pre-orders for the device, and Britain’s O2 announcing that first-day sales for the 3GS went past the totals for the 3G last year, it’s possible that the 3G S could meet or exceed the magic million units sold mark.
Of course, as in years past, AT&T wasn’t able to handle the number of users trying to activate their new iPhones all at the same time, which triggered delays for many users. Many new buyers ended up waiting several hours for activations to complete or were forced to call AT&T customer service and have their activations pushed through by a rep.
In recognition of the aggravation and inconvenience, Apple has begun emailing affected users with the offer of a $30 iTunes credit to be delivered Monday morning. So, if you ended up having to wait several hours for your iPhone 3G S to be activated, you may be getting something from Apple in your email pretty soon.
Updated: Well, it turns out Munster was way off. How much? Well, according to a press release issued by Apple, sales of the new iPhone 3GS topped one million units over the weekend, double what Munster predicted.
As if that wasn’t impressive enough, downloads of Apple’s new 3.0 OS for the iPhone and iPod Touch exceeded six million and the press release even got a quote from Steve Jobs himself, further fueling speculation that Jobs is on the mend and returning to work later this year. Not bad for a weekend.
