3G iPhone al in Amerika aangekomen

Ik heb zelf ook een iPhone en de nodige andere Apple gadgets (drie iPod's, een Laptop en AppleTV ;-)) dus ook zeer zeker benieuwd naar de komst van de 3G iPhone.

Maar om nu de duizenden inklaringsformulieren van douanekantoren en transportbedrijven door te spitten in de hoop meer bewijs te vinden voor de spoedige komst van de nieuwe versie van de iPhone vind ik ook wel weer wat ver gaan.

Desalniettemin heeft ImportGenius op deze manier ontdekt dat de afgelopen weken 188 zeecontainers gevuld met een nieuw Apple product het land ingekomen zijn.

Het moge duidelijk zijn iedereen er gevoeglijk van uit gaat dat het hier containers vol met de 3G iPhone betreft. We zullen zien!

Als je tijd (en zin) hebt moet je onderstaand stukje Engelse tekst even lezen. De speurneuzen hebben er echt werk van gemaakt en zo ongeveer iedere overzeese levering aan Apple tot in detail ontleedt.

On March 19 Quanta delivered 20 ocean containers of merchandise, described on the Bills of Lading as “electric computers,” to Apple, Inc. Neither Apple, Quanta, nor any other company has ever used this product description for any shipments to the U.S.

The advanced features of the iPhone make it perfectly legitimate for Apple to declare the products as computers, rather than telephones. By doing this, the company may hope to avoid the attention that a massive influx of phones may bring about, while simultaneously maintaining secrecy as to the true identify of the phone’s manufacturers.

Over the last few months shipments of “desktop computers” and other devices did not fall off, indicating that these “electric computers” represent a new product for the company rather than a simple renaming for their Customs declarations.

The initial shipments were followed on March 27, April 28, May 6 and May 17 with an additional 44 containers—each containing an estimated 40,000 units of the new phone. The sixteen containers imported by Apple Inc. itself—as opposed to the Quanta subsidiary—were delivered on March 19 and 27 to the Jonestown, Pa. facilities of Ingram Micro, Apple’s U.S. distribution partner.

The Quanta Computer USA shipments were delivered to that company’s distribution center in Freemont, Ca. Meanwhile, on the exact same dates as the shipments above, Schenker AG, another of Apple’s distribution partners, imported a total of 67 containers of this new product type from an undisclosed manufacturer in Shanghai, China.

Several of those products carried the Apple computer name in what appeared to be an accidental disclosure on the customs record. With arrival notification addresses in Vancouver, Canada, many of Schenker’s shipments appeared destined for the Canadian market. Apple has thus far not made the iPhone available in Canada, however Rogers Wireless recently announced that it would begin offering the item shortly. They declined to offer more specifics about when they would start selling the phones.

Apple Inc’s most recent shipment of the new products, Bill of Lading # HLCUSHA0803FTFR8, arrived at the port of New York on the Vessel NYK Delphinus on May 17th. That shipment contained 504 cartons, weighing 7140 kg, of the vaguely described “electric computer.”

Where Quanta sent all previous shipments to Apple—including 828 ocean containers of “desktop computers” since March—through a subsidiary, the new products were exported in Quanta’s own name. The change may reflect heightened secrecy surrounding the new products.