Report Says Shortages, New Gear Coming

by Eric March on July 31, 2008 at 8:08 am

Right on schedule, a report — in this case from Apple Insider — claims that Cupertino’s star player is issuing “advisement bulletins” to some of its distribution channel partners to come and get it while the getting’s good, suggesting that an engineered dearth of MacBooks, MacBook Pros and iPods is imminent.

Apparently, Apple is offering a strong suggestion to resellers that they order a four week block worth of the best selling iPods, as they will become very scarce within the next 7 days. They are also suggesting that they buy a three week block of MacBooks and MacBook Pros. This strategy is well known to resellers, and invariably indicates that Apple is firing up the production lines for the next round of new devices for the holiday season.

For the iPods, this is right on point, as we are approaching the traditional iPod refresh period (somewhere between late August and early October), so even if this is pure speculation, it’s certainly rooted in a reliable history. What’s a bit surprising are the MacBooks and Pros; we don’t usually see those until MacWorld in January, and the shortages seem to be suggesting that we might see new models unveiled at the same time as the new iPods. It might make sense though. There have been rumblings of a new MacBook Air that addresses some of the concerns people had of the original, and some new and improved MacBooks and Pros could make for a delightful holiday season for Apple fans.

There’s no doubt about it. We are now officially in iPod season, with a second course of Macs.

(via Apple Insider)

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