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Let's go back in time one month. Prior to the iPhone launch, financial analysts were not predicting a guaranteed hit. Of course there was reason to suspect the iPhone would be a success -- Apple's iPod track record, the tremendous iPhone interest, Steve Jobs' electrifying keynote demonstration - but analysts were cautious. After all, this was an expensive device and there were no guarantees that customers would actually rush out to buy a $600 cell phone. Remember all the negatives: two-year contract, AT&T only, no 3G, no keyboard, poor battery life, etc.

There were many who wondered if the iPhone would be a huge flop. Their reasoning was that very few 1.0 products are huge successes: it takes time for a product to mature into usability beyond the "early adopter" crowd. Sure, there would be a large spike of sales the first weekend - the pent-up demand and Apple's loyal fanbase guaranteed that. But would sales continue? That was the real question.

Back then, I saw articles claiming that Apple might sell as many as 50,000 phones in that first weekend. The interesting thing is that was considered an extraordinary amount for a brand new item in an extremely competitive product category....

Then, as the weekend hit and - surprisingly - there were not huge shortages of iPhones, with many stores still having stock Monday morning, the rumor started going around that Apple must have manufactured one million phones in expectation of heavy demand. So that sort of "confirmed" the idea that Apple must have sold a half million or so iPhones: the sales guesses and inventory levels sort of matched....

So, this brings us up to Tuesday, when Apple's stock got knocked down about eight percent when AT&T, in their quarterly statement, revealed they'd "only" activated 146,000 units. AT&T's numbers seemed low compared to reports of 500,000+, and a few worried investors sold Apple stock.