iPhone 4 Emerges as Most Successful Product Ever Launched by Apple

On Thursday, the latest iPhone from Apple (News - Alert) went on sale in five nations. By Sunday, 1.7 million of them had been sold. Surpassing the launch of last year's iPhone (News - Alert) 3GS by 700,000 phones, the iPhone 4 release has been called "the most successful product launch in Apple's history," by Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO.

Available in the U.S., Japan, Germany, England, and France, the iPhone 4 is so hotly sought after that it has caused "shortages and unruly crowds at some stores." Stores ran out of the phone just minutes after opening their doors on Thursday to lines of crowds.

In an article for TMCnet by Alice Straight, she cites how the frenzy began in Japan as the product, "sold out by early afternoon at the flagship store of Softbank (News - Alert), Apple's exclusive wireless carrier there," and continued, "across France, Germany and the U.K. before going on sale at 7 a.m. in each time zone in the U.S."

Apologizing for the shortage of phone supply, Apple was quick to announce that it was having difficulty managing the influx of orders, coming up short by thousands of phones. Unable to produce as many parts as necessary for the hoards of customers scrambling for the new gadget, Apple has the phone backordered into late July. Additionally, the white iPhone is promised to be released towards the end of July as Apple has been encountering more production problems with that new model.

Featuring a rapid processor and a high-resolution screen, the iPhone 4 is more difficult to manufacture and so puts a delay on the production time.

Gadget hounds have already begun disassembling the phone in desperation to expose its technological wonders. But, despite explosive popularity, many complaints have already filtered in concerning its poor reception and supposed "yellowish tint."