Went to the Apple store on Michigan Avenue; not a single ipod shuffle on display, not a single mac mini on display.

I can understand they don't have either in stock, but to not have anything at all on display was very dissapointing. The only thing in the entire store on the shuffle was a small poster near the entrance. This is meant to be one of the flagship stores

Admittedly they should at least have had some display models - but they did only come out on Wednesday!

You are going to buy one

I can't buy a C6 Z06 or a Viper coupe either, even though they are in every car mag this month, before the 'shuffle' announcement. And the Elise was 'out of stock' for a year. Windows95 had about a 2 year <g> announce to release timeline.

The Apple store promises delivery this week, about 10 days after the unveiling. I'm surprised it's not a month or two.

You're shopping for an iPod?

Perhaps because everyone else beat you to it and bought all existing stock?

Considering Ebay is full of Shuffles, and I read reports of people leaving the SFO Apple store with bunches of them I expected to see them in stores, if I am not mistaken Steve even said that the Shuffle would be available right away.

I didn't expect them to be in stock, I did expect to see demo models or at least an Apple genius with one to show me.

I saw two separate Shuffles being shown off by their owners in the RCC at SFO this past Friday evening.

At least at some point they were in stock.

As I understand it, they only had them at that one store near the Expo, where they sold out of some crazy number of them to the Expo attendees (20,000 I think it was). Why they chose to do this, I don't know, although it is quite typical for Apple to introduce new products at the Expo without even display units available for the stores yet.

Yes, that's right. They were only available at the San Francisco store following the MacWorld Keynote, and what they had sold out in a couple of hours.

If you catch the Keynote, Steve mentions that the SF store would have a limited amount available that day and then they'd officially begin shipping later (I want to say 1/22, which I know is when he said that the new iLife, iWork and the Mac Mini would be available).

Sometimes hardware demo units are available for the retail stores prior to the official release, but not always. Often the third party resellers get upset when the Apple Stores are able to have demo units before they can. There are lots of factors that come into play.

If interested in checking on the availability of the new stuff, consider calling the stores. They'll be glad to tell you if they have something in stock or have a demo unit there to play with. And of course, if you're already at the store, the reps there are much more informed than your typical retail employee. They should be able to tell you the latest word on availability for new products and maybe even on demo units.

Thank you Swise for the answer. That said, I have to admit that the concept behind the Apple stores is brilliant. It puts other merchants like Dell and Gateway to shame.

I think that ScottC entering an Apple Store, is the equivalent of Osama Bin Laden entering a Gun Show

My wife loves her ipod, and she loved the store in Arizona.

I have been an Apple fan and user since 1982. I have owned probably close to 100 different machines (yes, many duplicates), including several non Apple built Mac's (during their brief stint with third party vendors), I've owned virtually every piece of hardware they ever made, including most Newtons, most Quicktake cameras, most Laserwriters and have several semi-rare machines still in my collection, including the 20th anniversary Mac (still unused in its box). I also have some of my favourite machines still in the collection, like the IIGS.

So, if anything I said or did gave you the impression that I don't like Apple then nothing could be further from the truth.

I checked a few on eBay and many of them say "to be shipped next week", or "shipped as soon as available". The few that were in hand to be shipped are going for $50 (50%) over list, to get it a week ahead of time, again showing the irrationality of both eBay and brand fanatics.

Or the marketing skills of Apple.