It turns out the AT&T figure was too low. Apple sold 270,000 iPhones in those last two days of the quarter—still disappointing to many, but not enough to dampen most analysts' view. "It's a solid start," says Piper Jaffray's Munster. "It's a disappointment relative to the whisper numbers, but you've got a bunch of [PC industry] analysts who are rookies to the cell-phone space. But if you talk to any mobile phone analyst, they'd say the iPhone is off to a strong start. And none of this changes the fact that we still think Apple is going to sell 45 million iPhones in 2009."

    That's partly based on Apple's plan, announced during the earnings call on July 25, to roll out the iPhone in major European countries by this year and to begin expanding into Asian markets in 2008. "The starting gun has been fired, and we've gotten off to a great start. However, our focus is not on initial sales," Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook told analysts. "Our perspective is measured in years, not months. But the rewards will be huge."

    Lowering the Short-Term Expectations

    No doubt, the early part of this trajectory may be far less explosive than the iPhone hype may have suggested. Unlike many past Apple products, there's no multi-week wait for shoppers to get their hands on an iPhone: From Apple's online store, the iPhones can be at your door in one to two days, with free shipping, no less. The company says it plans to sell its one-millionth iPhone by the time its fourth quarter ends, on Sept. 30 (the iPod, by comparison, took seven quarters to reach that level). And rather than raise its long-term guidance, Apple stuck by its goal to sell 10 million iPhones in fiscal 2008.

    One bit of anecdotal evidence: The iPhone has dropped from No. 1 on the Top Sellers list on Apple's Web site to No. 5, behind items such as the iPod nano and iTunes gift cards. "We're past the initial bubble [of sales to Mac fans and early adopters], and back in the building-the-business phase," says Munster.