There’s something strange afoot at the Apple Online Store today – shipping estimates for almost all available products have increased from shipping within 24hrs to shipping within 1-3 days, with some products even showing a shipping delay of 2-3 weeks.
Increases in product ship times typically indicate that the company is running low in inventory of a product ahead of a future product refresh, but the fact that this is affecting so many products is a very strange matter indeed.
Another strange piece of this is that most international Apple Online Stores are still showing 24-hour shipping estimates, suggesting that the US Online Store may be the only one affected. One possible theory is that Apple has slowed production on all of their other products in order to increase production for iPhone 5 units ahead of the anticipated early October launch.
Current shipping times for the U.S. store, compiled by MacRumors, are as follows:
– iPhone 4: 1-3 business days
– iPad 2: 2-3 weeks
– iPod touch: 3-5 days (8 GB and 32 GB), 1-3 days (64 GB)
– iPod nano: 3-5 days
– iPod shuffle: 1-2 weeks
– iPod classic: 1-3 days
– Apple TV: 3-5 days
– MacBook Air: 3-5 days
– MacBook Pro: 3-5 days for all models except low-end 13-inch, which remains at 24 hours
– iMac: 3-5 days
– Mac Pro: 3-5 days for all models except 12-core, which is at 2-4 day