Neil Cavuto of Fox News, Jackass

It was inevitable that this clown would eventually win a Jackass of the Week:

The company announced its hotsy-totsy iPhone was going to revolutionize the world — bad when you start out using that word “revolutionize,” by the way.

That it would sell 10 million in the first year and half a million of those in the first couple of days — days!

Lo and behold, we’re told 146,000 iPhones were activated in the day and a half between the phone’s launch and the most recent quarter’s end.

Apple has stated — and reiterated several times — that they hope to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. I think they’re on pace to beat that. But neither Apple as a company, nor any Apple executive speaking on the company’s behalf, ever speculated on opening weekend sales. That “half a million” estimate came from outside analysts, not Apple. And if he hadn’t botched this enough already, the “146,000 activations” number was from AT&T; Apple announced last week that 270,000 iPhones were sold in the first two days.

And, lastly: “hotsy-totsy”?

Update: Fox News has since updated their transcript of Cavuto’s remarks.

★ Tuesday, 31 July 2007