Foxconn builds 800,000 iPhones per week?

Apple is still new in the mobile industry.. and trying to do things no-one has done before. Cut them some slack will you.

Wish more of the device was either readily recyclable and/or biodegradable, because the reality is that those 800k and rapidly counting are going to a landfill near you within the next few years. Then again maybe our childrens childrens children will find a use for them.

I'm having a difficult time reading some of these comments. You can't get upset every time a company creates a popular product. Unfortunately enough for us early adopters, we are willing to pay the price to have the best available. The company I work for, DoApp, Inc., created the myLite Flashlight and Colored Strobe which has gained fast popularity. It being FREE may have something to do with that but we can hardly expect Apple to start releasing free hardware can we?

Well, not only is there money to be made from all of those iPhones, but they also must pay for them to be made. They have to buy the parts and pay the company to make them (Might I say that I think it is really cool that it is a Taiwanese company and not a Chinese? I really like Taiwan.) I'm not gonna say that Apple is not making alot of money, but of that 15 Billion, most of it will be spent on the iPhones or making them.

the 40m/year number is an extrapolation - i'd say that there isn't even a slim chance they actually build 30M.

once they catch up with the initially huge demand (maybe a few months?) the manufacturing will be cut down to a fraction of that (though hopefully still a good number, for Apple's sake.)

and Re: Quality Control, maybe i was lucky to get one from the first round of shipments and QC has since dropped, maybe, but my 3G so far has been great. No cracking, none of these other complaints - only software that's a little buggy, but i expect that to be the case until the x.1 version comes out. (it's not buggy in any way that makes any worse to use than any other cellphone i've owned, if it were, that WOULDN'T be acceptable/expected.)

What is the point of manufacturing all these iPhone that are going to crack after week 1? Plus guess what, not all are profit because cracked iPhones are being returned everyday. Stop messing around Apple, you may make the best phone in the world but it is useless if it brakes down so quickly.

that picture would have looked so much better with bills coming out of the iphone and a word-bubble: "IT PRINTS MONEY!"

Apple do need to look at the Quality Control for the iPhone 3G as I will soon be on my 4th one due to problems.

First: Sleep/Wake button came loose.

Second: Dust under the glass, a dead pixel plus and rough edges where the case meets the bezel.

Third: Light leak down the left hand side and dust under the glass

Fourth: ???? (Will have to wait and see if this has any problems)

But must say O2-UK have not messed about. They said straight away a new one will be send out to my door and I give the courier the old one. Plus it only took a couple of days to get to me.

Just disappointed with the Apple over the quality.

It must have been forgotten that Apple is getting more then $199 per iPhone. They are getting more than double that, which puts them over $16 billion.

hey that 199 is the subsidized price not what apples selling price to the carriers which is 399 499! so that 7.9 billion should be 15.8 billion.