Apple had originally stated that they would have 800,000 units available for the initial launch. Rumors from anonymous sources have been published all over the net that only 300,000 will be available.

Any thoughts?

Maybe the lesser. That's why I will probably be one of the first in line at the Apple store. Don't want to miss out.

Okay, then how many are being shipped to the stores vs. available directly online from Apple, and how many will be sent to Best Buy. If there are only going to be 300,000 units I could easily see a sell out on the first day!!!

If you read the fine print of those lowball predictions, you'll see that they actually said there would only be about 300,000 produced in March. The # was not for how many would be available. They've been in production for a while now. The only thing that qualified the one shown at the announcement as a prototype was the software. The hardware was already set in stone and well on its way. I'm guessing there will be between 800,000 and 1 million available.

If there are any shortfalls, you can rest assured that partner retailers such as Best Buy will be the ones to not get them. Apple will make sure, based on pre-orders and expected demand, that they have plenty for their retail stores.

My thoughts exactly. Probably BestBuy, Amazon & MacMall, will not even have any till after the 3G models come out. Even maybe a month after that. Just my opinion, only based on how big business usually works. They want customers in Their stores first, especially given the economy lately.

There will probably be less units for the reason so people would come back every time to buy it. Like they did the same for the wii down in new york at nintendo world. They were only giving out 30 wiis a day.