Wow. As if we needed any reaffimation of Apple’s absolute dominance in the smartphone industry! Lately, there’s been talk of Android making gains on the iPhone, but then this happens and I have to doubt what people are saying. 1.7 million units in 3 days. To put this in perspective: Apple sold 394 phones per minute…or 7 PER SECOND! That’s CRAZY! Think about this from a monetary perspective: the phone starts at $200 (with contract) for the 16gb model, so if they sold 1.7 million of that unit, that’s $340 million dollars in Apple’s pocket at a bare minimum! What hasn’t been stated is just how many of these sales have been upgrades from previous customers. I’m sure there’s a large chunk of devoted Apple fans that upgraded simply because it’s the latest thing to leave Steve Jobs’ Magical Kingdom. Regardless, it’s still a very impressive number, no matter how you slice it.

However, it hasn’t been all good news for Apple. The launch has been marred with many issues such as shortages, screen discoloration, fragile glass, camera problems (sorry, no crazy Jetsonesque FaceTime for you!), and most notably: antenna issues (to which Steve Jobs replied: hold it differently).

I think all these issues came about because Apple probably put iPhone 4 on the fast road to shipping after the prototype was found in a bar a few months ago and leaked to the net. That and Steve’s philosophy that real artists ship. Regardless of all the issues, the launch has been an amazing success. Let’s just hope Apple fixes all these issues.