Where are the next shipments of iPhone 3G's?

Question

I figured maybe someone here might be able to provide me some insight to the question; Where are all of (new shipments of) the iPhone 3G's?
I believed Apple would insured shipments were made to all their stores so that Tuesday there would have been more, and Wednesday, and so on until sales started to drop off where daily shipments were no longer necessary. Much to my disbelief, Monday and Tuesday shows no new shipments made to apparently anywhere in VA, MD, NJ, PA, OH, IA, IN, TN, KY, DE, CT, MA, NH, RI, or NY. There is a store here and a store there in some of those 15 states that shows one of them in stock, but essentially, they are gone. If you look at California and New York where the flagship stores are, they have some (probably a large quantity) of each of the 3 choices of the iPhone 3G.
Monday may have been an 'Out of Stock' day because phones couldn't be shipped out on Sunday but, what I don't understand is how on a Tuesday there are extremely few, if any to be found in the states I mentioned. What was the logic used when Apple decided that only after 9PM can you check the availability of the phone for the next day and not have some sort of 'real-time' tracking. Does this mean that if a store gets a shipment at 2PM this afternoon and you happen to be in the store (again, the store in my area won't answer their phone) you can purchase one, or are those phones only available for the next day? Even AT&T is providing 'real-time' (or at least semi-real-time) availabilty for the customer's that chose to go the Direct Fulfillment route.
The local Apple store doesn't answer the phone anymore (even AT&T stores are answering, they just start off with '...we don't have iPhone's...'). I understand they are busy but as a minimum level of customer service, someone should always be stationed to answer the phone for customer's. When I went into the store I was greated with a blank stare while I asked about availability then politely advised; '...no, sorry, we don't have any right now and we don't know when we're getting anymore, but check the web site tonight...'.
The AT&T stores (Apple's premiere partner) can't even get any to sell (other than using Direct Fulfillment), Apple stores now answering their phones, and now the online availability showing no phones in stock 5 days after release within a 15 state area. I think that demands that questions be asked to individuals at Apple's corporate level that determined the marketing and supply strategies for a major product release like this.
I congratulate Apple on the milestone achievement of selling 1 million iPhone 3G's in a 3 day period, but I find it difficult to believe that a global leader like Apple would have failed to anticipate this kind of demand and the response to consumers to be '...we don't have anymore...' or '...we have a shortage problem...'. The question again; Where are the new iPhone 3G's, and when will they be available for us to purchase again? If the statement that stores are getting shipments daily is true...

Answer 1

Thanks Nathan, and that's where I have been checking at since Friday evening. IMO though, it's only 50% effective simply because it isn't real time, you can only check it for the 11 - 12 hours a location is closed. If a location receives stock in at 11am today, well you wouldn't know that unless you go into the store every day and ask (and most likely you're not going to get an answer from the store reps other than what I noted above) or after 9PM. A leader in the computer industry such as Apple should be more than capable to provide real-time tracking of produc availability (in fact, they do it all the time for their online store).
Right now, it's not so much that I can't tell whether a store has stock or not but more of why isn't the phone in stock in most of 15 states on the Tuesday after the launch weekend? Is Apple sold out? Are the stores holding them until this weekend for another 'spectacle' event? Why don't the stores answer their phones to advise customers during the day if the shipment 'they receive most days' is there and you can stop in and pick one up?
Bottom line, my opinion is that the management of the release, distribution and sales of this particular product (at least where I'm at) is lacking the minimum level of customer service that should be the standard in the industry, let alone for Apple.