It’s well known that creating a sense of urgency is one of the best tools a salesman can use when trying to sell a product. Whether or not this is a sales tactic we’re aren’t sure, but Apple has an availability tool on their website that shows which Apple stores in different states have iPhones available for the following day. Granted, the tool’s not very reflective of the fast-paced digital times that we live in but if nothing else it’s doing a great job of creating a sense of urgency in Apple fans.

We had heard shortly before the iPhone launch that AT&T stores were not going to be stocked with the number of iPhones that the Apple stores would be, and that the Apple stores would in reality have many, many iPhones available despite any rumors of short stock. While there have been a number reports of AT&T running short we didn’t expect to see the same from Apple until we checked the “availability board” tonight (they only post after 9pm in your local area).

Out of 36 Apple stores listed for California, we see that almost half of them (16) are showing that the iPhone will not be available tomorrow, only two days after the launch, with two of the three Los Angeles stores reporting that they are out of stock. Luckily the three stores here in the Portland area are showing at least some availability in all of the stores.

We had heard that Apple was going to only make a 3rd of the total inventory available for the initial launch, but it is Apple going to really turn paying customers away just to stretch out the time they hold inventory, or is this just more marketing to get you excited?