Apple shareholders are furious with the company for not selling enough iPhone 5 units in the first week. The company share price dropped, not because the product ships with borked mapping software or scratches easier than our parquet floor, but because the company has not sold enough of the lemons.

Analysts and the Tame Apple press had assured the shareholders that Apple would be selling shedloads of them.Figures touted were 6 million and 10 million devices.

Shoppers bought 5 million which should have been good enough if the analysts and the Tame Apple press had not been trying to hype up the product and actually told the truth. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who has a history of being talking up Apple sales until they are true, estimated iPhone 5 sales of 6 to 10 million through the end of the month.

Last Monday, some analysts were caught stupidly claiming that the iPhone 5 would create an economic miracle in the US. Some claimed that Apple's shareprice would be $1000 each by Christmas.

Then Apple released the initial weekend sales figures after the phone's commercial release: 5 million. That was better than the number of iPhone 4S units that Apple sold last year in the first weekend following that phone's release.

But it failed to come close to the hype generated by the Tame Apple Press and the Analysts. Wall Street tried to claim that supply was off, not demand, given that iPhone 5 pre-orders were more than double those of the 4S.

But the 4S figures were only high due to a lot of pent-up demand. Apple had shifted from a June release last year to one in mid-October. The 4S also benefited from a third more phone accounts coming up for renewal.

So it does not look like supply problems at all, but rather that Apple was not able to sell as many as it was hyped to do so. It also has a lot stronger competition now from Samsung than it has ever had before. Heck, even the new Windows 8 phones might give it a run for its money.

What we are seeing with the five million figure is the hardcore of Apple fanboys upgrading because they have been told to do so. Apple is finding it harder to attract new customers simply because there are phones out there which are better value for money.