Harry Potter finally ties iPhone Buzz, iPhones available nearly everywhere

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Harry Potter finally has just about tied iPhones in terms of number of news stories. As of 9:45 am EDT, there were 20,389 stories about the last Harry Potter book in the past 24 hours, while there were 20,500 stories about the iPhone. Given that the number of stories reported by Google is a number that varies +- about 500 each time you hit refresh, I claim this is a tie.

I'll let readers find their own Harry Potter stories in their local newspapers (both the Boston Globe and the New York Times had large articles with photos this morning). iPhone stories of interest include the fact that the much-publicized problem at Duke University with iPhones clogging their network has in fact been traced to being a Cisco problem involving large wireless networks, not an iPhone one. The other major story driving Apple stock to a new all-time high is the speculation that according to Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray, Apple is receiving as much as $11 per subscriber per month from at&t, presumably in lieu of at&t not having to provide a handset subsidy.

Finally, nearly every Apple store in the US -- 163 out of the now 168 stores -- now has iPhones. Apple opened three new stores today, and while those stores are not listed on the iPhone availability list, we have marked them as having stock; to date, Apple has not opened any Apple stores since the launch without stocking them with iPhones. So enjoy your weekend knowing that if you need an iPhone, you can get one. Personally, I'm heading to the Burlington, MA Apple Store to get my son's failed Macbook disk drive fixed, so I'll be there myself.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple Store, at&t, Cisco, Duke University, Gene Munster, iPhone, iPhone Buzz Index, iPhone launch, Piper Jaffray, iPhone availability