Apple attourney, George Riley said that the leaked images of the phone and it's features were "immensely damaging" to a detective at San Mateo's County Sheriff's Office. He went on to say that, "By publishing details about the phone and its features ... people that would have otherwise purchased a currently existing Apple product would wait for the next item to be released, thereby hurting overall sales and negatively affecting Apple's earnings

Kevin Hunt, analysts and Hapoalim Securities said "It's a bunch of legalese and B.S. from lawyers, everyone knew a new iPhone was coming" and that the iPhone OS 4.0 event a week earlier revealed much more than the leak did, as the iPhone was not operational anyway and could not show it's capabilities.

.....everyone knew a new iPhone was coming..... the iPhone OS 4.0 event a week earlier revealed much more than the leak did

Lolwut

Of course it will affect sales in the short term, but not long term because they will all buy the next product!!

I know three people who have recently purchased an iPhone, who have been told the next one will be released soon.

My first instinct is it will effect current sales but I'm not sure now

Of course it will affect sales in the short term, but not long term because they will all buy the next product!!

But the fact that you are waiting for the next product of their's to come out is not going to affect their sales, only delay them until the next product comes out.

Also, I'm almost certain that you didn't hold off on buying the next iPhone purely because Gizmondo leaked a couple of pictures of it. Whether or not they had you would have still waited as it was pretty obvious that a new iPhone was coming. Especially given the release of the beta of the new OS with hidden code bits hinting at new functionality.