Apple said Monday that more than 1.7 million of the new iPhone 4 had sold between Thursday when the device, now apparently in spotty supply, hit the stores and closing time Saturday.

It's unclear whether the historic number includes the 600,000 the company said had been pre-ordered.

In a statement CEO Steve Jobs said, "This is the most successful product launch in Apple's history. Even so, we apologize to those customers who were turned away because we did not have enough supply."

The white version of the phone isn't available at all right now because of some production glitch.

Apple sold a million of the iPhone 4's 3G predecessor in its first three days last year.

The iPhone 4 has been selling in the U.S., UK, France, Germany and Japan and is supposed to be available in another 18 countries by the end of July - namely Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Aside from Apple, AT&T's retail and online stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack and Wal-Mart stores are carrying the $199 or $299 dingus in the U.S.