Ready to ship almost never means "in stores". Additionally, Apple trusts no one, even when NDAs are in place, so at the very least the product has to be ready t

Ready to ship almost never means "in stores". Additionally, Apple trusts no one, even when NDAs are in place, so at the very least the product has to be ready to go to third-party partners by the time it's announced. Often, the partners may need some time before it's "ready to ship", which can account for part of the delay. That said, last minute bugs do happen and cause delays. Apple will ship late before it ships a known defective product (yes, it has shipped defective products, but not any that were known defective), but it doesn't like to do either.