The only thing bigger than Apple's iPhone 5 since its release last week has been the rising wave of unmet expectations from analysts and buyers. Users have chided the company for everything from phones arriving pre-scuffed/scratched out-of-the-box to the failure of Apple Maps.

"In my opinion it would have been better to retain our maps," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, according to the Wall Street Journal. "It's their decision, I'll let them describe it."

The fallout over Apple Maps has come hard and fast. And now, after some analysts initially predicted first weekend sales of the iPhone 5 to hit 10 million, so too has the criticism of the real demand for Apple's latest smartphone.

Barclay's Ben Reitzes says the iPhone 5 is seeing significant constraints, just as they expected. "We believe the key issue in today's shipment data is in-cell supply constraints," says Reitzes.

"Today's announcement fits with our view that Apple would only be able to ship limited quantities in the September quarter; we expect a solid production ramp and improved availability in C4Q12.  Our Asia team believes Apple has improved the sensitivity of its in-cell screens via a firmware update. As a result the visibility for iPhone 5 has improved and we believe there is less downside risk to production numbers going forward."

Apple CEO Tim Cook released a more positive assessment.

"Demand for iPhone 5 has been incredible and we are working hard to get an iPhone 5 into the hands of every customer who wants one as quickly as possible," Cook said in a statement. "While we have sold out of our initial supply, stores continue to receive iPhone 5 shipments regularly and customers can continue to order online and receive an estimated delivery date. We appreciate everyone's patience and are working hard to build enough iPhone 5s for everyone."

Many other analysts clearly share this view. Pointing to Apple's intentional initial limitation of iPhone 5 supplies in stores and noting peculiarities in how the figures are exactly calculated.

Topeka Capital's Brian White said, "This morning, Apple announced that iPhone 5 sales exceeded 5 million during the first three days of retail availability and below our expectations (we were at the lower end of expectations). We believe this shortfall is largely due to supply availability and the fact that most consumers are opting for the pre-order option. We remain aggressive buyers of Apple on any weakness in the stock price this morning as we believe Apple has another blockbuster on its hands with the iPhone 5 and we expect the 'iPad Mini' to launch in the coming weeks."

Even with Apple's record-breaking iPhone sales announcement, some still see huge barriers in its path to seeing the kind of sales the company is obviously lusting after.

Besides Apple Maps, PC Mag says the real problem with the iPhone 5 is its unreasonable contracts.

"It is simply not that easy to get an iPhone 5 unless you can manage to get out of that onerous contract with your iPhone 4S, which doesn't seem to be the case for many people," said PC Mag. "If Apple wants to follow an automotive "model year" marketing scheme for these devices, there has to be an easy way to trade up, otherwise it won't work out. This is the real problem-not the maps."

All certainly high obstacles for Apple, though, looking at history, we'd place our bets on the company figuring all of this out sooner than later. It seems impossible that Apple isn't currently working on some scheme to either replace Maps or at the very least vastly improve on its many blunders. For now, chalk up the unmet expectations for ludicrously high sales to equally unnaturally high expectations for the iPhone in general.

Merrill Lynch analyst Scott Craig remains optimistic for the iPhone 5's future. "We believe most were expecting 6-10mn units over the first weekend, which, in our view, at the high end, did not fully take into consideration the limited initial supply," says Craig. "We believe overall demand remains strong and our estimates reflect most of these supply constraints, leading us to maintain our Buy rating and our above-consensus estimates."

Considering The New York Times is now reporting Google is indeed building a Maps app for the iPhone (and iPad), and is "seeking to finish [it] by the end of the year," the future looks brighter for Apple's iPhone 5 than many would have you believe.

The delay is reportedly in part due to Google wanting to build a pretty 3-D version of its Maps for Apple users, says the report, and may consider combining the existing Google Earth app for iPhone with the new Maps app. This information comes via "people involved with the effort who declined to be named because of the nature of their work," so a small amount of skepticism should be maintained.