Some Free Advice for Apple

Correction : FOXNews.com initially posted an incorrect version of Neil's Common Sense. This is the correct copy that was read on air:

This might shock some of you — some of you maybe not so much — but when I was a kid, I wasn't the greatest student.

Truth be told, I was an awful student and my poor mom and dad wondered each report card, just how awful it'd be.

After a while, I learned that it was best not to over-promise, and in my case, wise, since I rarely over-delivered.

So here's what I'd do: I'd tell them I'm failing most everything, but trying really hard.

Then when the report card comes out and a "C" or two pops up, man, I look like a genius.

It's called managing expectations. Something, I think, Apple could learn a thing or two about — only the other way.

The company announced its hotsy-totsy iPhone was going to revolutionize the world — bad when you start out using that word "revolutionize," by the way.

That it would sell 10 million in the first year and half a million of those in the first couple of days —days!

Lo and behold, we're told 270,000 iPhones were sold in the day and a half between the phone's launch and the most recent quarter's end — trouble is only about 146,000 were actually activated.

Let me tell you something: Selling 146,000 or 270,000 items of anything — let alone one costing at a minimum 500 smackers — ain't shabby. In fact, it's stunning. Never in corporate history, have so many electronic devices sold so quickly.

But then it didn't meet that damn expectation, did it?

It didn't do what that overbearing braggart marketing department at Apple said it would do, did it?

Oh, if only these much smarter guys had talked to this admittedly not nearly so smart, anchor guy: Promise down, deliver up.

It wowed my mom and dad. I guarantee you next time, it'll wow your shareholders.

Watch Neil Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto" and send your comments to cavuto@foxnews.com