I think we'll (the retailers) all _say_ something to that extent. But it's also clear that Apple stocks their own stores ASAP, whereas resellers can only _order_ stuff after it's been announced, which gives an _incredible_ advantage over resellers (for about two weeks at least).
Just imagine: While I'm explaining to a customer that the iPod touch is currently not in stock, because the new one hasn't been delivered yet, _another_ customer steps up and says: "I just bought mine at Apple's _own_ store." We've been trying to explain these things over the past few days. Over and over again. Sure: Once we _also_ have them in stock, everything's fine again, but it's simply terrible for new announcements.
The general awareness is good for Apple and thus good for us as well. That's correct. But there's also a lot of problems. Apple's history of being low-stock on some things will quite clearly not get better for us, now that Apple has a store near us. They won't prefer us to their own store, it's as simple as that. :/ We've already had the following happen, which I think is INCREDIBLY arrogant behaviour: Customer orders a CTO iMac through us. Apple doesn't deliver after 2 weeks. Customer calls Apple to check whether that's at all possible. Apple tells our customer to stop his order at our store and to order again through them, and guarantee them a fast delivery. That's, I think, something quite close to monopolistic behaviour.