If you tried to pre-order an iPhone 4 yesterday, I hope that you were successful. Many were not, including me, as a result of a number of AT&T problems.
To put a positive spin on it, AT&T announced that it had its "busiest online sales day in AT&T history" and has already sold out of the iPhones that it expected to have available on June 24, 2010, the day that the iPhone is officially released. To put a negative spin on it, what a fiasco yesterday!
As David Pogue of the New York Times reported, the first problem was that the AT&T web servers crashed. "AT&T’s Web site has essentially melted down. You can’t order an iPhone there." Engadget reported yesterday morning that "AT&T's servers seem to be completely hosed here in America, and since Apple's own online order process has to ping those to check on your contract status, neither option is... um, working." The situation got so bad that some AT&T stores had to resort to pen and paper to jot down customer information.
To make matters worse, it appears that some of the people who were able to use the website encountered a security flaw. Gizmodo has reports of people who tried to sign in to their account to pre-order an iPhone 4, only to be shown someone else's account information.
My own personal experience mirrored much of what I saw online. I have split billing on my account, meaning that my law firm pays for my data and I pay for the voice, so I knew that I would need to get an iPhone 4 through AT&T and not someone else (like Apple) because my account is too complicated for Apple or other third parties to manage. No problem, I would just use the AT&T website, and at first that seemed to work early Tuesday morning. But then when I got to the order page, I was told would have to call a specific AT&T number to complete my order. It took me 45 minutes to get through to someone at that number, only for the person to tell me that I actually had to call a different, Premier Support number. Numerous phone calls and 45 minutes later, I was told by someone in Premier Support that they didn't know how to help me and that I should just use the website, which at that point had melted down and wasn't working for anyone. Then, later in the day when the AT&T website finally started working again, I was again told that I needed to call Premier Support:
I then, once again, tried to call Premier Support, but I guess they stopped answering the phone at that point because every time I tried to navigate the automatic system, I was routed to a recording which cheerfully announced that AT&T could not help me today, goodbye.
According to a (very unscientific) poll on Gizmodo, thousands of other people also had problems with AT&T's website that prevented them from pre-ordering a website. But as noted above, some people clearly were able to get the system to work because AT&T sold out. As has Apple, which according to Engadget is now listing July 2 as its earliest ship date for additional new iPhones.
So it looks like I will not be among the first to get an iPhone 4. Hopefully, many of you reading this had better luck and will have your shiny new iPhone on or soon after June 24. Just try not to rub it in for the rest of us who had a frustrating day yesterday.
If people are still trying to pre-order an iPhone, I would recommend Best Buy. I heard all of this AT&T business yesterday, so I went to Best Buy to see if they still had any. They did. Each Best Buy knows exactly how many they are getting. My store still had about half a dozen 32gb left when I got there at 7PM. The only down side to Best Buy is you then have to make an appointment for launch day. They are doing it that way so that all the people who ordered don't show up at once, since their mobile counter can only handle one or two customers at a time. Nonetheless, I will have an iPhone in hand at 7PM on launch day!
Posted by: Josh Camson | June 16, 2010 at 05:32 AM
I honestly don't know why Apple puts up with the incompetancy that is AT&T. Either Apple's getting a heck of a kickback from AT&T or they were stupid and got into a very long period of exclusivity in their initial contract.
Posted by: Tim Evans | June 16, 2010 at 07:00 AM
I tried first thing yesterday and the system wasn't yet accepting orders. I had a deposition all day and couldn't get online to order until after 5 PM. I tried over and over via the Apple page and received 3 varieties of messages - - not one of which let me order.
I logged on again this morning, only to see the July 2 ship date. Fail.
Posted by: Bea S | June 16, 2010 at 08:59 AM
Why are you and others wasting so much time like this? Can't you wait a week or two? I will go to my Apple store sometime in July and just upgrade then and there. I tried twice yesterday via the Apple store and just gave up. I will get one sooner or later. Is it so crucial to be the first? Will your present iphone stop working on June 24?
Posted by: Philippe Radley | June 16, 2010 at 09:59 AM
You guys got me all hepped (is that a correct spelling?) up so I just went online and ordered the new phone, which will ship (???) on July 2. So I take back what I said, as obviously I couldn't wait either. BTW, I have learned all kinds of things from this site, so keep it up!
Posted by: Philippe Radley | June 16, 2010 at 12:02 PM