Apple statement released yesterday: “[On Tuesday, June 15, 2010] Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than
600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders
Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we
anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions.
Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration.
We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that
they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4
is in stock.”
600,000? Wow.
Jenna Wortham wrote in the New York Times that AT&T has suspended taking pre-orders and will wait to evaluate its expected inventory before it decides whether it will take more pre-orders over the next week. Likewise, apparently you can no longer pre-order an iPhone 4 on the Apple website, although I can’t confirm whether this is true or not.
If you can’t pre-order, can you just buy one in person next week? For now, Apple and AT&T still hope to have a limited supplies of iPhone available on June 24, 2010. David Chartier of Macworld reports that Apple “will have a limited supply of iPhone 4s on hand for walk-up customers.” I suspect it is more accurate to put it this way: Apple will have a limited supply of iPhone 4s on hand for customers who walk to the front of the store and then wait in line a super long time and are lucky enough to be the first ones in the door.
This set of comments on my post from yesterday still has me laughing. First, Philippe Radley posts around 10am:
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?
Then, two hours later, Philippe posts again:
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!
Philippe is not alone. There are a lot of people getting swept up in iPhone 4 mania right now. Although this is strictly anecdotal, I have had a TON of friends and
colleagues tell me over the last few days that they plan to get an
iPhone 4, and most of these are people who don’t have an iPhone right
now. I’m sure that Apple is going to sell a record number of iPhones
over the next few weeks and gain a huge number of new iPhone users.
“Although this is strictly anecdotal, I have had a TON of friends and colleagues tell me over the last few days that they plan to get an iPhone 4, and most of these are people who don’t have an iPhone right now. I’m sure that Apple is going to sell a record number of iPhones over the next few weeks and gain a huge number of new iPhone users.”
Heaven help us if you are right…
I’ll buy one just as soon as Verizon is able to carry them. I refuse to do business with AT&T…