Delays Ahead: Apple is On Third iPhone 4 Shipment Batch, AT&T Sells Out

Apple and AT&T have been having quite a few problems with the iPhone 4 pre-orders, though having too many people trying to buy phones could be a good thing as well.  It looks like now AT&T is facing yet a different problem after its systems were slammed with requests for iPhone 4.  Now it looks like it ran out of pre-order phones for the first day of sale {Gizmodo}.

Want an iPhone 4 on the day it's released? The line in your future isn't just a phone line

Those who have tried to pre-order the new iPhone after 4:30 p.m. EST have been told that they may not receive the phones until after the June 24 release.  To make matters worse for AT&T customers, it might just be when the order was processed.  Those who placed their order before 4:30, but received confirmation after seem to be getting messages saying the phone will be “shipping on or after June 24th.”  AT&T’s response is that June 15 was it’s busiest day for online sales ever. By the end of the first day Apple was already saying that new orders of the iPhone 4 were going to be shipped by July 2.

Apple has yet again had to push back new pre-orders, with those who want to pre-order as of this writing having to wait until July 14 to get their phones.  Apple said that the first day of pre-orders was the company’s best ever, with 600,000 units being sold the first day. {Boy Genius Report} That’s despite AT&T’s system taking a hit and failing for most of the day.  That’s also just for the classic black version, the white version is not yet available.

Just because AT&T sold out of the first day of pre-orders, doesn’t mean you can’t get one that day.  Apple still seems to have stock, or you could walk into an AT&T or Apple store on June 24 (of course, it would require waiting in what’s likely to be a very long line).  The easiest way seems to be through the Apple Store app if you already own an iOS device.  Using the app you can easily order a new iPhone or schedule an appointment at your local Apple Store.

Individual stores aren’t allowed to say how much they’ve sold, which is typical.  But, when asked, an employee at the Lake Grove store said that even those who reserved should expect to wait in a long line the first day.  Stores will still have stock on June 24 to sell to those who didn’t want to pre-order, and will open at 7 a.m. to sell them, but that would be an even longer line than the line for those who managed to pre-order the iPhone 4.

While this could be the first time in recent memory when an online sales system went under because of one phone, something similar did happen with the EVO 4G  earlier in the month.  There were some reports of the phone bringing Sprint’s activation servers to their knees under the pressure {Boy Genius Report}.

Apple is claiming that the iPhone 4 “changing everything. Again.”  Given the sales it certainly seems to be true.  Apple and AT&T are changing the way we pre-order phones, by confusing and frustrating anyone trying to get the system to work and not be pushed past the first day of launch.  If that doesn’t kill your burning desire for an upgrade, you could always just camp out to wait in line like every other time. What’s that they say about the more things change?





More:

The Latest