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iPhone4 in Canada: Impossible to find?

ipedro

ipedro

macrumors 603
Original poster
Nov 30, 2004
6,472
9,253
Toronto, ON
My iPhone 3G with iOS4.1 has just crossed my barrier of patience. It's still incredibly slow and unusable at times. So I need to get a new iPhone and of course I'm looking for the iPhone 4.

It turns out that Rogers is completely sold out and continues to be. Stores are no longer accepting waiting lists.

I tried to negotiate with Rogers to send me an iPhone3GS in the meantime, but they say they're also out of those.

What gives? Shouldn't Apple have already caught up to demand by now? It's been several months already.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Instead of the Rogers store or the Apple store, try the more obscure retailers. Got mine (easily) at a Wireless Etc kiosk at my local Costco over a month ago. They seem to get re-stocked quite frequently albeit with smaller quantities than the big stores.
 
ATC said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Instead of the Rogers store or the Apple store, try the more obscure retailers. Got mine (easily) at a Wireless Etc kiosk at my local Costco over a month ago. They seem to get re-stocked quite frequently albeit with smaller quantities than the big stores.
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100% agree. The girlfriend and I looked at actual Telus/Kelcom dealers and they all had nothing.. tried a really hole-in-the-wall type place that dealt Telus devices and they had several in stock. Try any place you'd think would sell Rogers devices, but isn't actually a Rogers branded store.
 
ipedro said:
My iPhone 3G with iOS4.1 has just crossed my barrier of patience. It's still incredibly slow and unusable at times. So I need to get a new iPhone and of course I'm looking for the iPhone 4.

It turns out that Rogers is completely sold out and continues to be. Stores are no longer accepting waiting lists.

I tried to negotiate with Rogers to send me an iPhone3GS in the meantime, but they say they're also out of those.

What gives? Shouldn't Apple have already caught up to demand by now? It's been several months already.
Click to expand...

Call Rogers retentions. I got both of mine that way. The 1st one I got a month ago and the 2nd one I got on Sept 9
 
crazycanucks said:
Call Rogers retentions. I got both of mine that way. The 1st one I got a month ago and the 2nd one I got on Sept 9
Click to expand...

When I couldn't find one in stores (including a bunch of non-Rogers stores), I thought this would be a sure strategy. I called Rogers to cancel my account hoping that they'd pull out their "hidden stash" of iPhone4's and send me one to keep me as a customer.

I've been with Rogers 10 years and pay them about $2,500 per year in services. They let me cancel. lol They really really had no stock.

My back was against the wall: My iPhone no longer works reliably and I need a new iPhone. They have none for me and I'm not switching to another phone so the only option was to get a Bell account since they're almost always in stock with iPhone4's.

The fact that they let me cancel a 10 year old lucrative account with them means they really had no iPhone 4's.

I live in downtown Toronto and I regularly check between 6 to 9 stores on my way to work a few times a week.

I'm beginning to consider flying to NYC to buy an iPhone4 at full price. :rolleyes:

I backed off my cancel bluff when they offered me an incredibly sweet deal on my plan. I virtually have unlimited use of my phone's voice and data services for 30% off what I had been paying. Now all I need is a working iPhone to fulfill my mobile phone bliss. :)
 
ipedro said:
I'm beginning to consider flying to NYC to buy an iPhone4 at full price. :rolleyes:
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That is a dumb idea. It will be locked to AT&T and you'll have to always worry about new software updates breaking your unlock. If you are willing to pay full price, buy it from the Canadian Online Apple Store like I did. Ordered the phone on Sept 2, and took delivery from Fedex on September 19. Factory unlocked to any carrier for its lifetime.
 
ipedro said:
When I couldn't find one in stores (including a bunch of non-Rogers stores), I thought this would be a sure strategy. I called Rogers to cancel my account hoping that they'd pull out their "hidden stash" of iPhone4's and send me one to keep me as a customer.

I've been with Rogers 10 years and pay them about $2,500 per year in services. They let me cancel. lol They really really had no stock.

My back was against the wall: My iPhone no longer works reliably and I need a new iPhone. They have none for me and I'm not switching to another phone so the only option was to get a Bell account since they're almost always in stock with iPhone4's.

The fact that they let me cancel a 10 year old lucrative account with them means they really had no iPhone 4's.

I live in downtown Toronto and I regularly check between 6 to 9 stores on my way to work a few times a week.

I'm beginning to consider flying to NYC to buy an iPhone4 at full price. :rolleyes:

I backed off my cancel bluff when they offered me an incredibly sweet deal on my plan. I virtually have unlimited use of my phone's voice and data services for 30% off what I had been paying. Now all I need is a working iPhone to fulfill my mobile phone bliss. :)
Click to expand...

Why would you fly to New York to buy an iphone? Just go to any Apple Store in Canada or order it from apple.ca and you can get the iphone 4, and it will be unlocked, unlike in teh US it is locked to At&T
 
Bell/Telus/Virgin have had IP4's available for a few weeks, I believe you can order the phone right of any of their sites. It's Rogers/Fido that have the supply problems, seems that most iPhone users are in contracts with Rogers/Fido.

There is a chance that Rogers retentions might have stock this week. Fido retentions had stock on Friday/Saturday and Rogers has not had stock for 2+ weeks. I was able to get mine by a little luck and just being in the right place (going where others did not think to go).
 
A Rogers rep told me they should be catching up to demand only in November, in time for Christmas. That's crazy.
 
I went to the Edmonton Apple store last weekend, they were sold out then.. They had no idea when they'd be getting more in. Things weren't looking promising at all so I walked over to the iPhone 4's on display and ordered mine off the Canadian Apple store, using an iPhone 4 in-store. I ordered on Sept 12th, Expecting to be shipped on Oct 12th Delivered on the 19th.

cipher29 said:
Appe Store in Edmonton had a bunch of them yesterday..
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Did you buy one, or already own one? How long did you have to wait in line?
They told me the average wait time is like eight hours when they actually get them in stock.
 
There were people lined up and practically sleeping there all the way out to the entrance in Apple Store in Edmonton Southgate to get the iPhone 4 when I got the iPod touch (Sep 9th). :eek: :D
 
I wish they'd do periodical large releases of iPhone 4's so that people who really want one, know when to line up for them. The trickle that's occurring right now leaves nobody knowing where and when they'll appear which is very frustrating.

What would Apple need to do to catch up to demand? Contract out additional factories? It's apparent that Apple is way below necessary production capacity.
 
im also suffering from the same problem as the OP. im from edmonton and i have been looking for a iphone 4 since launch and i've lined up 4 times now. Also what makes it even worse is my @$$hole cousin has a sealed 32 gb i4 sitting at his house unused and refuses to sell it to me :mad::mad:
 
oilers15 said:
im also suffering from the same problem as the OP. im from edmonton and i have been looking for a iphone 4 since launch and i've lined up 4 times now. Also what makes it even worse is my @$$hole cousin has a sealed 32 gb i4 sitting at his house unused and refuses to sell it to me :mad::mad:
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What a prick..

I drove from Whitecourt, called first their like ya we have stock, I get there and nothing..
 
Dhelsdon said:
What a prick..

I drove from Whitecourt, called first their like ya we have stock, I get there and nothing..
Click to expand...

I feel your pain, but on the positive...atleast you'll get one this year...im on tour in Afghanistan till summer 2011 :(
 
What I found, at least here on Vancouver Island, where there are no Apple stores to speak of and the rinky dink carriers carry or only get in 4-7 iPhone 4 at a time, Apple has been shipping more frequently to the box stores here than the independent dealers. I could have gotten a 32Gb iPhone 4 a week earlier at Future Shop vs the Telus dealer, but because I put down a non refundable deposit I had to wait.

Perhaps check Future Shop or Best buy....

They even phoned me when I wasn't on an official wait list.

WW
 
Thanks Wrath, that's good advice. I'll go to both FutureShop and BestBuy and put myself on a call list. Maybe I'll get lucky.
 
lol it took me 3-4 weeks just to get mine, i was really unlucky as i would have got it on my first week of searching. Got mine from rogers store, had to wait out 2 hrs for the shipment to arrive.

Apparently the fastest way to get it is queuing up at apple store early in the morning and you should get one since most apple store gets iphone 4 almost everyday. Honestly, queuing up for 3-4 hours is better than having fruitless searches everywhere for 3 weeks or more... Check out RFD, people post shipment updates everyday depending on where you are from.
 
I've been with Fido for 6 years. Before even finding an iphone 4, I talked to their retention department and negotiated a decent iphone plan, which they said would take effect as soon as I found, purchased, and activated an iPhone 4. That was a week ago. I haven't even bothered trying to find one since then as I've heard how impossible that is. But just yesterday I got a call from Fido... they asked if I was still interested in the phone, and they offered to ship one right to my door. Should be here within a week!
 
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