PowerMac 2.0GHz Machines - 10-15 Business Days

[MacRumors]

Apple has sent out emails to at least some individuals who have ordered a PowerMac G5 2.0GHz machine indicating that due to demand and the filling educational institutional orders, they can expect their Dual G5s to be sent in 10-15 business days.

The demand for the dual processor PowerMac has been overwhelming and our
employees are working around the clock to meet demand. Initial units will be
sent to education institutions to meet key back to school deadlines. We
currently anticipate shipping your new G5 PowerMac in 10-15 business days.

This includes orders which were placed on June 23rd -- the first day that the PowerMac G5s were available for order.

[arn]

Full Email

To Our Valued Apple Customer:

We are very excited that the Power Mac G5 systems have started shipping and
want to provide an update on the status of your order.

The demand for the dual processor PowerMac has been overwhelming and our employees are working around the clock to meet demand. Initial units will be
sent to education institutions to meet key back to school deadlines. We
currently anticipate shipping your new G5 PowerMac in 10-15 business days.

If for any reason this revised shipping date is not acceptable, please let us
know and we will promptly change or cancel your order per your instructions.
If we do not hear from you prior to shipment, we will assume the revised date is acceptable and will ship your order. If you decide to cancel your order and it was paid for in advance, you will receive a prompt refund.

If you should have any questions or would like to change or cancel your order,
you can reach us at 800-676-2775 Mon-Fri 8am-9pm, Sat-Sun 9am-6pm (Central), or by email at customerconfirm@group.apple.com.

You can track the status of your order by visiting http://www.apple.com/orderstatus or http://store.apple.com/ and click the "Your Account."

[jelloshotsrule]

of note:

some people are getting emails saying 3-4 weeks.

also, if you go into the online store and config any type of dual 2ghz set up, you get 10-15 days....

meanwhile, the order i placed a few hours ago (before the big change in ship time), still says on or before 10/14

[blahblah123]

whose says 10-15 days? i have a 3-4 week-er.

mine's non-educational .. could that be it?

[trog]

that's funny. 10-15 business days or 3-4 weeks. Apple's just so clever with words.

[trog]

Everybody notice that it says education "institutions". That is a different type of order than just buying something through Apple's store for education as an individual (e.g. student).

I placed an order early the 25th of June through the Apple store for education, with an original ship date of 8/29. It is now set to 9/29 and the Apple rep on the phone said that is unlikely to change.

[adamfilip]

yes considering there are only 5 business days in a week.

2-3 weeks

[trog]

Originally posted by adamfilip
yes considering there are only 5 business days in a week.

2-3 weeks

Don't forget there's only four business days next week. Oh, those marketing GENIUSES at Apple!

[blahblah123]

Originally posted by trog
that's funny.

ah, you're quick. but that's not funny <wink>.
so then what's with the extra week? seems rather insignificant and hence quite strange, if you ask me.

[halabar]

I'm gonna cancel my order. If I have to wait another month, I can wait two or three, and have it ship with Panther free. My G4/400 will hold up a little while longer.....

So all us Mac fans order the first day, and get screwed. But all the corporations and schools get whatever they want right away. That sucks.

Anyone want to hack Virginia Tech?.....

[Alexander]

Discounts? Really? That's very un-Apple.

I know they give out shipping upgrades at the drop of a hat, but I've never heard of them applying a discount.

How much of a discount are we talking here?

[nagromme]

Ordering first and not getting yours first is a problem. (Cancelling and waiting for Panther to re-order is a smart option probably.)

But a school not having them in time for the semester is a problem too. I can see Apple has a tough call to make in satisfying the needs of edu institutions.

Either way, the excessive demand is a problem for Apple. There are worse problems they could have, though!

[trog]

Originally posted by blahblah123
so then what's with the extra week?

There are 4 business days next week (2nd-5th), 5 the next, (8th-12th), 5 the next (15th-19th). That equals 14 business days, add the 22nd to make 15 and you're at 4 weeks.

The thing is, most people's orders say 9/29 now, right?... that's more like FIVE weeks.

Ugh!!

[reiggin]

Originally posted by halabar
So all us Mac fans order the first day, and get screwed. But all the corporations and schools get whatever they want right away. That sucks.

Anyone want to hack Virginia Tech?.....

And this is different from past experiences in what way? Corporations and schools ALWAYS get first priority to any business that depends on them as their primary cash-flow. Do you really think Apple, of all companies, can afford to tick off those two groups any more? And besides, I think you'd get screwed regardless for ordering "first day." I did that when the B&W G3's came out. And boy did I regret it later. They were followed by upgrades very shortly thereafter ( 2 - 3 months if memory serves). And here again, we've got a COMPLETELY new machine and I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts (Krispy Kreme, please) that Apple has to update (or, heaven forbid, recall) some of these in the next couple months. This G5 stuff is heavy duty and it's obviously a tricky beast. So, in summary, you'd be wise to wait to get yours.

[trog]

Originally posted by reiggin
And this is different from past experiences in what way?

I certainly can't speak for everyone, but the thing that makes me most upset now is not the delay itself but the way Apple handled it.

Their G5 product manager lied on wednesday, flat out. There is no way he thought they would ship all those orders today. Then they just change everyone's order without any notification, and a day after the fact send an extremely smug email.

If you read it it sounds like they are almost daring you to cancel it. They plainly state that the first machines are going to education and if you'd like to cancel... buhbye!

Why lie about it? They could have told us a week ago and it would have been a heck of a lot better. It was just very disappointing to be treated this way, most of all (IMO)

[SeaFox]

Hey, which do we think will happen first:

1) Apple ships 2Ghz G5's

2) Apple intros new Powerbooks

3) Apple releases Panther

4) iTunes and iTMS for Windows released

5) Bill Gates releases statement: "The reason Longhorn has been delayed until 2005 is that Apple hasn't released Panther yet. We can't continue work on the next version of Windows until we have something to copy off of."

[Gyroscope]

Oh Apple will u ever ever learn?

[danbirchall]

I ordered a PMG5 July 17. My original "on or before" date was 9/29. I didn't have enough Apple Instant Loan to cover the entire system cost (BTO options and a 23HD) but the guy on the phone said it was okay so I figured sooner or later they'd contact me to sort things out.

They did, around August 1 (2 weeks after the order). Can't split the payment on a single order, they said. So I had to re-book the order.

In retrospect, maybe I -should have- dropped the 23HD from the order, re-booked it as a separate order, and changed the payment on the order from AIL to a credit card. But I didn't think of that. The AIL amount was enough to cover the 23HD, but not enough to cover the G5 by itself, so I re-booked the G5 order. That gave me a 10/14 "on or before" date, and all this took quite a while on the phone with various Apple folk.

The last guy I talked to took pity on me and knocked $200 off the price of the G5 ($3744 vs. $3944).

Since the 23HD didn't have to "Wait" for the G5 to be ready any more, it promptly showed up by around August 5. It's been sitting in a corner of the basement ever since, still in the box -- I'm upgrading from an iBook, which doesn't have ADC and sure as heck doesn't drive anything at 1920x1200!

At least my 10/14 date is holding steady thus far. One of the Apple folk I talked to said that the "on or before" date is typically the last day of a 3-week window in which the product will ship. Today I read on some rumor site that they're playing catch-up, but -should- be able to ship everything that was ordered before mid-August by the end of September. If that's true, I can expect mine closer to the front of its three-week shipping window.

Counting the days 'til my credit-card balance goes WAY up... *sigh*

[Makosuke]

I'm sure Apple hates to be in a can't-quite-pull-it-off position, but all things considered this seems to be about the best you could hope for in a constrained demand situation.

They don't have enough to cover anything, so I can't imagine that they even really have any choice other than to make the schools happy first (being that it's right at the start of the school year, and Apple needs all it can get there... plus schools make good testbenches).

As for the rest of the early birds, figure that they fed you the worst possible date. Then, if they end up shipping the things after only two weeks instead of four, great. Isn't that better than underestimating again and having people get even angrier? Besides, if they're kicking in a bonus or two, that's a nice incentive to not get too upset.

Me, I'm waiting till they've been out a bit, then going for a DP2.0. I figure that'll give me time to get the warning if there are eratta with the early versions, or perhaps for Apple to work out any early manufacturing issues. And if, once people've got them in their cold, sweaty hands, if they don't look awesome enough, I'll just wait for Rev2.

I'd love to have one right now as much as the next guy, but be realistic and roll with the punches--Apple seems to be trying hard to make this work, and it's a big change.

[ProphetSix]

I hope eveyone realizes, and I wish they'd update the main story to reflect this, but this delay doesn't affect JUST the DP 2.0, but ALL G5 orders. My 1.6 got bumped, and after calling in, I was told that ALL G5 orders we're bumped. (I imagine they weren't talking about hte educational ones. Hey, they have to ship SOMETHING to say that they made the shipping deadline.)

[JtheLemur]

FWIW - the CTO Dual that I ordered as an Educational Institution is still on track for OOB 9/2. It hasn't changed at all. Then again, I only ordered one - not sure if that qualifies me to actually receive it on-time as part of Apple's supposed push to get them out the door to Edu Inst customers before school starts!

[Genie]

Apple was reasonably helpful to me - I'd suggest asking nicely wha they can do to help you, and pointing out that in the month you wait, Moore's Law is putting downward pressure on all PC pricing, so the price on your G5 should be adjusted.

[LoopHoles]

i don't get why apple does this so often.

why couldn't steve jobs announce the G5 would start shipping in the fall (september or first week of october) instead of august and give the company some cushion time? then they could ship special edu orders before making it available to the public. who knows? even ship it earlier than announced.

he could even have said the G5s would start shipping when Panther was released. that would get some mighty long lines in front of the apple stores. missed a big opportunity.

[mxpiazza]

i have a BTO dual (combo drive, bluetooth module) 2.0 GHz G5 that i ordered 6/24, day after the keynote through the education (student) site. My order status says the est. shipping is on or before 9/29, and in my letter from apple, i was one of the 3-4 weeks people. That really ticks me off, because i ordered it a day after it was announced, and i need this thing for school... i would think that i wouldn't be waiting longer than some of the people who a) ordered later, or b) arguably don't need it with as much urgency, since i have to have a computer to go to school with. i refrained from calling and complaining until i recieved the much ballyhooed letter, but now that i have recieved it, i'm calling tomorrow to see what i can't get done about this.

[Bob Knob]

I wasn't going to chime in on any of the shipping threads, but I just can't let this go.
When you go to a restaurant you are seated as soon as there is a table big enough for you party, your hunger level means nothing. When you take your car in for repairs work is started on by the next qualified mechanic available no matter how much work needs to be done. Having someone decide who needs a computer the most is one of the most bizarre things I've ever come across. And no, this is not how Apple has been run in the past, one of my employees worked at Apple for four years in the education sales divisions (before Apple nuked the whole thing)
So now according to Apple a student having access to a new computer is more important than his/her parents using the same computer to make the money to send him/her to school.

Did I cancel my order? No, all 8 of my dual 2GHz G5s that were ordered at noon the first day are still on "open" status.
I strongly suggest that you place a polite but firm call to 800-My-Apple and first ask for your shipping to be changed to next day, and then to have the shipping charged waived. They have done this for everyone I have spoken to this afternoon (that's 15 orders and some were for just one computer)
As for "free" panther, it's doubtful you could get them to commit to that... but I will tell you that if you have a multiple computer order it is possible... your mileage may vary.
At no time during the call should you get irate or threaten to cancel your order, OR threaten to switch. Your approach should be your dissatisfaction with how Apple's online store handled your order, and that at this point in time it is doubtful you'd use this method of buying computers in the future.
Apple is VERY motivated to have a successful online store as its success is heavily used to market their online music store to the labels. They are still trying to iron out licensing issues with both the Windows and international versions, and this shipping problem has not gone unnoticed.

Note, this wasn't meant as a rant or vent.