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Friday's Pre-order

S

Simm0nS777

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 15, 2010
666
7
Northeast Ohio
So I've never been through a pre-order before for the iPhone. I have a few questions for those of you veterans:

Is it necessary or is there any benefit to ordering at 3:01 AM EST? Will it take hours because there is so much traffic and the site will keep crashing and I'll really be up till 7AM?


Is ordering off Apple better than any of the carriers?


I hear of many people receiving the iPhone a day or two before launch. Is this due to location or if I order right at 3:01 will that increase my chances of getting it early?


Do I run any risk of not getting one if I dont order at 3AM and wait until the morning to order? Basically, do they run out of pre-orders?


Thanks in advance!!! I'm excited to ditch my 3GS!!!
 
Good questions - it is my first time too and it would be nice to get some responses from those who have been through the pre-order process before.
 
My experience with the iPhone 4 ordering:

I ordered via apple.com and selected pick up.

1. The site was swamped immediately upon opening and hard to finish the order because the att verification part kept failing. I think it took me an hour to get the order completed with multiple tries.

2. By mid morning that day iPhone 4 was sold out.

3. Pick up was a nightmare. I had to stand in line for over 3 hours with my reservation at the apple store to get my phone.

Now this is not a 100% brand new phone like the 4 so maybe there will be less demand but you are adding all sprint customers to the mix so who knows.

I personally will be ordering when orders open and having it shipped to my home.
 
last year was nuts. I stayed up til 3, the site would either crash or not load and I didn't want to give up so I was up til about 8am. Then finally my friend told me to just use the Apple Store app on the phone to pre-order and it worked within seconds.
 
Last year was the worst. I was not able to order my phone all day because the ordering process on the website kept crashing. I hope they found a way to improve the pre-ordering experience this year, because last year it took me almost a full day to order the phone. I didn't sit at my computer all day, but I tried several times throughout the day and was unsuccessful. It was easier ordering through AT&T's website though.
 
Simm0nS777 said:
So I've never been through a pre-order before for the iPhone. I have a few questions for those of you veterans:

Is it necessary or is there any benefit to ordering at 3:01 AM EST? Will it take hours because there is so much traffic and the site will keep crashing and I'll really be up till 7AM?


Is ordering off Apple better than any of the carriers?


I hear of many people receiving the iPhone a day or two before launch. Is this due to location or if I order right at 3:01 will that increase my chances of getting it early?


Do I run any risk of not getting one if I dont order at 3AM and wait until the morning to order? Basically, do they run out of pre-orders?


Thanks in advance!!! I'm excited to ditch my 3GS!!!
Click to expand...


It's pretty much hit and miss only based on the server load
The websites weren't an issue BUT the server on AT&T that verifies you are eligible for an upgrade & pulls your acct information was a problem.

Keep in mind you'll have BOATLOADS of other people popping on as well BUT like i posted in a few other threads you have 4 options.

Apple.com
wireless.att.com
The Apple store app on the iphone
& AT&T upgrade app ( coming out tonight) in the app store

Last year the att direct site worked fine for me.
Good luck.

----------
Simm0nS777 said:
Does AT&T ship to your home and if so do they get it to you on the day of release?
Click to expand...

You have an option for both but
SHIP TO HOME! release day is madness in store.
 
This is my concern as well. I prefer to order from Apple I suppose but i think the Verizon wouldn't be as busy. I just don't want to wait until I wake up and then they be sold out.
 
Simm0nS777 said:
Does AT&T ship to your home and if so do they get it to you on the day of release?
Click to expand...

Last year, I pre-ordered through AT&T. On the very last step of the ordering submittal process, I get an error page. After that, I couldn't get to the site for hours. I was freakin out wondering if my order went through or what the deal was. Fortunately it did go through. That was the longest week of my life. There was a MONSTER thread of this from last year - you can take a look -- there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how your order got processed. AT&T didn't do a very good job of updating your order status from the time you pre-ordered until the time the phone was delivered. That 10 days was the longest 10 days of my life LOL. But I will say that AT&T came through and I did get my iPhone 4 on launch day as expected.

I can't imagine that they didn't learn any lessons from last year and will scale accordingly this year to keep up with the demand. They are suppose to even have an iPhone4S update app today so you can actually pre-order from your phone.
 
Simm0nS777 said:
Does AT&T ship to your home and if so do they get it to you on the day of release?
Click to expand...
Yes, I ordered my iPhone 4 last year via AT&T (The Apple Online Store order was MADNESS - it kept crashing mid-way), and it arrived on launch day at around 2PM via Fedex. I'll be ordering from Apple this time around, but if last year reiterates (haha) - I'll go with AT&T Online Ordering.......

I definitely recommend you ordering it online though, I've heard stores go crazy.
The demand does not seem huge among us Apple Fans, but you never know!
 
I had just purchased the iPhone 3 and a few weeks later the 3GS was announced. AT&T allowed me to swap them. I pre-ordered my 3GS at the AT&T store. I went to the store when it opened, on the 3GS release day, there was no line AT ALL. I walked up to the counter and swapped my phones and left. Hoping for the same experience this time around.
 
Can we preorder from AT&T's site starting on Friday as well? There's no mention of it on their site.
 
Simm0nS777 said:
Does AT&T ship to your home and if so do they get it to you on the day of release?
Click to expand...

If they ship via overnight and you live in a major metro city, yes, if not it could take an additional day.

This also depends on how they ship your phone. With Friday shipping many did not see their toy till Monday

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cashlion said:
Can we preorder from AT&T's site starting on Friday as well? There's no mention of it on their site.
Click to expand...

The details will be on AT&T's site on the 7th
 
Maybe it won't be so bad since this is a hardware upgrade. For the 3GS, I walked into an AT&T store near my office in a busy part of town at 10:30 am. There was no one in line, and I walked out with my 3GS shortly. You can't count on that, obviously.

For the iPhone 4, I couldn't get through to the servers online from work, so I walked into a different AT&T store around 5:30 pm to preorder, and they took care of it in the store. I went to the store on launch day to pick it up before the store opened, and there were about 5 people in front of me, and I was out pretty fast with the iPhone 4 once the store opened. There were about 10 people behind me when the store opened. There is also an Apple Store within a short walking distance of that AT&T store, and the Apple Store had looonngg lines for both preorder pickup and for people buying that day. Many people camped out overnight at the Apple Store.
 
MorganB said:
...
Now this is not a 100% brand new phone like the 4 so maybe there will be less demand but you are adding all 25 sprint customers to the mix so who knows.
...
Click to expand...
I fixed that for you. :D
Type X said:
Keep in mind you'll have BOATLOADS of other people popping on as well BUT like i posted in a few other threads you have 4 options.

Apple.com
wireless.att.com
The Apple store app on the iphone
& AT&T upgrade app ( coming out tonight) in the app store

Last year the att direct site worked fine for me.
Good luck.

----------



You have an option for both but
SHIP TO HOME! release day is madness in store.
Click to expand...

And Verizon ... ;)

I will probably pre-order to any place I can get it shipped to me and whomever can get my order in first. If I don't have it on release day I'll be ok with that.
 
I highly doubt there will be a HUGE demand for the 4S that will make the preorder servers crash. Last year the servers crashed because the iphone 4 was a dynamic new design and everyone wanted one. This years refresh...not so much interests.
 
What do you need to make purchase on apple.com? (upgrading from 3gs staying on at&T)

- present phone number
-probably last 4 digits of Social sec #


Do you need to have a credit card already registered on your account?

Anything else you guys think we should do ahead of time to smooth out the process?
 
Last edited:
So, say I went to my local AT&T store after work friday around 5pm...would I be too late?
 
Pre-order timing

How fast typically do they ship after you pre-order? Would they ship it after the 7th or on/after the 14th? We are traveling by car to a remote area for 3 weeks and I am debating to ship it there or to my home or even to a neighbor's so FedEx doesn't leave it on my doorstep for 5 days! There is a small ATT authorized retailer where we will be staying, but we won't be there until Monday the 10th. I have a cracked 3Gs so I am very excited to get the 4s!
 
wonko33 said:
What do you need to make purchase on apple.com? (upgrading from 3gs staying on at&T)

- present phone number
-probably last 4 digits of Social sec #


Do you need to have a credit card already registered on your account?

Anything else you guys think we should do ahead of time to smooth out the process?
Click to expand...

And billing zip code, at the very least. The process will be the same whether your purchase at apple.com or on AT&T's website.

Make sure you account is current, and that there are no holds. If you have any corporate discount plans or anything "special" make sure that they get reinstated after you activated the new phone. This was a problem in previous years called IRU. People were not able to buy the phone without speaking to AT&T first, or they lost discounts that they may have had. AT&T may have smoothed out this process, but a quick phone call to 611 would straighten this out.

----------
jbachandouris said:
Probably. Can the store even do pre-orders? I thought this way online only.
Click to expand...

Stores used to be able to do pre-orders, but they stopped with the iPhone 4. There's no official word yet on whether in-store pick up is happening, but I doubt it.
 
MorganB said:
My experience with the iPhone 4 ordering:

I ordered via apple.com and selected pick up.

1. The site was swamped immediately upon opening and hard to finish the order because the att verification part kept failing. I think it took me an hour to get the order completed with multiple tries.

2. By mid morning that day iPhone 4 was sold out.

3. Pick up was a nightmare. I had to stand in line for over 3 hours with my reservation at the apple store to get my phone.

Now this is not a 100% brand new phone like the 4 so maybe there will be less demand but you are adding all sprint customers to the mix so who knows.

I personally will be ordering when orders open and having it shipped to my home.
Click to expand...


it was definitely not sold out by mid morning. I pre-ordered at 3 pm cause i was fed up staying up all night and not having it work.

and I got it June 24
 
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