New Shipping Note from Apple

[violst]

Depressing the number of people with 19th Dec orders who have heard nothing. Even more depressing as I ordered mine on the 24th Dec.

I ordered my on Dec. 27th so I am now realizing that I may get it by the bitter end of Feb not the middle like I had hoped.

On a, I guess good note like I said I did get that arbitrary email from Apple saying once its ready it will ship. But its not ready so keep waiting.

 

[englishman]

Dispatched: Delivers 10/02/2014 by Standard Shipping

Ordered on 1st jan

 

[puckhead193]

I ordered on Dec. 21st and haven't heard Jack... Does anyone have any clue on how these things are being built. It's definitely not in order and the the google doc. it seems like they are building them by specs, but other times it's not. I don't understand.
I would actually like to use my new machine before the end of my "real work season"

 

[CH12671]

Dispatched: Delivers 10/02/2014 by Standard Shipping

Ordered on 1st jan

This HAS to be a typo

Edit: I see you probably mean Feb 10, that would make sense...sorry, I forgot not everyone writes their dates like I do.....

 

[anedwar]

I ordered on Dec. 21st and haven't heard Jack... Does anyone have any clue on how these things are being built. It's definitely not in order and the the google doc. it seems like they are building them by specs, but other times it's not. I don't understand.
I would actually like to use my new machine before the end of my "real work season"

I'd imagine that its mostly by what parts they have received from their suppliers then by some internal customer priority metric.

Their assembly line isn't going to be run FIFO but given X D300s, Y D700s and Z CPUs whats the most number of configs they can put out with out having to change something. That might mean someone who ordered after you gets their machine first but it's better than stoping the line while you wait to fulfill orders in place.

It does suck when someone with the same spec as you "jumps" the line

 

[chfilm]

I haven't received any emails from Apple, but I did get an email Monday(2/3/14) night from my credit card to validate the purchase.

Right now, it is a pending transaction. Meaning the funds have been removed from "Available", but haven't been added to my current balance.

Apple is still listing mine as "Processing Order".

On the good new, since I seem to be the only one that ordered on the release day to get a "Available Mar. 5", maybe mine will be available in February. It seems that doing "Ship to store" does take longer.

Apple told me they charge the money three days before shipment!

 

[WSR]

Apple told me they charge the money three days before shipment!

Thanks, it's now on on it's 4th day as a pending transaction. Hopefully, it will be moved to the Current Balance soon.

 

[chfilm]

nooooohooooo what I always feared would happen finally happened today:

Even though I'm in touch with apple since 10 days now almost on a daily basis to warn them and to avoid that this would happen, I today received an email that there occured a problem with my paypal authorization. (because it only stayed open for 30 days)
My shipping date my changed or my order may be canceled. Argh I can not believe how unhelpful and stupid the apple hotline was regarding this matter.
Every single employee tried to put me off and try to explain that this wouldn't be a problem.
And now it's here.
Luckily I already have the names of a supervisor and a girl from financing and I will now try to force them into action since the problem is now undeniable. Oh maaaaaan I want my mac pro in february and not in april

 

[nathan43082]

I'd imagine that its mostly by what parts they have received from their suppliers then by some internal customer priority metric.

Did you mean to imply that orders are driven by supply constraints with customer order date falling by the wayside?

Or did you mean to imply that orders are driven first by supply constraints, with customer order date coming in a close second?

That's the difference between "than" and "then." To me, it's unclear what you meant because the sentence construction could easily make it go either way.

 

[deconstruct60]

Did you mean to imply that orders are driven by supply constraints with customer order date falling by the wayside?

Most likely should have been
"from their suppliers [and] then by some internal customer priority metric..."
Instead of trying to substitute words that aren't there just fill in the implicit ones.

The gross flaw above is everyone on the same date are not asking for the same stuff. The date the customer ordered is secondary to what they ordered.

Apple keeps the one of the lowest levels of inventory in the industry. Customer orders and supplier deliveries are in no way completely decoupled from one another.

Apple tends to buy "enough" to sell and will order more as orders come in. Basic "Just in time" manufacturing. There is huge mismatch between that and the demand in highly skewed product launch bubbles. In that context, Apple will take a conservative guess as to what demand will be and order in advance or order. Same "no inventory" mentality though, so the objective is not to order too many parts.

Or did you mean to imply that orders are driven first by supply constraints, with customer order date coming in a close second?

That isn't present in what he said at all. Some customers have higher priority than others. $100M/yr customers/partners aren't in the same level of service from Apple as $0.010M/yr customers/partners. Likewise all the high profile magazine/blogger orders had no problems with expedited delivery.

 

[anedwar]

Most likely should have been
"from their suppliers [and] then by some internal customer priority metric..."
Instead of trying to substitute words that aren't there just fill in the implicit ones.

Sorry for the ambiguity. The above is what I intended to say.

What I am trying to say is that Apple will order the parts they need to fulfill the orders they have. However those parts will be available at different quantities from their suppliers. The have to efficiently determine what's the most number of orders they can fulfill with the parts they have on hand and parts coming down the pipe. So I don't see it as unusual that a 4c/12GB/1TB/D300 order placed days after a 4c/12GB/256GB/D300 could possibly be shipped first. It could just mean that they ran out of 256GB SSDs and had a few 1TB SSDs.

In a truly fair world this would be FIFO however a prestigious customer may take precedence over several individual orders. These customers are probably more likely to be ordering the high end parts.

How many of our orders could Apple have serviced if they didn't send any to tech sites or reviewers worldwide? In this case the customer priority metric takes into account that getting the word out is more important than filling X orders for a new product until Y date.

How many of us are complaining or canceling our orders because of the low number of apps optimized for OpenCL? Can Adobe optimize its software for nMP without nMPs? They can make educated guesses but I'm betting their engineers wanted to get their hands on as many final nMPs as possible. Look at the recent Autodesk OpenGL situation where viewport performance was degraded because they did not take advantage of the full amount of VRAM on the D700. That's the difference between testing on a similar device and testing on an actual device.

In both cases getting those customers their orders provides more than a monetary win for Apple and those orders may be prioritized. Getting nMP to these guys is crucial for the success of the nMP.

 

[Bones13]

How long is February?

Feb. 10th, more than a third of the way through February, and still no whiff of a clue that things will start shipping, or that lots of people are starting to get their BTO nMPs.

Perhaps the wording should read :

Available to ship : 11:59 PM February 28th

 

[deconstruct60]

Feb. 10th, more than a third of the way through February, and still no whiff of a clue that things will start shipping, or that lots of people are starting to get their BTO nMPs.

There are clues, you just don't want to look at them.

There is a link to a google spredsheet floating around. There are a tons of clues there. All indicative that Apple has been consistently incrementally shipping over time. There is a wide range of arrival dates. There is no indication that they wait till the last couple days of the month to ship most models.


Second, a bit more opaque, is that the new orders are not sliding backwards. The dates for new stuff in Apple store is March. During most of the applicable December window that was February ( over a month). Now it is down to a around a month. That is indicative that Apple is making progress. If orders now said April there would be no clues.

 

[spaz8]

I'm on week 5 of my wait.. checking pretty much daily to see if my CC has finally been charged the full amount. Sounds like there are ppl on wk7 of their wait still

Hopefully my MP 1,1 makes it. I had to deal with some kernel panic's on Friday I resolved. Not fun waiting while this machine slowly dies.

 

[Capsicum]

Second, a bit more opaque, is that the new orders are not sliding backwards. The dates for new stuff in Apple store is March. During most of the applicable December window that was February ( over a month). Now it is down to a around a month. That is indicative that Apple is making progress. If orders now said April there would be no clues.

Actually we can't be sure Apple is making progress. I hope they do, but their estimated shipping went from January to February on December 19th just around 6 or 7 hours after the store started selling the Mac Pros. And exactly one month later on January 20th it slipped to March.

So the big question is, when will it slip to April? Will it be again exactly one month or will it take longer this time, meaning Apple is catching up with demand.

 

[deconstruct60]

Actually we can't be sure Apple is making progress. I hope they do, but their estimated shipping went from January to February on December 19th just around 6 or 7 hours after the store started selling the Mac Pros.

The date sliding on the 19th is only indicative of the demand blowing past the initial supply they had guess at selling in the first month or so. That says diddly about whether they are continuing to get the product mix wrong more than a month later. There is vastly different amount of available data as to what customers actually want now rather than before the launch.

The date slid to Feb but not much more until December closed. If Apple were still guess badly the date would be sliding just as far forward as it was on the 19th. It isn't.

Apple always get the launch volume 'wrong' on substantially new products. They always err on the side of not having too much inventory. Being too low on parts just means they inventory minimization metrics are just that much BETTER than normal. More than a few somebodys probably get bonus checks for that (and no bonus if inventory goes high).

And exactly one month later on January 20th it slipped to March.

And the Mac Pro was available at multiple retail sources by mid January. (retailers were also likely on "round 2" of ordering. Really think they ordered the same number mid Jan and did in December? ). Likewise the number of deliveries in other countries was going up.

If going solely off the demographic in the spreadsheet that is highly skewed. Those are highly skewed to CTO Mac Pros.

Apple isn't going to completely 100% solve their Apple store electronic orders before they even out and broaden the supply to other channels. One reason Apple's channel has delays is that the collectively LARGER channels need to start flowing too. ( most Macs are NOT directly sold by Apple. )

So the big question is, when will it slip to April?

In a couple of weeks, it won't be surprising at all. That will be about a month away from April.

 

[deconstruct60]

...
So the big question is, when will it slip to April? Will it be again exactly one month or will it take longer this time, meaning Apple is catching up with demand.

It is April now, but as I pointed out you have to normalize that against the number of sales channels they are filling. The channels going from zero to a trickle is progress. Slow progress but traction.

 

[nathan43082]

Available to ship : 11:59 PM February 28th

That's how I read my order these days.

 

[Raddock]

I placed my order on Dec 20th, and I got a charge for the full price yesterday (Monday) morning. I have yet to receive a shipping notification, but I would assume it's going to be soon. Hope I get it before the weekend, and not next week.

 

[Reno Richter]

Same here. On the Goggle spread sheet I was the last order on the 20th (11:59pm) and my credit card was authorized this afternoon. I noticed on the spread sheet the first one listed on the 21st also made a note that their credit card was authorized today also.

No change in the order status on the apple website yet...so holding off doing my happy dance routine.

 

[babysloth]

Where can one find this spreadsheet?

I ordered a 6 core D700 on the 1/1/14 and haven't received the email talked about or any charge on my card. Bummer...

Checking the apple store order status helps speed things up, right? Right?

 

[Reno Richter]

Where can one find this spreadsheet?

I ordered a 6 core D700 on the 1/1/14 and haven't received the email talked about or any charge on my card. Bummer...

Checking the apple store order status helps speed things up, right? Right?

This is the open orders
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aoyx0F5rjIn7dFBRbXQ2Q3BwbXc2S2NhWUVzVlAxUEE&usp=sharing#gid=0http://


This is confirmed received
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aoyx0F5rjIn7dEZtOWtkWmk1UGhVS1Vfa0dkVFhsdkE&usp=Q:Q#gid=0

There are country regions at the bottom of each page to check out depending where you are in the world.

Fill in your data on the first one if you want to easily compare how you progress compared to others

 

[wheelhot]

Woo hoo! My status just changed to shipped. Need to wait 24 hours to track it. Yippie!

Oh for those wondering, I ordered the stock base nMP on 10th Jan 14.

What I'm guessing is some of the nMP components doesn't arrive on time because of yield rate or some other complications hence why it's taking longer. Have patience guys, and sorry to hear those with paypal complications

 

[chfilm]

A quick question: They reserved the money on my CC today, do you know how long it usually takes until they charge and ship after that..?

This whole order is a crazy journey. First I wanted to pay with paypal (ordered jan 3rd). Then they couldnt authorize the money from my paypal account because they took to long and paypal closed the order. Then I was forced to cancel the old order and give up a new one via CC on monday.
This new order is supposed to be prioritized and they promised me it would ship as soon as a machine with my config rolls off the conveyor belt.
So today the reserved the money on the CC, PLUS they also managed to charge my paypal !?!?! for the order that has already been canceled. (But the weirdest thing: They only charged the amount without tax - makes no sense at all)
Then later today I got a call again from an executive, telling me they messed things up and are retransfering the paypal money back to me..

Oh dear, is this really Apple, a company that stands all for perfection and is one of the biggest computer companies in the world?

 

[WSR]

I still haven't received any emails from Apple, but:

2/3/14: I got a Email from CC to validate the purchase. Amount went to Pending Transaction.
2/9/14: Amount went back to into Available Amount. I guess Apple didn't charge the card fast enough.
2/12/14: Apple site went to "Shipping to store", and "Available 2/17/14"

This is great since I was originally quoted "Available Mar. 5", but I did order on 12/19/13.

Now I'm just hoping my previous validation will make the CC go ahead and authorize the purchase when Apple actually charges my card.