Absolute clustercuss.

Uhhh... they had like 5 years of this to learn from. Meanwhile things are gravy at Sprint and Verizon. Maybe I should explore those a bit more.

 

I think this year was worse as they (Apple and Carriers) got a late start.
What was it, 12:30am PST before you could begin your order?

 

AT&T is a bunch of ********s.

Really, did they not see this coming?

 

I would have except I need the ability to surf and talk at the same time.

 

The demand last year was what, 600,000 in the first day? The 4S might be larger, since the folks who couldn't upgrade to 4 last time around are probably able to upgrade to the 4S, plus the new carrier, plus demand has been trending upwards anyway. But you have to ask, does it really make that much business sense to buy a whole slew of new servers and bandwidth you'll need once, and then never again (until the next iPad, at least)? Plus, it adds to the hype if they can brag about having so many customers it destroyed their servers.

Even if Apple and the cell carriers could plan for last year's traffic load, it's probably higher, and to figure out just how much higher in advance is rather difficult. Maybe they aim for 800,000 the first day, but will that happen right at midnight, or throughout the day? Is it really worth having enough to handle the midnight crowd if it tapers off quickly and gets much more reasonable an hour or two later? Plus, how many iPhones are even ready to ship? Stretching out the orders a bit may make it SEEM more fair, those who don't manage to get their orders in right away, therefore, won't feel so bummed that they don't get the very first batch.

It's easy to criticize, but these are all very difficult problems.

 

No doubt bro! SNAFU

My situation is as follows:
1. I was on Apple.com around 3:43 am, refreshed the store and I was in or so I thought. I chose Sprint as my provider and then I was informed that the pre-order was for existing customers. Go figure right? I was mad and tried AT&T next. Wrong move.

2. I try ordering an AT&T phone, but I am booted from Apple's site. However, I am not finished yet.

3. I finally find the stupid 4s on AT&T's website after refreshing for 10 minutes or so, but my texting plan does not carry over. Maybe my order will go through AT&T's website, but I am not sure I want the unlimited texts etc..

More to follow, Apple and AT&T launched the phone 40 minutes later than I expected. Oh yeah, Sprint's site checked out around 3:40 am or so. Yeah cluster **** for sure!


EDIT: I placed my order through Apple's site and retained my current data and texting plan. However, I could not retain my current texting plan through AT&T's website though, but could through the Apple store. That might be an issue in the short run, but I finally ordered the phone that I wanted!

 

Its basically an organised DDoS on Apple and its partners must be fun to try and survive that

 

I don't think AT&T cares...

They're not going to bump up their infrastructure for one day out of the year...

They just let it crash. I think they feel that they'll still get the order regardless.

It's ridiculous that they push through a credit check, etc. at order time. They should batch those up, and send you an e-mail if you fail. (otherwise the order should just go through.)