elbirth said:
The way I see it, we have EVERY right to expect that since we *PRE*-ordered them over a month ago now, for our orders to arrive to us when they do in-store. What's the point in pre-ordering something if you're going to have to sit back and wait that much longer while everyone else gets their pick at them before us? Part of the incentive of pre-ordering, in addition to knowing you won't have to fight for one, is that we expect to get it either at the same time as the stores or even before.
Apple doesn't consider ordering when a product is announced pre-ordering and as far as I know they never have. No where on their site does it mention pre-ordering. They only allow you to order online. When I received my PowerBook, I could have just gotten it in-store about a week before. It was my first Mac and I wasn't sure about the demand beforehand so I let the order stand.
Generally pre-orders require some amount of money up-front. IE, when you pre-order a game console you're expected to put a deposit on it to make sure that you'll get it when it arrives in the store. Of course this is not true in all cases, but this money is usually required to reserve something for you. All things that are pre-ordered, however, are the same exact object, not BTO computers.
Apple doesn't do this. This would be silly for them to do, first of all. Why? If Apple worked on a pre-order system, they'd be expected to get each customer's order out in the order they were received but this doesn't make sense in the case of upgrades. Why should someone have to wait for Apple to get a special hard drive to complete someone else's order before sending out their order that Apple can fulfill right now? If they worked on a pre-order system it would work like that. As far as I know, NO computer manufacturer works on a pre-order basis. So really you can't expect that of Apple either.
The advantage of ordering from Apple is that you don't have to go somewhere to get your computer. In a lot of places there aren't Apple Stores or even resellers, so this is quite a convenience. Also, it, as you said, makes it so you don't have to fight over them in the store. No matter what they can't ship to you before they ship to the stores either. They're trying to fulfill demand. It wouldn't really be fair of them to only have 500 ready and only ship those 500, would it? You might say yes. Well, what if they'd have 500 today to ship and they wouldn't have another 500 to ship for two weeks? It makes sense in that case to ship everything two weeks later. If they shipped them in smaller increments there would be haves and have-nots and we all know how that goes.
You have every right to be peeved. You have every right to complain, but you don't have the right to expect to get yours first just because you ordered online. Apple doesn't give special preference for ordering first, at least not when the demand is HUGE. Also, the reason why online orders would come after store orders is because they all have to wait for enough units to be built, and then stores get preference because they need display models. You might expect them to only ship a few, but not only is that cost-prohibitive when they have to send the store sale units anyway, but it is also ridiculous to display something and not have any available to buy. Thus online units ship second, and thus you might have to wait for additional delays to shipping. That's how it works. It might be crappy, but it's perfectly logical.
In ANY case Apple said they'd be available late February. Late February they'll be available and early March you'll have them shipped and in your hands.
It's a tough wait. Sorry. It sucks, but there's nothing you can do about it except not buy Apple hardware. And we all know that's an even worse choice.
