Apple Sells Out of Initial iPhone 4 Shipment

[bradl]

What's WHACK is people like me tried for 2 hours @ 4AM (EST).
Then tried for 1 hour before work around 8AM.

And even though we're the most passionate group, we have to wait until July because of AT&T's incompetence.

I mean, it's just a phone, the world doesn't revolve around me. But seriously? C'mon. Not cool.

/rant over

This fails.

You blame Apple's screw up on the limited availability of the entire stock of iPhone 4s on ATT's incompetence?



BL.

 

[gsilas2007]

I was up at 4:30 this morning and have tried to order probably a hundred different times today, all unsuccessful.

This has me very disappointed in both Apple and ATT. I don't care what sort of sympathy other users are able to generate for these companies. Their inability to perform has shaken my loyalty to both ATT and Apple. A phrase I used just tonight at dinner (on a completely different subject regarding work) is "always under-promise and over-deliver"–something both companies have failed to fulfill in my opinion.

As a consumer, I feel as though we need to be compensated or at least acknowledged if Apple is going to continue to pull money out of our pockets. I don't believe it is right that someone like me has to wait for the new iphone when another "lucky" one could have waken up at 2 in the afternoon and been more successful at securing a launch day shipment to their home. This infuriates me and will undoubtedly change my future purchasing decisions when it comes to Apple/ATT.

I was dead set on pre-ordering an iphone4 to have shipped to my house on launch to hold me over until they updated the iMac line, at which point I was also going to buy a new iMac and Time Capsule.

Now I think it is time to explore other options. Although my individual decisions won't make much of a difference in Apple's annual revenue figures, collectively, Apple's unhappy customers will eventually disrupt Apple's forward momentum and progress if they do not adequately rectify disasters such as today.

The iPhone4 Pre-Order launch was ultimately a failure.

Maybe its time to switch over to Linux ehh?

 

[jwdsail]

ATT deserves all the hate they get thrown at the because every single thing about them SUCKS, period end of story.

The only people who get 3G service and never have experienced a drop call are those who live right under an ATT tower.

Their is simply no excuse, for bad service, bad networks, high prices, dropped calls.

Really these people ARE WROSE than BP. At least BP is making a very public effort to do the right thing as Tony Hayiord would say. ATT on the other hand and Apple should have released a statement to people telling them, giving them the courtesy of NOT wasting their time, all fraking day, and jts said, hey folks were overwhelmed, the response is more than we anticipated so were going to slow things down and ease up the system by tomorrow. SO check back tomorrow and order your dam phone and well do our best to get it to you sometime in the coming year!

Oh I hate these people. They are just not honest.

Worse than BP?

What drugs are you on, and did you bring enough to share with the rest of the class????

BP just destroyed the entire food chain in the gulf of mexico, poisoned where I and many others get quite a bit of our food with oil and dispersant, and may very well bankrupt half of my neighbors. Heck, if enough of my neighbors and local small businesses that depend on the Gulf and tourism go under, my business is just as screwed. BP has lied time and time again about how much oil is spewing from the well, and have gone out of their way to preserve access to the oil in the well in the future, placing that goal above stopping the leak.

Worse than BP?

You self-centered little s***.

If you dislike ATT that much, guess what. No one is forcing you to use them! Go try any of the other wireless providers and you'll find they all suck. But, again, no one is forcing you to stay with ATT. If you hate it that much, cancel your contract, and stop acting like ATT is water-boarding you!

I swear to God, too many stupid people, and not 'nuf to EAT them!

 

[piggygrinch]

Bloody hell, I was only able to get one reserved. Tryed ohhh more times then I'm willing to admit. Now a member of my family has to wait?? Or maybe stand in line because AT&T can't do shut. Great service guys. Maybe idk you should have prepared.

One order- 32gb all set ( email says $699?!?)
2nd order- fail fail fail, wait in line?? How am I supposed to wait in two lines (reserve line and normal like they did with the 3GS ??!!)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I, too, received the same email confirmation saying the price would be $699 when I know that AT&T has confirmed to me that I qualify for a discount. However, I did make reservations through the Apple Store app and didn't see any options to choose a new contract option. Hopefully, I won't have any issues with my reservation next week.

 

[beefstu01]

I wish people would stop complaining. Especially those who know nothing about how servers/databases/traffic/etc work.

They didn't screw up. WE all hit their sites too hard, too fast, too much. They could have done things to help this, but its pretty tough to handle the amount of traffic they did.

They managed to sell out, so it obviously worked for plenty of people.

I decided to wait since the white's got pulled. I just hope that doesn't August.

Eh, as much as I disagree with the "OMGWTFTHEWORLDISENDING" comments, this is completely on Apple/AT&T. Making a system that can handle, say, a few thousand simultaneous requests isn't an absolute piece of cake, but it's far, FAR from rocket science. Most decent third-year CS students with a budget could probably do that.

 

[Burntfender]

This is really going to suck now. People should be happy they will see the new phone early July. Australia has only been promised "late July" and now that the demand in the first few countries is so high, we'd be lucky to see it before mid August. So to all those people complaining, have some empathy for the rest of us not living in America who still have a good 6 weeks at the very least :-/

 

[mrat93]

So happy I got mine minutes before they sold you. My receipt says "Delivers on June 24."

 

[mnrvokk]

Stop, just stop. We bombed their site. How could you expect it to hold up? They did nothing wrong.

You seem to have Apple's and At&T's back. Wake up and open your eyes. Both companies screwed up, big time.

1. They should have anticipated the rush given the "generous" eligibility given to 3GS customers, Price subsidy to $199.00 and the scare of data plans being limited on AT&T.

2. Load testing of the process will tell if the systems hold up or not. Its not magic...just science.

3. Once their systems gave up...what were the people in the companies doing. One statement to the press would have at least kept every one informed. Morons!!

I get it that this is just about a phone; but what irks me is that there are people like you that go on excusing companies' bad behavior.

 

[PaperMacWriter]

I swear to God, too many stupid people, and not 'nuf to EAT them!

I want this on a bumper sticker. Stat.

 

[bizzaregood]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I, too, received the same email confirmation saying the price would be $699 when I know that AT&T has confirmed to me that I qualify for a discount. However, I did make reservations through the Apple Store app and didn't see any options to choose a new contract option. Hopefully, I won't have any issues with my reservation next week.

Thank you . I also was on the App when i managed to get through so thats probably where the price issue is. I am also eligible for the upgrade (on that line) probably a part apple figured (or forgot ) wasnt needed that much on the phone.. seeing you are most likely on the iphone to start with.

 

[chris.robison]

Eh, as much as I disagree with the "OMGWTFTHEWORLDISENDING" comments, this is completely on Apple/AT&T. Making a system that can handle, say, a few thousand simultaneous requests isn't an absolute piece of cake, but it's far, FAR from rocket science. Most decent third-year CS students with a budget could probably do that.

Don't be ignorant. The cost for the equipment and man power to keep the system up while millions are refreshing and making multiple requests far outweighs selling the iPhones. Plus, it'd only be needed for a few hours one day, then just cost them all the rest of the year. Servers and people to run them are super costly.

Stop assuming things.

 

[PaperMacWriter]

Maybe its time to switch over to Linux ehh?

Canadian much?

And good luck with linux. In my experience it's been a royal pain in the @$$, but hey, if a mistake on this is worth it, by all means do so.

 

[chris.robison]

You seem to have Apple's and At&T's back. Wake up and open your eyes. Both companies screwed up, big time.

1. They should have anticipated the rush given the "generous" eligibility given to 3GS customers, Price subsidy to $199.00 and the scare of data plans being limited on AT&T.

2. Load testing of the process will tell if the systems hold up or not. Its not magic...just science.

3. Once their systems gave up...what were the people in the companies doing. One statement to the press would have at least kept every one informed. Morons!!

I get it that this is just about a phone; but what irks me is that there are people like you that go on excusing companies' bad behavior.

The only thing I think they did wrong was not communicate clearly enough on how the process was to work and why no white phones.

I'm not necessarily on their side, but it really irritates me when people get pissed about this stuff. Especially those that have no idea how it all works.

Development and technology is intense and awesome, but not bulletproof. Its super tough to handle that many freaking people bombing it all at once.

Also, do you really think they did plan or test at all? Surely they did.

You can't perform a load test comparable to what happened today without the real thing. You can fake it to a degree, but not do a degree of millions like today.

I can agree with your last statement.

 

[SkippyThorson]

Worse than BP?

What drugs are you on, and did you bring enough to share with the rest of the class????

BP just destroyed the entire food chain in the gulf of mexico, poisoned where I and many others get quite a bit of our food with oil and dispersant, and may very well bankrupt half of my neighbors. Heck, if enough of my neighbors and local small businesses that depend on the Gulf and tourism go under, my business is just as screwed. BP has lied time and time again about how much oil is spewing from the well, and have gone out of their way to preserve access to the oil in the well in the future, placing that goal above stopping the leak.

Worse than BP?

You self-centered little s***.

If you dislike ATT that much, guess what. No one is forcing you to use them! Go try any of the other wireless providers and you'll find they all suck. But, again, no one is forcing you to stay with ATT. If you hate it that much, cancel your contract, and stop acting like ATT is water-boarding you!

I swear to God, too many stupid people, and not 'nuf to EAT them!

Best post here. Amen.

 

[bennifer3000]

I find it funny that the people not complaining are the people WHO GOT PHONES.
Also I'm being reasonable and not mindlessly ranting.

I wish people would stop complaining.

If you want people to stop complaining, quit browsing the "Apple Sells Out of Initial iPhone 4 Shipment" thread. Unless you work for AT&T or Apple PR to repair tarnished reputation... seriously.... quit trolling.

And spare me the self-righteousness. I know about servers. They had plenty of time to prepare. No excuses.

but what irks me is that there are people like you that go on excusing companies' bad behavior.

Good post.

Really these people ARE WROSE than BP.

Not even close. Quit being over dramatic.

This is just a phone. Not ruining the world's waters and ecosystem.

 

[thirteen1031]

Is it time to go back over all those posts about how disappointing this phone is and how no one is going to want facetime and it's gonna fail?

Does no one listen?

 

[deanklear]

Awesoooome

How desperate do you think a yuppie will be for my pre-ordered 32GB? $2000? $3000? Hell, I might be able to pay off my car.

 

[muskratboy]

Im not sure you can blame it on them. This was a lot more than they couldve expected. For just pre orders...

um... are you nuts?

they couldn't expect the preorders to sell out? REALLY?

that is just crazy talk. crazy talk i tell you.

 

[iPadPublisher]

wow, that is impressive. One can only guess how many iPhones they had set aside for preorders. Even more impressive this is only BLACK...

Impressive yes, but they made a lot more black unit sales than they might have otherwise, since the white was unavailable. I wanted a white one just to try something different... but it wasn't available, so I ordered black. Quite a few people just moved on, and ordered black instead. There are those that are waiting, though.

 

[macnews]

Maybe not June 24 but no July 2nd either?

I got this from AT&T when I bought there this afternoon:
"Thank you for ordering iPhone 4 from AT&T. Your device has been reserved. Today was the busiest sales day in our history. Because of the incredible volume of orders we received, there is a slight chance that some customers may receive their devices between June 25 and June 28. Rest assured, we are doing all we can to ship devices to customers for delivery on the 24th. You do not need to take any action at this point."

I asked the guy and he said they had been slammed with pre-orders. Earlier in the day, there was a line out the door, not huge but drove by twice in 45 minutes and it grew. When I asked him to estimate he told me they maybe sold 150-200 iphones today. Now, this is a little hole in the wall AT&T store but ONLY 150-200 phones? I don't know what they sell on a regular basis but they had 6 people in all day and they only processed about 20/30 phones per rep. This seems small - though if you take 1,000,000 and divide it by 200 = 5,000 stores. Pretty sure Apple/AT&T sold 1,000,000 pre-orders today if the website difficulties didn't hinder them too much.

 

[alhedges]

This fails.

You blame Apple's screw up on the limited availability of the entire stock of iPhone 4s on ATT's incompetence?



BL.

It's Apple's screwup, not AT&T's. It's Apple's website, Apple's system, Apple's responsibility.

I mean, sure AT&T's servers are involved - but since they are apparently necessary for *every iPhone upgrade*, it's Apple's responsibility to *test* the system to see whether it works.

If Apple's servers crashed, you'd probably be saying that it isn't Apple's fault either, but Intel's, or Cisco's, or Linux's.

And of course, my attempts to preorder failed at Apple's website before the AT&T section, during the AT&T section, and after the AT&T section, when I tried to put the phone in my cart.

Luckily, I was able to reserve a phone at my local Apple Store.

But the responsibility for the whole screw-up rests primarily on Apple's head, not on AT&T's.

 

[duderodamus]

Got 32gb Black

Can't believe it. I had two orders go through on Att and never got confirmation email. Order status could not find the orders. Just tried Apple a couple of hours ago and got through with Jun 24th Delivery date. Was skeptical until I got my confirmation email now.

 

[mnrvokk]

It's Apple's screwup, not AT&T's. It's Apple's website, Apple's system, Apple's responsibility.

I mean, sure AT&T's servers are involved - but since they are apparently necessary for *every iPhone upgrade*, it's Apple's responsibility to *test* the system to see whether it works.

If Apple's servers crashed, you'd probably be saying that it isn't Apple's fault either, but Intel's, or Cisco's, or Linux's.

And of course, my attempts to preorder failed at Apple's website before the AT&T section, during the AT&T section, and after the AT&T section, when I tried to put the phone in my cart.

Luckily, I was able to reserve a phone at my local Apple Store.

But the responsibility for the whole screw-up rests primarily on Apple's head, not on AT&T's.

Nice post

 

[chris.robison]

I find it funny that the people not complaining are the people WHO GOT PHONES.
Also I'm being reasonable and not mindlessly ranting.


If you want people to stop complaining, quit browsing the "Apple Sells Out of Initial iPhone 4 Shipment" thread. Unless you work for AT&T or Apple PR to repair tarnished reputation... seriously.... quit trolling.

And spare me the self-righteousness. I know about servers. They had plenty of time to prepare. No excuses.

Doesn't seem like you know, or maybe have a false understanding of them.

I want a new iPhone just as much as everyone else, but I decided to wait since it really doesn't matter.

I am definitely not trolling, just checking for new information in here and getting annoyed by people's expectations. Reminds me of this:

[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LkusicUL2s]Learn to appreciate technology[/URL]

 

[Dawgson]

The only thing I think they did wrong was not communicate clearly enough on how the process was to work and why no white phones.

I'm not necessarily on their side, but it really irritates me when people get pissed about this stuff. Especially those that have no idea how it all works.

Development and technology is intense and awesome, but not bulletproof. Its super tough to handle that many freaking people bombing it all at once.

They also could have allowed people to pre-order and then pinged AT&T after the fact and sent a bill/receipt later in the day, based on upgrade availability. I would guess most of the die hards knew theirs way in advance, so I don't think this would have resulted in many surprises.

I'm not sure I'm describing what I mean well enough, but there are ways that Apple could have set up pre-ordering that would have allowed them to spread their calls to AT&T's database/API throughout the day and helped avoid this massive clusterbomb.

I acknowledge it was a complicated engineering challenge but they still could have easily done a better job than this.