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Apple Store Down Ahead of Yellow iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus Pre-Orders

nt5672 said:
If so, it just shows how out of touch Apple is.
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Why? You clicked on the clickbait? Result.
Maybe you'll go on Instagram post how stupid it is that Apple are taking the site down for a yellow iPhone - more result.
MacRumors put it on their front page. Result.

Seems like they know what they are doing... and maybe, just maybe they grasp the idea that taking the site down could lose them trade, and have done the math to check that the benefits outweigh the problems.

nt5672 said:
But, judging by the quality of Apple's other software it would also not surprise me to find out that taking the store down is the only way for Apple to add new content. Probably the way their store APIs were designed.
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Amazon (for example) have a website designed to be updated (probably) hundreds of times a day (every time a new fake 18TB SSD is added :)) mostly to public indifference. It's rare for a new product to be launched simultaneouslY across all the regional Amazon sites.

Apple have a website designed to be updated once every few months alongside a massive worldwide publicity campaign that often makes tech news headlines, or even mainstream news if it's a slow day.

Different courses, different horses.
 
MacRumors said:


Apple has taken its online store down ahead of pre-order availability for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus in a new Yellow color, starting at 5.00 a.m. Pacific Time.

apple-store-down.jpg

Announced by Apple earlier this week, the new Yellow shade joins the iPhone and ‌iPhone 14‌ Plus's existing Midnight, Starlight, (PRODUCT)RED, Blue, and Purple color options. There are no changes to the devices beyond the new Yellow finish.

Apple last offered a Yellow color option for the ‌iPhone‌ in 2019 with the ‌iPhone‌ 11, which came just one year after the Yellow ‌iPhone‌ XR. There are no new color options for the iPhone 14 Pro and ‌iPhone 14 Pro‌ Max.

Availability for the new Yellow models starts next week on Tuesday, March 14. Apple has also added four new colors for the ‌iPhone 14‌ and ‌iPhone 14‌ Plus Silicone Cases, including Canary Yellow, Olive, Sky, and Iris.

Article Link: Apple Store Down Ahead of Yellow iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus Pre-Orders
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Seriously? For a color? I doubt it.
 
theluggage said:
Think of the wailing and gnashing of teeth if it went up on the UK site half an hour before the US site, or the CA site accidentally listed it at the US $ price, or someone in Australia messed up and listed it for $6.99 - they'd have 10,000 orders before they could fix it.
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But how does taking the store down prevent any of that? They can double-check everything offline before they go live with it.
 
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NightFox said:
But how does taking the store down prevent any of that? They can double-check everything offline before they go live with it.
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It doesn’t. This is nothing but Apple’s PR tricks to build hype. Get ready to hear how iPhone users “love” the great new color and how “thrilled” Apple is with the ability to offer customers “so many incredible options.”
 
NightFox said:
But how does taking the store down prevent any of that? They can double-check everything offline before they go live with it.
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...sure, you can check something on a staging server. Then if you really don't want to be at home to Mr Cockup you need to check it again after switching servers but before letting the hordes in, just in case something didn't get switched properly. Normally, that would be overkill, but normally you're not Apple and a minor glitch in a product roll-out won't be headline news. Catching fat-finger price errors is only one possibility - there's the whole issue of choreographing the launch across multiple time zones, not having the range change while clients are in mid-order, making sure that Apple store staff in one time zone have been briefed before punters start reading about it from another time zone etc.

Heck, I don't claim to know what the specific reasons are, just that these 'events' are pretty much unique to Apple because of their disproportionate press profile, horrendously complicated to organise and I'm not going to "armchair quarterback" how Apple do it.

...but by all means email Tim Cook and point out that they could be losing sales by shutting the online store for every product launch. I'm sure he doesn't realise that </sarcasm>.
 
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theluggage said:
Apple are releasing a new version of one of the most successful and high-profile consumer products ever (and quite a complex one in terms of support, links with mobile carriers etc.), simultaneously in a dozen countries and time zones on each side of the date line, via a network of both online and bricks-and-mortar stores, with a horde of Internet users holding their mice in anticipation of a server-melting frenzy of ordering...

That is a massive three-ring circus of a logistical nightmare that I'm not going to second-guess the solution to.

Think of the wailing and gnashing of teeth if it went up on the UK site half an hour before the US site, or the CA site accidentally listed it at the US $ price, or someone in Australia messed up and listed it for $6.99 - they'd have 10,000 orders before they could fix it.

I think Apple are in a very small club of companies that even try to do this - more usually you'll see a launch at a tech fair or something and have to wait for months before you can actually buy it where you live.

Yes, a new colour of iPhone sounds like the most trivial launch ever, but it's an iPhone so the normal rules of common sense and restraint don't apply.
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Amazon has a million times more complexity in their online store than Apple. Just a marketing ploy that works. Gets the excitement going. Similar to the long lines at the Apple stores. They put the online buyers in line.
 
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Taking down the Apple Store for a new iPhone color is just a sad commentary of the what some people feel is important.
 
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AdamHarbour said:
Why ! It used to be cool taking the store down. in 2023 it’s lame 🤷‍♂️
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And they literally take down the entire store, not just the front page or new sales. I tried to print a return label once while they were pulling this crap and couldn’t even access it.

I would think the bean counters would end this practice. I know if any of the services I support go down for even a few hours, the owners complain of losing “thousands in sales.” How many sales per minute do you think the Apple online store usually makes?

I guess they really don’t care and assume their customers are so loyal they will just wait.
 
AdamHarbour said:
Why ! It used to be cool taking the store down. in 2023 it’s lame 🤷‍♂️
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When you are Tim Cook, this is what you do. You don't have any creativity in your body so you keep recycling the same old stuff your predecessor did.
 
one more said:
“We can’t wait either.”, LOL. This is some Yellow Hype at its finest. Since when a different colour becomes a major product feature? 🥳
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Since the genius known as Cook can't think of anything new.
 
I think Steve Jobs wrote the backend using WebObjects in 1999. Nobody dares to touch it. That's why it takes so long to update.
 
In 2023, why does Apple shut down the store for big events (Or changing colors)? Can't they do multiple things at once, or just put up the preorders at a specific time? Why shut the whole thing down and not treat it like a streaming service where the thing will be up at a certain time and that's it. What if people wanted to buy other things at the store around that time.

I never really understood the thing about shutting the online store down. Just seems unnecessary at this point.
 
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sjsharksfan12 said:
In 2023, why does Apple shut down the store for big events (Or changing colors)? Can't they do multiple things at once, or just put up the preorders at a specific time? Why shut the whole thing down and not treat it like a streaming service where the thing will be up at a certain time and that's it. What if people wanted to buy other things at the store around that time.

I never really understood the thing about shutting the online store down. Just seems unnecessary at this point.
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Have you ever preordered an iPhone? My guess is no.
 
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sjsharksfan12 said:
No, and I'm also not up at 5 in the morning trying to preorder a phone either.
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Well that explains it. There is a LOT of traffic when an iPhone launches. The store doesn't work too well.

If they didn't manage traffic, people in places where it isn't 5 in the morning might experience sudden slowdowns, outages, or bugs like items disappearing/reappearing from their carts or funky delivery dates.
 
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nicho said:
Well that explains it. There is a LOT of traffic when an iPhone launches. The store doesn't work too well.

If they didn't manage traffic, people in places where it isn't 5 in the morning might experience sudden slowdowns, outages, or bugs like items disappearing/reappearing from their carts or funky delivery dates.
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No, that’s absolutely not it. Apple doesn’t have unmanageable capacity issues. It’s just hype.
 
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