Here's my guess....With a rollout this massive (millions of boxes) the people doing the shipping are less concerned about the time we ordered and more concerned about efficiently filling planes leaving the AT&T shipping center to different regions of the country. The people in the warehouse aren't looking at the time on Saturday morning when we ordered, they are filling containers that are leaving for a FedEx or UPS hub. When the container is full, they ship it out. They aren't going to send off FedEx or UPS planes half full because I "deserve" to get my phone first because I ordered first. They are going to fill planes efficiently.
Now, I'm sure they are trying to fill opening weekend orders first in general and I'm sure general availability of specific models and colors play a role too, but ultimately with millions of boxes all moving at once, shipping efficiency is going to win out over who ordered first.[/QUOTE
leaving the final decision to a warehouse staff which orders to fill without any rhyme or reason doesn't make any sense. We can only assume that ATT estimated their needs and ordered. Or Apple told them what to expect however after this information which orders to fill first is ATT management decision. It would have helped us if we knew those criteria. Lack of openness from ATT is not helping anyone.