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I've been closely following the thread for the past week and thought I would share my experience.

On the morning of the 14th, I decided to sleep in and order the iPhone 5 a few hours after the pre-orders began, hoping to avoid all the non-responsive websites and craziness I dealt with when pre-ordering the iPhone 4 on day one. I logged onto Apple at 6:40 AM EST and saw that they had slipped to a 2-week shipping estimate, so I thought I'd try my hand at ordering from AT&T, which was still reporting launch day deliveries (though, their "fine print" saying that it depends on stock levels didn't comfort me). I took a chance and pre-ordered from them, and had zero problems getting through the ordering process. I was done around 6:55 AM and received the same e-mail as many others did (at 7:10 AM):

"Thank you for placing your order with AT&T.

Your iPhone 5 will be delivered on 9/21/12. All orders are processed on a first-come, first-served basis. You will receive a confirmation email when your order is ready to ship. You can check your order status online anytime.

Your shipment may be subject to delays for reasons that include, but are not limited to, product availability, inventory, credit issues, number porting or carrier delays, and completion of other required AT&T business processes...."


My order # starts with 1407..., though from what people have said, that may not explain the order in which AT&T fulfills orders.

Then, I got a text later in the day at 2:42 PM from AT&T that said:

"Your preorder has been processed. You will be notified when your order has shipped."

I checked my online status at the link the e-mail included and it had shifted over to Pending Shipment in the Tracking Number column. Additionally, checking through the My Orders tab on AT&T's site had the Shipment Status as "Processing." I was ecstatic. That slowly began to fade, as there has been no activity since then. No other e-mails or texts. My phone and SIM are noted as backordered (though, it is good to hear that it does not necessarily mean it is backordered - just that they haven't paired my order # with an iPhone).

Going in, I knew that there was a good chance I wouldn't receive my new iPhone on launch day. I chalked that up to the fact that I didn't get up around 3:00 AM EST, like many others in this thread did. However, as we've seen, many who ordered in the wee hours of the morning have been anxiously awaiting for their phones to be shipped, while others who ordered at 9 AM, 10 AM, even 11 AM EST, have had their orders shipped. Even though mine may not arrive tomorrow, it is more frustrating to see those who had the dedication to get up super early still not seeing any activity in their accounts.

Maybe, come tomorrow, AT&T will have filled all these orders that are sitting at "backordered," everyone who ordered before some random cutoff time gets their iPhone, and we can all sit back and laugh about how we were fretting when we know the company is terrible at communicating with its customers. However, if it turns out that the orders were not filled on a first-come, first-served basis, as AT&T clearly claimed they would do (yeah, I know, why would we believe them in the first place, given their history), they truly would be screwing over their customers. It could be the case that those are Premier customers had orders filled from a separate inventory, leading to further confusion. In either case, AT&T absolutely pales in comparison to Apple in communicating with its customer base. Terrible is the only way to describe it.

So, I guess all there is to do for those whose orders have yet to be listed as shipped is to keep refreshing Order Status pages and hope that AT&T can work some last-minute magic and get launch day orders to all those who ordered early enough.

I know this whole post will have me sounding entitled, with me expecting to get an iPhone tomorrow. I admit it - I am incredibly jealous of all those whose order statuses have updated. And I'll also be really happy for everyone who is able to get one tomorrow, whether or not mine arrives. I'll still be jealous though - I think I'm allowed that. :D

Well stated. I feel the same, largely. My inner child is upset however...this is 'our' first iPhone and we've been eagerly awaiting the big day. Now, we're just eager to get some reassuring news. I can't pretend any longer that I'm not disappointed with AT&T with respect to this insanity. It's not like they haven't been here before from what I've read. Shame on them.
 
Ordered first thing Friday morning around 8am PST. My order status was showing Processing as of this Tuesday, so I contacted AT &T using Agent Chat and was told that my phone would NOT be shipping until mid October.

The following day, I get a notification via email that the order status changed to shipped. Called AT&T and was told that the person I chatted with yesterday was correct and that it wasn't shipping until October and that the "shipped" status just meant it went to fulfillment. I was tempted to cancel my order right there and then.

Well lo and behold, this morning I woke up to an email stating that my order HAS shipped with a tracking number from fedex. Don't trust the idiots at AT&T. Doesn't seem like anyone knows ANYTHING there.
 
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Explanation of the AT&T Order Status Screen

When your status reads PROCESSING and not BACKORDER, it means that your order number has been paired to an iPhone S/N, it will be shipped in the first batch, and you will likely receive it tomorrow.

If it does say BACKORDER, it means that they received the order, and they anticipate enough stock for the 2nd or 3rd wave, but they have not paired your order number to the S/N of a phone (and this changes day to day) - so if it says BACKORDER now, it might not later today or early tomorrow.

The long and short of it seems to be, if it says PROCESSING you're going to get the phone on launch day. If it says BACKORDER, there is still a chance it will come on launch day.

Hope this helps!
Mine has been saying processing since day one... Still saying it as of now and I was the first person to pre order in my AT&T store... I'm having it shipped to the store... If mine is still saying processing now at 5 in the afternoon , is it still a good chance I will get it Tommorow ?
 
Ordered first thing Friday morning around 8am PST. My order status was showing Processing as of this Tuesday, so I called used Agent Chat and was told that my phone would NOT be shipping until mid October.

The following day, I get a notification via email that the order status changed to shipped. Called AT&T and was told that the person I chatted with yesterday was correct and that it wasn't shipping until October and that the "shipped" status just meant it went to fulfillment. I was tempted to cancel my order right there and then.

Well lo and behold, this morning I woke up to an email stating that my order HAS shipped with a tracking number from fedex. Don't trust the idiots at AT&T. Doesn't seem like anyone knows ANYTHING there.

haha wow, that is ridiculous. You'd expect them to be on top of these things, but I guess I don't know.
 
AT&T has been here many times before since the first iPhone was launched in 2007. You would think after all the iPhone launches and the hype surrounding them. That at&t would get their act together by now with these things.
 
I will chime in here... just a data point:

ordered att online at 11:20am central time for my wife black 16gb. The backorder changed from 1 to 0 last night but not yet shipped.

My white 32gb which was ordered about 5 minutes later or closer to 11:30am central time is still showing backordered and I dont expect that one to come this friday. However I am not in any kind of rush.

Both phones were ordered after the "cutoff" but appears 1 will be arriving for Friday.

just a FYI

UPDATE**** my wifes phone has shipped, my phone ordered 5 minutes later has not and still sitting at backordered. So my therory is they had more 16gb black phones than 32gb white phones.
 
I'm 1406 64GB black and it still says backordered pending shipment. I also ordered from AT&T.com as soon as they started taking orders. (Within seconds.)

you know, seeing how many 1406's are still pending is giving me a little tiny bit of hope that MAYBE there might be something up with our orders. keeping us from receiving our shipping info but we'll still get our phones tomorrow as planned? maybe?

am i delusional? someone just tell me what i wanna hear :)
 
AT&T warehouses pick, pack and ship until FedEx and UPS tell them to stop for the day. In some cases, the warehouse is run by UPS (go Logistics!). Please keep in mind, a package from AT&T to FedEx/UPS to you only really takes about 6 hours. So as long as they can get YOUR phone into a box, packed, and sent with enough time to make it to your local UPS facility by 5:35am (usually when UPS ends it's daily sort-out and sends trucks rolling) you have lead time

So if you're in NJ for example like I am and receiving a phone from the KY warehouse. It really only takes 2hrs of flight time plus maybe a half hour or so from Newark to the local sorting facility.

TL;DR - BREATHE....IN....BREATHE OUT....

The Ft. Worth AT&T warehouse is actually run by a company called ATC.
 
Looks just like mine.. However I have two iphone 4's on there that say backordered as well. I wonder if they are actually backordered haha (not likely), or if thats just them waiting to ship everything together.

More evidence that "back-ordered" doesn't necessarily mean back-ordered.
 
Mine has been saying processing since day one... Still saying it as of now and I was the first person to pre order in my AT&T store... I'm having it shipped to the store... If mine is still saying processing now at 5 in the afternoon , is it still a good chance I will get it Tommorow ?

In the same boat....
 
Does anyone else have an iPhone 5 order through the regular AT&T website that starts with 1612 number and it is actually being shipped?

Yes, mine is 16120233****, and I have a Fedex tracking number showing on-time delivery tomorrow of a black 16GB model. I ordered around 8:30am central time on the 14th.
 
UPDATE**** my wifes phone has shipped, my phone ordered 5 minutes later has not and still sitting at backordered. So my therory is they had more 16gb black phones than 32gb white phones.

they must have more black 16's that anything b/c i ordered a white 16 like 10 minutes before the black and the black doesn't say backordered but the white does
 
More evidence that "back-ordered" doesn't necessarily mean back-ordered.

I've said that a few times. There is no "pre-order" column because AT&T only does pre-orders for iPhone basically. "Backordered" is being used in place of "Pre-Ordered". 1/0 as a value in that column means nothing.
 
Ordered first thing Friday morning around 8am PST. My order status was showing Processing as of this Tuesday, so I contacted AT &T using Agent Chat and was told that my phone would NOT be shipping until mid October.

The following day, I get a notification via email that the order status changed to shipped. Called AT&T and was told that the person I chatted with yesterday was correct and that it wasn't shipping until October and that the "shipped" status just meant it went to fulfillment. I was tempted to cancel my order right there and then.

Well lo and behold, this morning I woke up to an email stating that my order HAS shipped with a tracking number from fedex. Don't trust the idiots at AT&T. Doesn't seem like anyone knows ANYTHING there.

Wow, that's just terrible.
 
Ordered 2 phones at 12:08am on 9/14; order confirmation (# 1406XXXXXX) and emails said 9/21 delivery. Today AT&T website still showed order is processing. Called customer service several times. Was told it could be 14-21 days until I get it. Other than that, "there is nothing we can do."

Canceled my order and placed an order with Verizon. Bye bye to crappy coverage (here in San Jose, CA) and crappy customer service.
 
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