How was your Pre-Order Experience?

[Tallguy93]

Hey Fellow Macrumor posters!

I pre-ordered my 32GB white iPhone 5 on T-Mobile on the morning of April 5 around 5am. Since then, I have been getting very conflicting emails and status updates on my-tmobile.com. Some say that the order has shipped and when I call, ALL of the CSR are CLUELESS about what is going on. No one can tell me whether my order has shipped or when it is going to arrive. The one thing that everyone agrees on is that the phone will ship on 04/12 (even thought tmobile website says it will ship 04/11). However this does not explain why I got an email saying my order has already shipped. This seems weird because my order status online says it has not shipped yet.

Long story short - I have had a terrible pre order experience for the iPhone 5. I should have just waited and bought from my local apple store - lesson learned.

My question is - For those of you on ATT/Verizon/Sprint, did you have a similar experience when preordering your iPhone 4/4S/5?

 

[eyoungren]

The way this works is that your iPhone is staged, just as everyone else's is, so that all of them ship out on launch day. Apple/Your carrier have contracts with UPS/FedEx that are very specific. No iPhone is to ship early (or late for that matter). So, you are going to get conflicting reports.

My iPhone 5 sat on the Louisville, Kentucky UPS ramp for two days after I got my "Shipped" notice. It was held so that it would be delivered no earlier than Sept. 21st, 2012. My iPhone 5 had been pre-staged, meaning Apple shipped it over to a staging facility prior to launch day. While my iPhone sat, a lot of other people were reporting their iPhones to be in flight from China. But those people's iPhones and mine were all delivered on launch day.

However, once I got a device serial I was able to use a trick to get the tracking number. Once I had that I was able to find my UPS flight number. I had the pleasure of tracking my iPhone 5 via Flightaware from Lousiville to Phoenix.

You'll get your iPhone on time. No worries!

 

[Givmeabrek]

ATT CSRs were clueless temporary employees. A complete and total waste of time the last two new iPhones. I ended up canceling and just going to the store. Got it on release day anyway.

 

[Tallguy93]

The way this works is that your iPhone is staged, just as everyone else's is, so that all of them ship out on launch day. Apple/Your carrier have contracts with UPS/FedEx that are very specific. No iPhone is to ship early (or late for that matter). So, you are going to get conflicting reports.

My iPhone 5 sat on the Louisville, Kentucky UPS ramp for two days after I got my "Shipped" notice. It was held so that it would be delivered no earlier than Sept. 21st, 2012. My iPhone 5 had been pre-staged, meaning Apple shipped it over to a staging facility prior to launch day. While my iPhone sat, a lot of other people were reporting their iPhones to be in flight from China. But those people's iPhones and mine were all delivered on launch day.

However, once I got a device serial I was able to use a trick to get the tracking number. Once I had that I was able to find my UPS flight number. I had the pleasure of tracking my iPhone 5 via Flightaware from Lousiville to Phoenix.

You'll get your iPhone on time. No worries!

wow. that makes so much more sense than the info i've been getting from tmobile. Hopefully, I'll have my iPhone on friday and I'll update here once it arrives! Thanks

 

[RichardC300]

Didn't pre-order the 5 because of my pre-order experience with the 4S, but I pre-ordered the 4S like a week before it was to be released, and it was like a month wait, so I cancelled the pre-order and went to the Apple Store. Not a bad experience, but that pre-order expected shipping time was insane!

 

[bigcstyle4]

I don't think I'll preorder again. I preordered at 5:30AM on the first day for the 5, and I didn't get it until almost two weeks after launch. All the while I could have walked into the Apple Store on launch day and bought one (I wanted the 64GB one so there seemed to be more available). Of course it was too late to cancel the preorder since it was already "preparing for shipment."