I’ve never been to an apple store on launch day. I didn’t preorder because I wanted to hold the pro and pro max in my hand to see what feels the best before making the upgrade. Is there any shot at showing up early on launch day and the store having stock? Or is that the old days and everything is pre order now?
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iPhone 17 Pro In store launch day stock?
- Thread starter ndpitch
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Yes. They have separate stock for walk-ins.
The day the 14 series was launched, they were already 2-3 weeks backorder online but my aunt was still able to buy a 1TB Pro Max from a brick and mortar Apple Store in the afternoon. The lower storage options were all gone though.
The pick-up stock is actually still separate from the walk-ins stock.
That’s good to know. I’ll try swinging by early on Friday to see what happens. I’m not looking to camp out or anything, haha. I’m not that desperate. Would be nice to have a new phone with nicer camera before going on vacation in a month or so.
Do you know what time the store updates regarding iPhone stock? I reserved an iPhone in the Paris area to pick up at the Apple Store on Monday the 22nd, but I am currently in Dubai and the iPhone is cheaper there. Since it is the eSIM version, the battery is better according to Apple.
In Los Angeles, I had ordered on the 12th Pre-Order day (though a few hours after pre-orders opened), and for in-store pickup (which I prefer) for this Fri launch day, only one of the stores (a bit further away from me) had stock of the iPhone Air 256gb Cloud White available. So I ordered it.
I randomly checked again today, and a bunch more stock seems to have opened up, and I could get the same phone still for this Fri launch day in-store pick-up, at a bunch more stores. So I re-ordered it for Fri pick-up at my closest Apple Store (at 9am, perfect time for me!), and I'm going to cancel the other pre-order I made.
So at least for the base Air in this color way, looks like Apple added some more inventory. I would imagine there'll be a bunch for walk-in too like others have said, but check again, maybe your local store got some more stock in to pre-order and guarantee a phone for you?
I randomly checked again today, and a bunch more stock seems to have opened up, and I could get the same phone still for this Fri launch day in-store pick-up, at a bunch more stores. So I re-ordered it for Fri pick-up at my closest Apple Store (at 9am, perfect time for me!), and I'm going to cancel the other pre-order I made.
So at least for the base Air in this color way, looks like Apple added some more inventory. I would imagine there'll be a bunch for walk-in too like others have said, but check again, maybe your local store got some more stock in to pre-order and guarantee a phone for you?
Availability (for pick up) in Dubai (and UAE in general) has been coming on and off line randomly depending on model, Yesterday I managed to order a 1tb Air for a friend to pick up tomorrow in Dubai Mall. The base 17 has been easy to order throughout. However I noticed this morning that all in store pickups are now showing as unavailable for all models, my assumption is that this is to get things settled for tomorrow. My experience in the UAE at this time of year is once you get to launch day the next days available pick up stock will appear online late in the evening for the next day.
You could also take a chance for a walkin, but my experience in Dubai Mall and Mall of Emirates is that the queues are always long although very well organised and you will still usually need to make a timed online booking to enter the store for anything other than a pick up or Genius Bar, depending on how busy it is.
And yes this year UAE models have moved to eSim only and as you say benefit from the tiny bit more battery and with the current exchange rate a decent saving can be made compared to UK/EU prices. The only thing to consider is warranty / AppleCare which up until this release would generally be fine as the UAE models were the same as EU, but now its a different model you could have challenges getting repair or replacement in France (there is another thread discussing this about Germany).
Good Luck !
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Yeah, looks like they added more stock for the Air and 17 Pro.
Alas, still no regular 17 and 17 Pro Max near me. Either they haven't restocked those yet or the restock got snapped up very, very quickly.
If there are no pre-orders up to tomorrow, Apple usually allocates some in-store stock for same day pickups so it's worth checking Friday maybe around 4am. I remember that's what I did for a couple of my devices.
I’m a bit south of you and noticed the same thing. I missed the launch day shipping date so I’ve been looking for a pickup Friday. Earlier this week there was nothing available nearby (<40 mi) but it started to become available the next couple of days but limited time slots. Then today, my local stores now have most pick up hours available. I’ve on my 3rd reorder with an ideal location/time now.
Thank you for this detailed response. I will check the stocks several times then, especially tomorrow and Saturday.