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iPhone 4 Pre-Orders Bring Down Servers and Generate Long Lines

davidbrummy said:
Both Apple and ATT are down. When I worked at consumer companies like Virgin Mobile USA.we spent months planning for Christmas. We screwed up the first couple of times but pretty much got it nailed by year 3 where we new our scaling points.

Apple and ATT need to do a much better job of being able to scale for these events. Just saying unusual load is really bad. I would have thought they would have tested the pre-order process and have it throttled so once load passes a certain point you are rejected. Come on folks was no one awake during the scalability 101 talk.
Click to expand...

They did. They had some guy in a bar give it a try. Since it worked he went back to having a few more beers. It is unfortunate though, he left his iPad on a bar-stool when he left.
 
at&t site worked for me

Submitted an order for 2 iphones on a family plan on the at&t site in about three minutes. Only issue I had was they were not able to determine my number porting eligibility, so I just set up the account with new numbers for now. Called at&t to verify that they will be able to port over my exisiting numbers later, once the phones are activated, and they confirmed this (as long as our current numbers are still active at that time, which they will be).

So, if you're a totally new customer and don't mind dealing with the number porting hassle later, the at&t site works great!
 
Missveronica said:
I went to BestBuy and pre-ordered mine and was in and out in 15 minutes. :)
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I wish I could. I made the mistake of telling my husband he could take my car to work today. Yeah now I'm car-less until he gets home. So whenever he gets back I'll be there.
 
For those who made it through the apple store, do you get stuck on "processing information" for a long time after entering your phone number, zip and SSN? Do you just leave it spinning and eventually i gets through?

for those who are upgrading 2 old iphones to 2 new iphones, do you just do seperate orders?
 
Just reserved one using Apple Store App. Both Websites were useless. 3 hour quest is over at last!
 
DaveNinja said:
For those who made it through the apple store, do you get stuck on "processing information" for a long time after entering your phone number, zip and SSN? Do you just leave it spinning and eventually i gets through?

for those who are upgrading 2 old iphones to 2 new iphones, do you just do seperate orders?
Click to expand...

It would take a while and then go to the "information could not be processed" or something error page. Just hit back on your browser and it will process again. Eventually you'll get through. Worked for me.
 
I just did the same thing, after trying all morning online I went through the Apple Store App and reserved my iPhone in less than a couple of minutes.

Randy
 
My favorite of all:

Your session expired.
Your session has expired due to inactivity.
-----------------
Tell me about it! If there were some activity I could be performing to get this done, I would.
 
Ordered at the AT&T store

It took over a half hour to order mine at the AT&T store. The staff were on the phone (the "War Room", believe it or not) trying to straighten out problems but the computers everywhere were crashing intermittently. The staff told me it took 1-1/2 hours this morning to place their first order! I guess I was just lucky....

Thank God I bought that Apple stock!;)
 
Yeah, I was able to buy both of mine through AT&T.

I think the bottleneck is Apple's systems trying to reach out to AT&T and verify eligibility. If this is the case, going straight to AT&T is the obvious best bet!

GOOD LUCK! :D
 
Reserver the new iPhone using the Apple Store iPhone app on your current phone. It worked for me the first time.
 
zabbadu said:
Your session expired.
Your session has expired due to inactivity.
-----------------
Tell me about it! If there were some activity I could be performing to get this done, I would.
Click to expand...

once you get to this point is the only thing you can do is to start over?
 
enusbaum said:
Yeah, I was able to buy both of mine through AT&T.

I think the bottleneck is Apple's systems trying to reach out to AT&T and verify eligibility. If this is the case, going straight to AT&T is the obvious best bet!

GOOD LUCK! :D
Click to expand...

Awwww. When I go to upgrade on the AT&T site, I get an error saying they have a problem preventing my request from being processed.
 
Yes, I truly have to thank Apple and AT&T for the very worst customer service experience I've ever had in my life. Absolute worst. I still want an iPhone 4, but just a little less after this experience.
 
benspratling said:
"Your session has expired due to inactivity. Please try again."

Yes, 74 seconds waiting on you to load the page; that's my fault, just delete all the info I've already put in your stupid web app and let me wait while you reload every page one at a time.

"Your session has expired due to inactivity. Please try again."

Yep, that's right. I've been clicking "Pre-Order" every two minutes for an hour and a half. That's what AT&T calls inactivity (maybe that's why they've dropped every call I've had since April?).

"Your session has expired due to inactivity. Please try again."

Yes, that's right Apple. I've spent 12 seconds waiting on you to load the page, that's inactivity.

This is what Apple used to call a "bad user experience."
Click to expand...
Exactly the same for me.

Then I just tried the iphone app again and it worked. Finally.
 
You can only use the App to reserve a local pickup right? I don't see a shipping option.

Edit: Found it but "There was a problem connecting to the server. Please make a reservation at your nearest Apple Retail Store."
 
Major FAIL since 9:30 AM EDT

Been trying for 3 hours solid now. I can't get past the point where it tries to validate my existing AT&T information.

I'm happy for Apple, but this is annoying.
 
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