I woke up at 5:30am Eastern and happened to see a notification from Macrumors about this article. So I went to the website, clicked the banner at the top after you click "Buy" that said "Reserve iPhone 7 with a carrier plan. Reserve today". This is 100% separate from the add to shopping bag process. It's also confusing because I was able to use it to get a completely unlocked phone, with no carrier plan.
I wanted a Silver 128GB 7 Plus. There's two stores close to me, Mississauga Square One and Burlington Mapleview. Square One had sold out of Silver, but Burlington had it available. Set up a reservation at 10am with my Apple ID, they emailed me a notification with QR barcode that I could add to my Apple Wallet.
I get to the Apple Store in Burlington at 10am. There's a few other people who had made reservations for around that time, and they simply had us wait until someone was ready to come and get us. Apple Store employee scanned the QR barcode, another employee brought an unlocked device from the back and completed the sale. 10 minutes in and out.
While I was there a few people were complaining that yesterday the store had been telling people to check the reservation system at 8am, and by that time many stores were out of stock. The website itself has the words "If you can’t find the model you want below, choose another store to find the model you’re looking for. Or you can check back beginning at 8:00 a.m." I suspect that the very first day they just started early, but it's likely at 8:00 am every day that they will refresh the stock levels in the website.
I am curious however if that means they are rationing supply so that there's always a number of iPhones available every single day to maintain traffic to their stores?