I have been checking daily on the Apple website for a Silver SIM-Free 64gb iPhone SE. Not available anywhere. even when I expand the scope by 100s of miles. Wth? even when I pivot on other colors or ATT vs simfree, I still don't see any availability. Are these that popular, or is there some manufacturing issue?
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iPhone SE availability
- Thread starter geraldem
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I'm after the same exact model. I placed my order online on Saturday. They gave me a pick up date at my local store of June 3.
They are rather popular. I suspect that is coupled with Apple being somewhat conservative with production. 16gb seems to be a "walk in and buy one" situation.
The good news is you should be able to go with sin free, Verizon, or ATT, so expand your scope of search.
It also may help to call stores as I've been told they do get stock that doesn't show up as purchasable or reservable for pickup online by multiple managers. This wasn't specifically regarding the SE but other iPhones before it, and I imagine the same policy holds true.
The good news is you should be able to go with sin free, Verizon, or ATT, so expand your scope of search.
It also may help to call stores as I've been told they do get stock that doesn't show up as purchasable or reservable for pickup online by multiple managers. This wasn't specifically regarding the SE but other iPhones before it, and I imagine the same policy holds true.
And T-Mobile. Check for every model except Sprint if you're on AT&T or Verizon.
Yes, but if you were somehow able to get an iPhone SE on a T-Mobile payment plan (either you signed up for it or you bought it from someone else who did) it will be locked to T-Mobile's network until it's paid off.
Otherwise, if you went to an Apple Store and paid full price for any of those models, they will work fine on AT&T.
And honestly, you could even buy the Sprint model. The only band you won't get that AT&T uses is band 29, but band 29 is very limited as far as I know. The Sprint model has all the critical bands you need to use it on AT&T.
Well I finally found my SE 64gb, white SIMFREE. I had to check a few times daily but it popped up on one of the 5 Apple stores near me and I grabbed it. Crazy how constrained these are
Still rare where I am. I need one sim free one and one AT&T one. Though I suppose if I'm just popping the sim out of my daughter's 5S, I could/should go sim free on hers, too?
I need to actually be able to buy in the Apple Store because I'm trading two older phones for a discount on each SE. I've been told conflicting things about whether or not I could do this trade online. One of the lower level salespeople said I could. Another who is placed higher up said that I could only receive credit toward other future purchases at Apple. I don't have any other future purchases planned beyond getting these SEs. I'm even already stocked full with all the Apple Watch bands I could want and I have no interest in upgrading to the new Watch for a long, long time.
It's been like this for awhile now. It took an unreasonably long time to get the Apple Watches into the stores. The original IPhone 6Plus. Whatever laptop model it was that my husband waited months to get last year. Now it's the SE. The funny thing is that I had no desire to be an early adopter this time. It actually took me a long time, or so I thought, to decide I wanted to make the SE my smaller, portable option on days when carrying my 6SPlus was impractical. And here I am quite some time after the launch and it's still not in stock.
And the pundits all report that the SE has had poor sales. Of course it has, you can't just go in and buy the darned thing. Last weekend a I saw a LOT of interest in the SE at the table in the Apple Store. And a lot of disgust when customers found out you can look but you can't buy right there and then.
What the heck is Apple's problem delivering inventory to its own stores after a product launch? It's really aggravating.
I need to actually be able to buy in the Apple Store because I'm trading two older phones for a discount on each SE. I've been told conflicting things about whether or not I could do this trade online. One of the lower level salespeople said I could. Another who is placed higher up said that I could only receive credit toward other future purchases at Apple. I don't have any other future purchases planned beyond getting these SEs. I'm even already stocked full with all the Apple Watch bands I could want and I have no interest in upgrading to the new Watch for a long, long time.
It's been like this for awhile now. It took an unreasonably long time to get the Apple Watches into the stores. The original IPhone 6Plus. Whatever laptop model it was that my husband waited months to get last year. Now it's the SE. The funny thing is that I had no desire to be an early adopter this time. It actually took me a long time, or so I thought, to decide I wanted to make the SE my smaller, portable option on days when carrying my 6SPlus was impractical. And here I am quite some time after the launch and it's still not in stock.
And the pundits all report that the SE has had poor sales. Of course it has, you can't just go in and buy the darned thing. Last weekend a I saw a LOT of interest in the SE at the table in the Apple Store. And a lot of disgust when customers found out you can look but you can't buy right there and then.
What the heck is Apple's problem delivering inventory to its own stores after a product launch? It's really aggravating.
It's not a problem - its a plan.
You launch a "cheap model" - the press hypes it up. The people flock to your stores to buy it. You hold back stocks of the slightly higher end version that would canibalise your uber-expesnive flagship models. People go in the store based on they hype and a lot of them end up buying a 64GB iphone 6 or 6S intstead of what they came for: 64GB Iphone SE. Mission accomplished.
Glad you found one in the end. I just wanted to say for anyone else who has searched this thread and couldn't find one, that they are still available all over the world, but we often find that it's harder generally to get the 64GB size in stock, but let you special order still. For some stores it's because the 64GB model always sells out faster, but for many I have noticed that they never stock them to begin with. (I found this to happen with previous models of iPhone aswell) Some stores would always have them in stock, and others just limited the 64GB models top special order as a company policy. So sometimes you just need to know where to look.
Now I appreciate that you'd probably not want to travel all the way over here to Greece just to find an iPhone, but my point is merely that if you don't get success at the first few places you try, not to give up because broadening your search both locally and internationally, you will come across one eventually. In order to help make this much easier though, I'll offer a practical suggestion that I have used myself which would be available easily to literally everyone....
For example, there are literally TONNES of sellers on Amazon who nearly always have stock of these. (if you can't find them on the global Amazon site (amazon.com) there are plenty of other countries of amazon, and each have their own set of suppliers, fulfilment centers, and different third party vendors. If you need the site to be in English, amazon.ca (canada), amazon.co.uk (england), amazon.in (india) all have sites in English. If you don't find any on these, you could even try the non English versions and just paste the web address into google translate, and it will automatically translate the whole web page into English. (I have ordered from Germany and Italy many times using that method, and it worked just fine!) So these are a few other nice ways to find suppliers very easily, for just about anything. iPhones are always sold on there. (and you usually find many sellers on there for nearly every size and color of iPhone). You'll often even find older models (aswell as the most recent). If you find however that they don't deliver to your area, the quickest way to see which vendors ship worldwide is to look at the various sellers for if it says "Domestic" (which only ship locally) or if it says "International and Domestic" (which usually ship worldwide). Also, as there are a mixture of people who sell used models versus brand new models, to filter to just the ones that say "New", and to also read the "condition note" section, as they will often tell you which ones are brand new and boxed, versus ones that are just selling "as new", "used", or "Refurbished", etc. I would also advise to check the sellers which ones are established businesses rather which ones are just one-man-bands selling their own personal model. Phone companies are generally a safer bet.
Another caveat to the amazon approach though that I would recommend to be vigilant on, is to check the ratings of the sellers and what customers say about them. Reason being is while most people are reputable, there are a small few people on there who are dishonest and try to sell ones that were not brand new as though they were. However, if that ever happens, the good thing about Amazon is that any seller doing that will not only have their seller account blocked, but as amazon also control the payment process, they can refund you in full. (And the oweness is actually on the seller to prove he was legit, and not on the customer to prove it was fake.) Another good insurance measure is to video yourself opening the iPhone when it arrives, and then nobody can ever blame you if someone happens to be dishonest, because it will be impossible for anyone to dispute. Fortunately this is not something you even have to do, but I'm always overparanoid about the "what if" scenarios, that I just like to have that certainty.
Hope this helps.
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I cant believe after this long the SE is still on a 2-3 weeks despatch time in the UK, thats a 3-4 week delivery by the time it gets from China. Is this because it is selling like hot cakes or because Apple have just sold a few more than expected and didn't have the supply chain in place for a higher demand. Or could it be that they are trying to sort all the build quality problems out, i have owned two now and sent both of them back for various quality problems and decided to stick with my 6s for now even though i don't really like it that much, but i am not prepared to but up with the cheapness of the SE. I am hoping they are sorting the build quality problems out then i can buy another one.
I doubt that very much.
People have been holding on to their 4s, 5, and 5s units because they DIDN'T want a larger 6s or 6s Plus iPhone. If those customers wanted the more expensive iPhone, they would have purchased one already. It's been 8 months since the 6s went on sale.
No, the reason the SE is in short supply is that Apple screwed up. Tim Cook admitted as much during the quarterly shareholder meeting when he said Apple had been surprised by demand for the SE.
Apple does not want to sell all that many units at this price point. They are simply playing defense with this product, so that the hardcore oldies dont defect. The rest, they would rather you buy their more expensive newer models.
So dont fool yourself - they would have no desire to max out the sale of this product.
So dont fool yourself - they would have no desire to max out the sale of this product.
Well it's a theory, but there's no way to prove it. I personally don't see the logic in it at all. For the exact reasons Retired Cat posted.
Apple's very clever indeed.
With a perfect mix of brilliant marketing and an uncanny skill for creating illusions, they masterfully control the potential buyers perception. Creating demand and denying buyers instant gratification, no one has influence like Apple.
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Apple's been at this game for too long to "screw up".
You don't build a giant world class ultra profitable company without having the best marketing strategy on the planet.
Apple didn't make a single mistake when estimating public demand for the SE. Don't look now, but its Apple laughing all the way to the bank.
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In some ways, the SE was a concession on Apple's part.
One of the biggest was Apple tapping into all the 4/4s/5/5s/5c owners who didn't buy into the 4.7" (and larger) phones. Too many owners to disregard and Apple wasn't inclined to wait them out and have them buy the 6/6s only when their old batteries bit the dust.
Also, by offering a less expensive iPhone...they get to test those waters too.
Changing times ahead with the smartphone market reaching saturation points in many markets. Really, what new features can Apple do to wow us?
And notable that the only Apple SE case is in two dark colours of leather. No sign of the lovely rainbow range of silicone cases for 6s/6 plus.