New International iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Through Apple Slip to 1-2 Week Shipping

[DESNOS]

Just to clarify on why people love the 4S:

Apple updates the physical design once every two years.
Contracts last two years.
Result? People always fall out of contract when a significant upgrade is available. I really don't see how this is so difficult to understand, in fact, it's pure genius.

 

[igazza]

I thought people didn't like the 4S. What happened?

I wasn't planing on buying the 4S but with Steves passing i had a change of heart. I presume this is the case for many others.

 

[MikelJohnsan]

I thought people didn't like the 4S. What happened?

Well, I can only speak for myself, but a lot of people are probably upgrading from an iPhone 3G/S or whatever, because they're contract is up. In my case, I'm updating from a BlackBerry...

Now here's me hoping to actually get it next Friday!!!

 

[macguy360]

The problems experienced last year are nowhere in sight. You are pretty much able to pre-order one without any difficulties.

Lol, tell that to the people trying to buy Sprint's Iphone. The apple site would not allow new customers to buy a sprint iPhone. Even now you can only pre-order through the Sprint website which is still occasionally giving the "Were sorry, the service is unavailable" error.

The verizon store went live at about 12:05 Pacific with iPhone preorders and did not get hardly any customers. No site crashing or anything.

From what I saw last night, I would guess some 75% of preorders were for Sprint while 20% were ATT and about 5% were Verizon. When ATT finally allowed pre-orders on their site I jumped on their website and preordered immediately without a hassle.

Originally I was torn between going with Sprint or ATT. Now I think I am glad I decided to go with ATT as I have a bad feeling there is going to be a large influx of iPhone customers to Sprint which is going to bog down the network. Add to that the fact that Sprint bet the bank investing $20 billion to buy 30million iPhones which they will only get about 1/3rd of the money back immediately through sales. I don't believe Sprint is going to have the finances to upgrade their tower infrastructure or add more towers for the foreseeable future.

 

[The Game 161]

Well, I can only speak for myself, but a lot of people are probably upgrading from an iPhone 3G/S or whatever, because they're contract is up. In my case, I'm updating from a BlackBerry...

Now here's me hoping to actually get it next Friday!!!

Yep for those on 3GS and other phones it makes some sense but for those who already have the 4 it doesn't make much sense to upgrade

 

[danr_97070]

I thought people didn't like the 4S. What happened?

The reality is it's a very good phone and the software and camera is perhaps
the best part of it. I ordered one...

I think what a lot of people are missing is that phones will in the
not-too-distant future become so similar as to be commodities (i.e.,
phone manufacturers specs will be essentially the same). It'll be the
software that is the most interesting part...

If Apple redesigns the phone next year, I expect a redesigned case, a
faster processor, and a bigger display... yawn...

It won't be enough for me to update from the iPhone 4S I just ordered.

 

[geekypastor]

I woke up at 3 am Eastern to place my order. I gave up at 4:30 am.

Woke up at 7:30 this morning and was able to place the order with delivery set for October 14.

I'm excited to get the phone. Frustrated to lose an hour and a half of sleep last night, though!

This is almost exactly my story except I woke at 6:30 to place my order which went through. Never gotten through on the first wave of a phone release before so this is kind of cool. Wife laughed at me this morning when I told her the story.

 

[X38]

No more unlimited data for those of us who have had it since the original iPhone?

I was able to still get mine with the unlimited data plan for the same 3G data price. I was a little concerned at first when it auto-selected my existing voice and text plans but told me to pick a data plan then crashed when I tried, but after the server crashing issues were fixed this morning, there was still an option for the existing unlimited plan that went through with my purchase just fine.
(I've been with AT&T since day 1 of the first gen iphone and kept my unlimited plan through the 3G upgrade to $30 and have gone with the standard two year upgrade steps - iphone to 3GS to 4S.)

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Just to clarify on why people love the 4S:

Apple updates the physical design once every two years.
Contracts last two years.
Result? People always fall out of contract when a significant upgrade is available. I really don't see how this is so difficult to understand, in fact, it's pure genius.

I generally agree except the "pure genius" part. I have a PowerMac that looks a whole lot like the latest MacBook pros. This same basic look has existed for what- nearly 10 years now? Sometimes, Apple finds a design that they like best... one they can't top for a few years (or even many years in the case of the laptop designs). So they just stick with it until they top it. This iPhone could be the fundamental design of the next couple of generations of iPhones. Or it may be changed again in the very next generation.

I would point people back to the thread where the renderings of the "teardrop" shape were first revealed. There seems to be a pretty good split between "wow, that's hot" and "yuck, the current design is so much more _______" (fill in your favorite positive adjective... including "genius").

As to the timing of contract expriations, people are always subscribing to new 2-year deals with iPhones. Yes, the big news is right after a new model is released but pay attention to the quarterly numbers of new iPhone buyers. There is always a big pool of iPhone contracts wrapping up... some thoroughly disconnected from the timing of when new models are released. Millions of people just bought "new" iPhone 4s in the last quarter; their 2-year deals won't be finished until an iPhone 6 (5s, 4ss, whatever) is probably available.

 

[Frankied22]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

All I want to know where is my confirmation email from Sprint. I oredered it like 6 hours ago and they charged my CC immediately.

 

[Dr McKay]

Mines coming between the 21st-28th, so excited! Got in there before the Shipping Estimates went up, which they inevitably will.

All the people complaining about the new iPhone 4S, this is the biggest spec bump the iPhone has ever seen.

iPhone 2G+3G = 400Mhz Processor + 128MB RAM + 2MP Camera
iPhone 3GS = 600Mhz Processor + 256MB of RAM + 3MP Camera
iPhone 4 = 800Mhz Processor + 512MB of RAM + 5MP Camera
iPhone 4S = 2 x 800Mhz Cores + (Supposedly) 1GB of RAM + 8MP Camera

This is the biggest leap in the iPhones specs ever. If it was in a new different case, most of the complainers here would be crapping themselves in giddy excitement as they trip over each over in the stampede to buy it.

The £600 ($930) price tag for the 32GB stung a little bit though, but I wanted the extra space for the bigger file sized pictures and 1080p video.

 

[cameronjpu]

The system, as it eventually worked out last night at 345 AM, was brilliant. It was totally akin to handing out numbers for a place in line. That way they could create a virtual line 1,000,000 people long, and then those people have the right to come back over the course of two days to place their order and not lose their place in line.

However, the wording of the email should have been more forceful about that fact. It would have saved me a half hour of sleep. If I had received an email really laying out the fact that I now had a reserved place in a virtual line, and that waiting until Friday or Saturday morning would not have affected the order in which my phone was shipped, I would have gone right back to bed. As it was, I wanted to get the order finalized, so I spent another half hour trying to complete the reservation. In the end I didn't even do that, because I had to mull over the loss of my $5 for 200 texts plan. In the end I decided to go ala carte, and tell everyone that if they don't have an iPhone, they're not worth texting

 

[gkpm]

What's with the huge difference between US and Canadian/European pricing?
US $200 to 400.
Canada $650 to 850.
Euro it was high but I've forgotten the numbers
There's only 3% difference between US and Canadian currencies.

The US prices depend on you taking a 2 year contract, that's why.

 

[kmvguy83]

Took me this long

Happy i got through...
I couldnt order online cuz it was business premier acct.

 

[addicted44]

Lets not forget that Apple had an extra few months this time, and has been reportedly manufactured a lot more phones in advance of the launch.

 

[KnightWRX]

I thought people didn't like the 4S. What happened?

Depends how many they had for pre-order. Since they don't provide that info, we cannot know if this is truely exceptional and there are tons of pre-orders. So both could be true : This model is unpopular and people don't like or want it, but pre-orders are all filled because they only had a capacity of 100 or so phones, making it look highly popular.

That said, before I get flagged a hater, I'm number 444 in line for a Black 4S 16 GB and my GF is 414 is line for a Black 4S 32 GB with my carrier presently.

 

[kinless]

Ineligible??

I went to pre-order mine and got all the way to the "Check eligibility" screen. Now mind you I've had a Treo 755p on Sprint for 4+ years and I've been off-contract for a while, and I have the same Simply Everything plan that you need for the iPhone. Unfortunately putting in my phone number and SSN gives me this:

Account type not supported: We’re sorry. Your account type is not supported. Please contact your Sprint account manager or call *2 from your Sprint phone in order to verify your eligibility and complete your iPhone purchase.

Boo, Sprint. Boo.

 

[kas23]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

I just upgraded myself and my wife's iPhone 4's to 4S's at an at&t corporate store. Easy as pie. Not a soul here. I'm not a hater, because I upgrade every year and just bought 2 new ones, but I think the magic of having an iPhone is dead. There's no lines, no crashing servers, just no urgency to get this iPhone this time around. Apple really has to rethink their road map.

Edit: for those who care, I went to AT&T store at Rookwood in Cincinnati. It's a ghost town there, I thought they were closed at first.

 

[hayhay]

Got up at 2AM CST, (12AM PST) kept going back and forth between Apple @ AT&T for at least 30-45 minutes until finally the Apple Store came online...after about another 30-45 minutes of it hanging up every time it attempted to verify with AT&T I gave up and tried AT&T's site where they had finally opened up the pre-order section... 1st run through AT&T was successful with no hangups...pre-order mission accomplished at 3:15AM CST. I did that to ensure I get it next Friday...I'll be so pist if I don't.

 

[gkpm]

Well I'm happy, the website came online a bit late but the purchase was as smooth as can be - unlike my previous experiences of dozens of reloads and checkout attempts e.g. to get the iPad 2.

Not sure if it was just lower sales numbers (doesn't seem so, the immediate pre-orders sold out quick) or better systems, but well done Apple.

 

[Tiger8]

I wasn't planing on buying the 4S but with Steves passing i had a change of heart. I presume this is the case for many others.

Three reasons:
1. In honor of Steve
2. To support my favorite carrier (SPRINT)
3. To get rid of the awful AT&T service

If the iPhone 5/6 is released in a year, I will be eligible for an early upgrade with Sprint. Easy.

 

[MagicFrog]

My 3GS contract expire couple months ago
so it's time to upgrade
I tried to order at 12:01am pacific time
then I gave up after about 45mins
and I was able to preorder at 6:00am
but apple store won't let me change the shipping address
and now the part of the online store is updating some time so I cannot see the order status...
just wondering why no never receive the notify mail?
is this becasue the system is tooooo busy?

 

[Madmic23]

What's with the huge difference between US and Canadian/European pricing?
US $200 to 400.
Canada $650 to 850.
Euro it was high but I've forgotten the numbers
There's only 3% difference between US and Canadian currencies.

The Canadian prices are for unlocked, no contract phones.

If you get the phone on contract, the prices are $159, $269, and $369
(but that's a three year contract)

 

[Onimusha370]

Mines coming between the 21st-28th, so excited! Got in there before the Shipping Estimates went up, which they inevitably will.

All the people complaining about the new iPhone 4S, this is the biggest spec bump the iPhone has ever seen.

iPhone 2G+3G = 400Mhz Processor + 128MB RAM + 2MP Camera
iPhone 3GS = 600Mhz Processor + 256MB of RAM + 3MP Camera
iPhone 4 = 800Mhz Processor + 512MB of RAM + 5MP Camera
iPhone 4S = 2 x 800Mhz Cores + (Supposedly) 1GB of RAM + 8MP Camera

This is the biggest leap in the iPhones specs ever. If it was in a new different case, most of the complainers here would be crapping themselves in giddy excitement as they trip over each over in the stampede to buy it.

The £600 ($930) price tag for the 32GB stung a little bit though, but I wanted the extra space for the bigger file sized pictures and 1080p video.

exactly the same here mate, hopefully they'll come closer to the 21st than the 28th.

 

[KPOM]

What's with the huge difference between US and Canadian/European pricing?
US $200 to 400.
Canada $650 to 850.
Euro it was high but I've forgotten the numbers
There's only 3% difference between US and Canadian currencies.

Locked vs. unlocked. An unlocked iPhone 4S in the US will be $649-$849 when they are available next month.