While I follow this thread a lot, if I'm away for awhile, I skip over a bunch of pages - so I may be off in the following:
It seems like some later times (after xx:05:xx) have shown as shipping but it seems they are in Canada. And someone mentioned that a flight arrived in Canada not long ago. Sooooo....
Maybe the timing of orders does match first come, first filled but only within certain regions. That is, if a plane is going to Canada for their orders, they'll fill it up and that might make some of theirs seem to "jump the line" over some area of the U.S. (or wherever), but then a full plane will go to an area that delivers around the west coast so they may temporarily jump ahead. If so, it isn't anything actually wrong. It would actually make good business sense.
Other variables may exist. One obvious one is that if people are using email time stamps instead of the actual time Apple put it in their order list, you have at least several seconds difference - and I suspect in at least a few cases, the email got held up longer than normal. With the way things are going, a mere 60 second delay has a big effect! So the best comparison times are from those who contacted Apple and asked for their official time. The email time is usually going to be close, but sometimes may not be.
folks after me getting charged... And I'm in limbo.
