IT WAS ONLY yesterday that the iPhone 4 became available for pre-order, but it appears that both AT&T and Apple have run out of handsets for the launch day. According to a press release issued by AT&T, they’ve had 10 times as many pre-orders for the iPhone 4 compared to the iPhone 3GS.
Apparently it’s been the busiest sale in AT&T’s history which says something about the number of pre-orders that have been placed. Anyone placing a pre-order on an iPhone 4 now won’t be seeing the device until sometime between the 25th of June and the 5th of July. Now that’s some lead time and it almost appears as if Apple got its order predictions wrong, by about a mile.
Apple is supposedly shipping some additional devices by July 2nd, but this is still a good week after the launch day which is the 24th of June. This all begs to question if Apple will be able to meet its international launch dates, as one would presume that pre-orders will be prioritised over markets where the pre-order dates have yet to be announced.
AT&T has suspended pre-ordering altogether from today, as the company doesn’t appear to be able to guarantee delivery of handsets to any additional pre-order customers. AT&T also had 13 million early upgrade checks on its website yesterday and claims that this was about three times higher than the previous record for early upgrade eligibility checks.
Have people gone iPhone 4 crazy? Sure, it’s the best iPhone yet, but we didn’t expect it to be this popular. Apple really has outdone itself this time around and it looks like it’s going to be a tough one to beat with future products. Then again, it’s Apple we’re talking about, so the fanboys (and girls) are likely to go just as crazy when the next iPhone arrives sometime next year.S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
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