Apple Sold a Lot of iPhones


I was pretty sure that when I tried to pre-order my iPhone on Tuesday that there was a reason why things were so screwed up. Turns out, there was. Quite a few of them, in fact. One of the problems was announced by Apple yesterday, and officially press released:

Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions. Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.

Apparently, part of the reason why was because AT&T was screwed. Engadget has that press release:

iPhone 4 pre-order sales yesterday were 10-times higher than the first day of pre-ordering for the iPhone 3G S last year. Consumers are clearly excited about iPhone 4, AT&T’s more affordable data plans and our early upgrade pricing.

Given this unprecedented demand and our current expectations for our iPhone 4 inventory levels when the device is available June 24, we’re suspending pre-ordering today in order to fulfill the orders we’ve already received.

The availability of additional inventory will determine if we can resume taking pre-orders.

In addition to unprecedented pre-order sales, yesterday there were more than 13 million visits to AT&T’s website where customers can check to see if they are eligible to upgrade to a new phone; that number is about 3-times higher than the previous record for eligibility upgrade checks in one day.

We are working hard to bring iPhone 4 to as many of our customers as soon as possible.

Shocking. AT&T screwed things up.

I’ve gotta wonder how Apple feels about all of these problems being AT&T related. With the rate changes for the iPhone and iPad, then the fiasco with the new iPhone, and of course, the pending fiasco on the 24th with activations, you’ve got to think that Steve Jobs is pretty pissed about this. Hopefully he is, and hopefully he moves the iPhone to somebody else. At this point, it’s getting pretty ridiculous.


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

2 Comments

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  1. In the UK we have every major national mobile carrier offering iPhone 4 (Orange, O2, Vodaphone) with similar plans it seems at first. However, when you delve into the detail there is quite a wide choice of competitive deals to be had.

    Rarely here do you read the kind of invective that’s thrown at AT&T. From what I gather they deserve most of the brickbats because of their apparent ineptitude, patchy coverage, offhandedness with customers, inability to change, etcetera.

    Just the way you’d expect a monopoly to operate.

    I’m sad to say that Apple plainly dropped the ball and gave AT&T this monopoly in the first place. I agree with your sentiment above: “I’ve gotta wonder how Apple feels about all of these problems being AT&T related”.

    My guess is that they’ve been kicking themselves for the past two years at least.

    But they always learn from these occasional aberrations – remember what happened when they licensed the Mac OS back in the nineties? (No? Google it.)

  2. Boy, we sure like to point fingers.

    If a tracked meteor approached the U.S., then split into 10 separate meteors right before impacting, would you blame NASA for the miscalculation???