Last night, I received a confirmation e-mail from AT&T — two of them, actually, one for my iPhone and one for Becky’s — titled “Your recent ATT order status.” They state:
Dear Brendan Loy,
Thank you for ordering iPhone 4 from AT&T. Your device has been reserved. Today was the busiest sales day in our history. Because of the incredible volume of orders we received, there is a slight chance that some customers may receive their devices between June 25 and June 28. Rest assured, we are doing all we can to ship devices to customers for delivery on the 24th. You do not need to take any action at this point.
So, worst-case scenario, if this e-mail is to be believed, my iPhones (which, as you’ll recall, I “pre-ordered” at around 9:45 AM yesterday using the pen and paper method, thanks to AT&T’s massive network FAIL) will arrive at the AT&T Store — where I’ll then go and pick them up — not on Thursday (launch day), but sometime between Friday and Monday. That’s not so bad. It’s certainly more palatable than having to wait until July.
Moreover, at least for now, I can still hold out hope of a launch-day arrival! Indeed, for the moment, I’m going to optimistically leave my sidebar countdown thingy at top right unchanged. I’ll change it if and when I get a firm date that isn’t June 24, pursuant to this part of the e-mail from AT&T:
As soon as your device ships, we will send an email confirmation including a tracking number for your convenience. In the meantime, you can check the status of your order on our website at any time by clicking here [link redacted] or by calling our automated system at 1-877-782-8870.
At present, the status link just says the order is “In Progress.” But presumably, once it ships, I’ll have an arrival date.
[Photo taken by yours truly, waiting in line yesterday morning at the AT&T Store.]
At this point I would say you don’t actually want a launch day delivery.
If the ordering system failed this badly on pre-order the activation issues on launch day are going to be epic. I would guess they will be far worse than the the epic fail of two years ago when the 3g was released. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing iPhone 4 is going to have a rocky first week.
Man, I am so glad I went through Apple and not ATT. Sure I’ll want to get up a little early to head to the store but at least I know I’ll be getting my phone. AT&T is looking like a bumbling idiot here. I bet Jobs is livid.
The pre-order bumbling is bad, but it doesn’t come close to the level of EPIC FAIL represeneted by the next post about massive security breaches — iPhones being sent to the wrong addresses, charged to the wrong credit cards, customers logged into other people’s accounts, etc. — all because of AT&T’s database clusterf***. Some commenters on the Gizmodo post (sorry David, I know you’re boycotting Gizmodo, but they’ve had the best coverage by far of this whole meltdown) have suggested that such severe breakdowns could provide Apple with cause to walk away from the exclusivity contract, claiming AT&T breached it first by virtue of all these problems but particularly the HUGE security problems. That actually seems somewhat plausible to me (though of course it depends on the exact wording of the contract)
Of course, if Apple does that, and announces the Verizon/T-Mobile iPhone 31 days after I get my iPhone, I’m going to be PISSED. 🙂
*…although I wonder: is there anything to prevent a potential future iPhone carrier like T-Mobile/Verizon from offering, say, a bonus to “switching” AT&T iPhone customers in the amount of, oh I don’t know, maybe half the termination fee? (I’m guessing it wouldn’t make economic sense for them to offer the entire fee, which is like now $400+. But if they could reduce it to, like, a monthly bill-and-a-half…)
(On the other hand, maybe that would constitute Intentional Interference With Contract, and they’d have to offer it to all customers, or at least all current iPhone owners regardless of contract status? Dunno.)
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