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iPhone4 Pre-Orders Stopped
AT&T suspended iPhone 4 pre-orders Wednesday after demand overwhelmed inventory.
Apple and AT&T took pre-orders for over 600,000 of its new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken and far higher than anticipated, according to Apple.
AT&T, exclusive U.S. carrier for Apple’s iPhone, said it will resume taking pre-orders when additional inventory becomes available.
“We are working hard to bring the iPhone 4 to as many of our customers as soon as possible,” AT&T said.
Apple’s website was accepting orders for black models only, and only for shipping by July 2.
Apple’s new iPhone went on sale Tuesday for pre-orders — and once again, the company experienced big problems.
Online and phone systems at Apple and AT&T were jammed. Many consumers complained of not being able to get through, similar to launches for previous iPhones.
“Due to extremely high call volumes, we are unable to answer your call at this time,” said a recording on the Apple phone line for purchasers. “Please call back.”
The situation wasn’t any better with online sales, where the websites seemed to be in a state of perpetual crashing, or long waits.
“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,” Apple said in a statement.
AT&T said Wednesday that there were more than 13 million visitors to AT&T’s website Tuesday to specifically check whether they were eligible for a phone upgrade. That’s 3 times more than any previous day.
“The good news for Apple: A lot of people want to buy the product,” says Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner. “The bad news: system glitches that totally overwhelmed the system.”
AT&T told the Associated Press it received reports of customers seeing wrong account information Tuesday but wasn’t able to replicate the problem and was investigating. The company said the personal information users were seeing in one another’s accounts didn’t include Social Security numbers, credit card information and detailed call logs.
Apple had no comment.
