iPhone 14 Pro Max already backordered, amidst Apple Store issues

AppleInsider

Within minutes of iPhone 14 preorders starting, and through a troublesome Apple Store, shipping dates for the iPhone 14 Pro Max have already slipped.

Apple began taking preorders for the iPhone 14 range at 8 a.m. ET and after ten minutes, shipping dates the 512GB iPhone 14 Pro Max had slipped back. Originally shipping by September 16, after ten minutes it was October 3, and after half an hour, it was October 10.

And all of this was while the Apple Store online wasn't performing well. Apple's content network was unusually slow to roll out in some areas, with the App Store app not going live as quickly as the desktop version did.

Additionally, users complained of Apple Pay problems, cancelled orders, payment failures, and other issues preventing ordering.

After 45 minutes, and through all the problems, all colors and all storage configurations of the iPhone 14 Pro Max had slipped back to being shipped between October 3 and October 10.

Unusually, none of the other models have seen any shipping delays at all.

Note that Apple always reserves some stock to be sold in stores. At present most configurations of the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max, are showing in-store pickup availability from September 18.

The iPhone 14 Plus will not hit customers' doorsteps until October 7. Currently in-store pickup is available from then, too.

Read on AppleInsider

jcoh

No issues here.  Ordered 2 pro max and AirPods and was done by 8:05 EST.   

[email protected]

I just placed my order for a Pro Max with in store pickup for the 16th of September. When I went back to check on it, it had changed to October 3-10 delivery. 

verne arase

Sigh ... why is ordering an iPhone always flawless, or a total nightmare?

Tried to order a Pro Max/Purple/512GB/AT&T/Applecare + Loss and Theft/Apple Pay up front for delivery and it took me over half an hour to get the site responding correctly (no invalid links, etc) and it unbeknownst to me put the order under an Apple ID I haven't used in years and no longer exists.

Got no verification email and it wasn't listed under my equipment purchase ID (which is also my primary Apple ID) so I tried to use another path through the online store and put in another order, expecting this order to come out under my main Apple ID. Checked that ID and there were still no pending orders under that ID.

Then the verification email came in for the first purchase.

Checked the recipient email ID and found both orders were under that no-longer-existing Apple ID - and I can't cancel the second order because that Apple ID no longer exists so I can't log in and use an automated process, and none of the phone numbers for order assistance are working.

Sooo ... I guess I'll have to wait until the rush is over and try to get hold of a human being to the get first order moved to my main Apple ID and the second cancelled.

BTW, the first order has a ship date of September 28 - October 3, and the second October 3 - October 10 - so those ship dates are slipping rapidly.

Of course some of the slippage may be due to duplicate orders (like mine), so who knows what the real delivery date will eventually be.

Interesting how (according to the article) only the Pro Max is affected - I wonder if because of the economy Apple was expecting fewer orders of their most expensive offering and therefore made fewer of them.

retrogusto

Even on a bad day, the online experience beats the in-store experience by a large margin. The last two times I bought an iPhone (one for me, one for a gift), it took around an hour in the store, despite the fact that I knew exactly what I wanted when I walked in the door. Both times I was in too much of a rush to wait for delivery of an online purchase, but it seemed crazy to me that I couldn’t just hand someone my credit card and walk out the door a few minutes later, the way you can in most retail stores when you know what you want, are ready to pay, and they have it in stock. Instead you find one person who can put your name on a list to talk to a salesperson, wait a long time for them, then talk to them, wait a while for the device to be sent out from a back room…

I’m hoping to never be in a position again where I have to buy a phone in a hurry, but sometimes your phone just dies and you don’t have a lot of options. I guess maybe the purpose is to force you to stand around with nothing to do but play with other Apple devices, in the hope that you’ll buy more stuff? It may also be faster if you buy online for in-store pickup, but I bet you still have to wait a while to talk to the person who can help you.

Madbum

I set my pre order yesterday and it literally ordered on the store App in 30 seconds….

Madbum

verne arase said:

Sigh ... why is ordering an iPhone always flawless, or a total nightmare?

Tried to order a Pro Max/Purple/512GB/AT&T/Applecare + Loss and Theft/Apple Pay up front for delivery and it took me over half an hour to get the site responding correctly (no invalid links, etc) and it unbeknownst to me put the order under an Apple ID I haven't used in years and no longer exists.

Got no verification email and it wasn't listed under my equipment purchase ID (which is also my primary Apple ID) so I tried to use another path through the online store and put in another order, expecting this order to come out under my main Apple ID. Checked that ID and there were still no pending orders under that ID.

Then the verification email came in for the first purchase.

Checked the recipient email ID and found both orders were under that no-longer-existing Apple ID - and I can't cancel the second order because that Apple ID no longer exists so I can't log in and use an automated process, and none of the phone numbers for order assistance are working.

Sooo ... I guess I'll have to wait until the rush is over and try to get hold of a human being to the get first order moved to my main Apple ID and the second cancelled.

BTW, the first order has a ship date of September 28 - October 3, and the second October 3 - October 10 - so those ship dates are slipping rapidly.

Of course some of the slippage may be due to duplicate orders (like mine), so who knows what the real delivery date will eventually be.

Interesting how (according to the article) only the Pro Max is affected - I wonder if because of the economy Apple was expecting fewer orders of their most expensive offering and therefore made fewer of them.

I actually think they are selling mostly Pro and Pro Max models

JFC_PA

30 seconds at about 8:04 with the app. Pre approved so it was a slam dunk. 

melgross

This is one time it worked great for us. Got it ready last night. The only problem was, I suppose, a Verizon one. Setting up the order for me was easy. But I couldn’t verify the carrier for my wife. It turned out that I had to do it on her phone, then it was easy. This morning, the store didn’t actually open until 8:08. I don’t know why. The store app was open when I turned the devices on. But when it did, it opened to the orders. I just had to hit Apple Pay on mine, click the button and it was done. Sept 16th for home delivery. I had to type the password on my wife/s phone, but then it took a few seconds. Also Sept 16th.

my Ultra, last Wednesday, didn’t go so smoothly. For some reason my two credit cards became separated from Apple Pay and all there was was Apple Cash, which I don’t use. It took five minutes from the time I configured my order at first, with a Sept 19th delivery, to the time I tried to figure out what happened and I gave up and redid it, paying directly with my Amex. But that short delay resulted in my watch arriving now between Oct 20-27th. Grr! Frustrating.

later, I had to add my cards back as new cards. I don’t understand what happened, but got it working for this morning. My wife didn’t have that problem.

bluefire1

Even though AppleInsider said that orders had begun at exactly 5amPST, it took an extra minute for it to appear in my Apple Store app. Because I completed all the preorder information two days earlier, I sailed through the purchase process and was not only finished within a minute, I received an email notification almost immediately afterwards. Thanks Apple!

602warren

retrogusto said:

Even on a bad day, the online experience beats the in-store experience by a large margin. The last two times I bought an iPhone (one for me, one for a gift), it took around an hour in the store, despite the fact that I knew exactly what I wanted when I walked in the door. Both times I was in too much of a rush to wait for delivery of an online purchase, but it seemed crazy to me that I couldn’t just hand someone my credit card and walk out the door a few minutes later, the way you can in most retail stores when you know what you want, are ready to pay, and they have it in stock. Instead you find one person who can put your name on a list to talk to a salesperson, wait a long time for them, then talk to them, wait a while for the device to be sent out from a back room…

I’m hoping to never be in a position again where I have to buy a phone in a hurry, but sometimes your phone just dies and you don’t have a lot of options. I guess maybe the purpose is to force you to stand around with nothing to do but play with other Apple devices, in the hope that you’ll buy more stuff? It may also be faster if you buy online for in-store pickup, but I bet you still have to wait a while to talk to the person who can help you.

SAME. After doing delivery to home for several years I tried the in-store pickup for the 13 Pro - NEVER again. I picked up from Scottsdale Fashion Square and while the employees were nice and friendly - others in line were not. I can't remember what my exact pickup time was, but lets say it was 10a for sake of argument. People were in line trying and SUCCEEDING to pick up a phone who had scheduled pickup times much later in the day, sometimes several hours later. This of course caused things to get hectic because Apple is expecting X people between 10a-11a for pickup because that's all they scheduled. Apple employees had to comb through the line and start removing people who were in line too early, which of course caused a lot of entitlement issues. I lost count of how many 'Apple Shareholders' were being removed and would email Tim directly. "I got an email that says my phone is ready! See!! Here it is!! Go get my phone! Why do I have to wait until 4p?!" And that's edited for NSFW language.

Once I got inside the door and ready to get my phone, it was like you described, waiting for an associate to come by, ask me what I ordered, go get it...etc.  Im thankful the young lady stood there and waited until the phone turned on and I was able to make/receive calls on the new device, just to be sure all was ok. But she could have easily done this for 6-8 people at once while we all stood around a table, instead of just working with 1 person at a time. 

After that experience - I'll never pickup in store again for a launch day device.

StrangeDays

JFC_PA said:

30 seconds at about 8:04 with the app. Pre approved so it was a slam dunk. 

Likewise, prepped the order the day before in the app, then completed it a few minutes after the hour, took seconds. 

What people tend to overlook is there is a massive demand spike hitting it all at once. I don’t know Apple’s retail application data center model, but if it’s on-premises it will be more difficult for them to accommodate peak demand than it is for an elastic scaling cloud-provider like AWS. For the simple reason that it’s not practical to buy enough servers to hit a rare spike and then let them go to waste the rest of the year. But they’re operating at a scale far beyond anything I work on so I can only imagine the challenges.

retrogusto

bluefire1 said:

Even though AppleInsider said that orders had begun at exactly 5amPST, it took an extra minute for it to appear in my Apple Store app. Because I completed all the preorder information two days earlier, I sailed through the purchase process and was not only finished within a minute, I received an email notification almost immediately afterwards. Thanks Apple!

I hope you got a “Pro” model—you are obviously a pro. 

DAalseth

Every d***d time. Sales of a new product start. Every person in the world tries to log in and buy at the same time. Then everyone is shocked and angry that the online site is swamped. Well guess what, that’s what happens when everyone in the world tries to do the same thing at the same time. What’s next, getting annoyed that B&M stores are swamped on Black Friday? It is what happens and it doesn’t matter if it’s Apple or another internet storefront. If an item is this in demand, the site will struggle under the load. 

I wait a month to order and don’t have any problems.

jimvision

My iPhone 14 Pro Max just switched to "Preparing to Ship".  Someone pinch me.

Japhey

retrogusto said:

Even on a bad day, the online experience beats the in-store experience by a large margin. The last two times I bought an iPhone (one for me, one for a gift), it took around an hour in the store, despite the fact that I knew exactly what I wanted when I walked in the door. Both times I was in too much of a rush to wait for delivery of an online purchase, but it seemed crazy to me that I couldn’t just hand someone my credit card and walk out the door a few minutes later, the way you can in most retail stores when you know what you want, are ready to pay, and they have it in stock. Instead you find one person who can put your name on a list to talk to a salesperson, wait a long time for them, then talk to them, wait a while for the device to be sent out from a back room…

I’m hoping to never be in a position again where I have to buy a phone in a hurry, but sometimes your phone just dies and you don’t have a lot of options. I guess maybe the purpose is to force you to stand around with nothing to do but play with other Apple devices, in the hope that you’ll buy more stuff? It may also be faster if you buy online for in-store pickup, but I bet you still have to wait a while to talk to the person who can help you.

100%, every word. We must shop at the same local Apple Store, lol. Even with UPS always making me wait until 530 for my launch day orders, it is still infinitely better than having to willingly endure the Apple Store experience. 

danox

I want to buy a larger screen Silicon iMac or Mac tower so bad…Damn it to hell captain…..

DAalseth

danox said:

I want to buy a larger screen Silicon iMac or Mac tower so bad…Damn it to hell captain…..

October. There’s going to be an Apple event in October just for Macs and iPads. 

JFC_PA

I keep imagining that old sight gag of three clowns who keep trying to go through a door only two could fit through. Slam into each other, back up, surge forward and slam into each other: rinse repeat, except with millions upon millions of orders hitting that store’s virtual doorway… 

philboogie

retrogusto said:

Even on a bad day, the online experience beats the in-store experience by a large margin. The last two times I bought an iPhone (one for me, one for a gift), it took around an hour in the store, despite the fact that I knew exactly what I wanted when I walked in the door. Both times I was in too much of a rush to wait for delivery of an online purchase, but it seemed crazy to me that I couldn’t just hand someone my credit card and walk out the door a few minutes later, the way you can in most retail stores when you know what you want, are ready to pay, and they have it in stock. Instead you find one person who can put your name on a list to talk to a salesperson, wait a long time for them, then talk to them, wait a while for the device to be sent out from a back room…

I’m hoping to never be in a position again where I have to buy a phone in a hurry, but sometimes your phone just dies and you don’t have a lot of options. I guess maybe the purpose is to force you to stand around with nothing to do but play with other Apple devices, in the hope that you’ll buy more stuff? It may also be faster if you buy online for in-store pickup, but I bet you still have to wait a while to talk to the person who can help you.

Indeed, I also have in store pickup next Friday, but got a mandatory 15 minute time slot.

verne arase

danox said:

I want to buy a larger screen Silicon iMac or Mac tower so bad…Damn it to hell captain…..

I thought that was the purpose of the Mac Studio and Studio Display.

It even lets you use the monitor as a display, an oft asked for feature on the iMac.