iPhone 14 Pro Max already backordered, amidst Apple Store issues
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

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
Comments
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’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.
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.
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.
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.
I wait a month to order and don’t have any problems.
It even lets you use the monitor as a display, an oft asked for feature on the iMac.