Apple says "Sorry" while selling 600,000 pre-orders for iPhone 4

Ok, now this is odd:

* I attempted many times on Tuesday to pre-order an iPhone 4. First on Apple's website, then on AT&T's website. ONCE I got pretty far into the process with AT&T before I got a "server busy" message. When I refreshed I had been logged out. Upon logging back in my cart was empty. I hadn't yet finished the process. Or so I thought...

* So, I tried downloading the Apple Store iPhone app and making a reservation. Success! Got the email verification and everything. Sure, I'd have to stand in line, but still...

* Last night I received a "confirmation" email from AT&T along with an order number. I logged in to AT&T's website, did an order status lookup, and sure enough: I have an iPhone 4 on order!

So, somewhere in that "server busy" BS it actually completed the order. Weird.

Get off your asses lazy Americans! After a couple hours of placing occasional orders and failing, I drove down to the ATT store. In and out with a successful order in less than 5 minutes. Cake.

I was FINALLY able to order an iPhone this morning. Ships by July 14th...

Now to see if any of my in-store reservations went through for day 1.

I tried and tried to order for delivery no go. So then reserved at the Brandon Store in Florida. Just as I did for the IPad Wifi model. Everything on the macbook pro screen was confirmed. However I never got the confirmation email. Now after purchasing three Macs in the last 6 months, one IPad, multiple add ons such as blue tooth Apple keyboards, mouse, IPad camera adapter kit, loads of software etc oh and 6 iphones for the family. I called my local Apple stores business line to confirm my reservation. NO GO! I was told to wait in line so sorry...

I've even been asked to demo the IPad for business users. So I can wait for the middle of July or wait in the I hope I get one line of a thousand at the store on release day. Instead of the reserved line like I have for all the other releases. I love Apple but this seriously puts me in a non-Apple mood.

You'd be best to go the 25th, and get on a waiting list in store.

AT&T... #faceplam. I'm gonna wait and see what happens with the new Droids at Verizon.

I'm really pissed... I spent all day ordering only to succeed at night (10:30 pm EST) I just looked at my receipt and I have to wait until July 2-4. WTF, so becuase of AT&T's order servers glitching and buckling, I get screwed out of getting my phone on launch. Thanks a lot AT&T thanks a lot...

Damn, I'm in a bad mood now...

Is the Apple Store still taking reservations for purchasing an iPhone on June 24th? If not, will there be two separate lines - one for people with reservations and one for people that do not have reservations? There has to be, right? Because how else can they guarantee those of us with reservations that they will have an iPhone for me if I show up on June 24th?

I was able to pre-order with Apple via telephone this morning with a ship date of July 2nd. I then received an email with a link to accept the Apple _and_ the AT&T terms and conditions. After I entered my credentials (email and order number), I get his message " We're sorry, your purchase record could not be found in our system. Please double check your email and order number or contact us at 1-800-MY-APPLE." I call Apple who says everything is fine on their end, which makes sense because the person who sold me the phone asked me to accept the Apple terms and conditions. But this Apple rep tells me he can transfer me to AT&T "to manually accept" their terms and conditions. He said the order will not process without acceptance of both. He transferred me to the wrong number. I finally got someone at AT&T who said terms and conditions are accepted on activation of the phone. I spent 34 minutes on hold waiting to pre-order. I spent 45 minutes on hold waiting for the 2nd rep who transferred me to AT&T. Still no resolution.

Glad to hear iOS4 (and I assume iTunes update) is coming out on the 21st. That should help things alot next Thursday. I'll get to play with a few of the new features while I wait for #4 to arrive.