Firstain

Ah the iPhone!

Apple's latest craze after the iPad - the iPhone 4 has reached new heights. It has been confirmed officially that the Cupertino Giant managed to get 6,00,000 (0.6 million) people to pre-order their iPhone 4. And its only Day One for heaven's sake!

Its a Record!

Yes. 6 lacs on day one. Wow! According to a press release from AT&T, this figure is more than 10 times than that of iPhone 3GS pieces sold on the very first day last year.

Given Apple's fan base, and given the controversial launch of iPhone 4, there were no surprises that records would be broken. But by this margin? Not even Steve Jobs had predicted it. Or AT&T (the lone carrier) for that matter.

The Bad News

With good news always comes some bad news. The unprecedented demand for Apple's iPhone 4 has forced AT&T to suspended further pre-orders for the Apple device. This means if you couldn't pre-order today, you're out of luck for quite some time - at least till AT&T clear all the pending orders.

AT&T Official Press Release

DALLAS, June 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T issued the following statement today:

iPhone 4 pre-order sales yesterday were 10-times higher than the first day of pre-ordering for the iPhone 3G S last year. Consumers are clearly excited about iPhone 4, AT&T's more affordable data plans and our early upgrade pricing.

Given this unprecedented demand and our current expectations for our iPhone 4 inventory levels when the device is availableJune 24, we're suspending pre-ordering today in order to fulfill the orders we've already received.

The availability of additional inventory will determine if we can resume taking pre-orders.

In addition to unprecedented pre-order sales, yesterday there were more than 13 million visits to AT&T's website where customers can check to see if they are eligible to upgrade to a new phone; that number is about 3-times higher than the previous record for eligibility upgrade checks in one day.

We are working hard to bring iPhone 4 to as many of our customers as soon as possible.

AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

For more information and detailed disclaimer information, please review this announcement in the AT&T newsroom athttp://www.att.com/newsroom.

Apple Sorry

Meanwhile, despite Apple's record 6,00,000 pre-orders for one day, they apologized "to everyone who encountered difficulties" because of it (and it's partners') lack of anticipation of demand which finally lead to further pre-orders being suspended for iPhone 4.

Apple started taking pre-orders from five countries until widespread reports of delays, system malfunctions, server breakdowns and even security breaches caused it's pre-order campaign to an end on Day One itself and forced them to issue an apology.

Official Apple Statement

Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple's new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions. Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. 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.

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