Waking up to a phone call from my fiance in San Diego while I was sound asleep in a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, she informed me that her friend had successfully pre-ordered the newest Apple iPhone; the iPhone 4. I got out of bed admittedly a little excited but fretting the next few minutes (what would turn out to be hours) anticipating the horror and onslaught that the process would be. I was right to suspect that many others would be trying to do the same and lock in an iPhone but now, not only do I despise Apple more so but AT&T as well including this "pre-ordering" process.
To make my story short, three hours later, I successfully added an iPhone 4 to my cart, then went back to add another one for the 2nd line on my account. Of course, I was told, when ready to check out, that my shopping cart had too many iPhones! I only had two freaking iPhones! Why didn't you tell me two hours ago that I could only order one?! So basically, after all that, I was no where. Two hours later, I get back to my cart, removed one of the iPhones, placed the order and was forced to repeat the same excruciating experience!
Refresh after refresh, checking eligibility after eligibility, processing on AT&T's servers inundated with multiple failures, I'm going to say that this experience was the biggest failure in online pre-ordering history. If you're going to make an annoucement that pre-orders will begin on the 15th of June, then man **** up and expand your services in anticipation! I better not see some stupid Press Release announcing that they servers were over loaded and they did not anticipate the overwhelming response. That's just going to be another crappy PR Stunt.
Condensed time line:
6:00AM - get up and start trying to pre-order the Apple iPhone 4 (excitement)
6:01AM - the store is down (excited still)
6:20AM - I've been refreshing the screen on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox noticing that Google's Chrome is giving me faster results.
6:30AM - I see that I'm able to actually click the shiny blue pre-order button.
7:30AM - frustrated after multiple attempts to proceed to the next step, I lay back down
7:42AM - I get up again and start the process over
7:50AM - trying to get AT&T the verify that I qualify for the "discounted" price by inputting my phone number, billing zip code and social security number then hit continue.
7:51AM - I think I'm there....but the process fails while authenticating on AT&T side.
7:52AM - I have to start the stupid process again.
8:30AM - I'm pissed!!!
8:45AM - the last freaking thing I want to see a website display is "Oops?!" WTH
8:51AM - You tell me that I can't have it shipping and I have to pick it up!? Do not pass go and try again.
9:15AM - I was successful in pre-ordering 1 iPhone 4 but still have 1 to go
9:50AM - I decide to write this post and vent my frustration! And, no I still have not been able to get pass the processing part.
Throughout this whole time, I'm seeing the Apple Online Store go up then down then up again while noticing that the store address is changing / continually evolving.
First from: http://store.apple.com/us/go/iphone4 then: https://buyiphone.apple.com Good for apple but just a little too late!
Final Thoughts: Standing in line at the Apple store isn't nearly as frustrating but actually fun!?
