iPhone 4 and AT&T’s Struggles

When the iPhone became available for pre-ordering on Wednesday, June 15^th, AT&T’s network failed Apple once again. Surprise, surprise. Starting at midnight both physical Apple store locations and online Apple stores started accumulating long lines and long waits. By 1:00 A.M. the online store started to freeze from overload. AT&T ran out of all pre-order phones by 3:30 A.M., Central Time. But the disasters don’t stop there…

There were reports of numerous pre-orders being canceled by mistake. Unsure of how many were affected, but numerous customers received an email from AT&T saying, “Your recently placed AT&T order was cancelled. If you believe your order was cancelled in error, please call us…” Apple admitted it was a mistake on their end and said people in this situation needed to either go to a physical store the next day or try ordering through a different outlet. Both options would end up with a much later arrival date than initially promised.

Apple did issue a statement apologizing for all the waiting and blamed all the malfunctions on the high demand and its failure to be prepared. How could they blame it on not being prepared? Apple took pre-orders for more than 600,000 iPhones. Sure that is more than ten times the pre-ordering rate for the 3Gs, but you should have anticipated the huge demand.

Once again, AT&T failed to redeem itself from the shadow of doubt hanging over its wireless network. This AT&T/iPhone fiasco shows how AT&T really cannot handle the huge volume of iPhone users like we’ve always thought. Apple, I hope this makes you realize how much more business you could do if you got rid of the exclusivity contract with AT&T and opened up to other wireless providers.