It’s a funny thing that iPhone X went on pre-order sale at 12:01 am California time. Which makes it a pain the neck to order when you are anywhere in the US.
When you’re in Singapore, however, the time to order is at a friendly 3:01 pm, so; well done, Apple. :)
Naturally, I wanted to replace my iPhone 6s with the X. The 8 is a great device, sure, but two problems there:
- once you’ve seen the X (and quite frankly: the Galaxy S8) it is hard not to look at the large chin and forehead bezels and not think the design looks dated
- if I bought an 8, it would have had to be the 8 Plus – I want to have the dual camera with all its portrait mode and zoom magic badly, but I am pretty sure I would have been annoyed by the unwieldy size of the Plus
So, yes: the X is the “Hello future” iPhone and it conveniently offer everything I want in my new phone. I am excited (despite this being new tech which is probably prone to some unhappy issue which will pop up and make me curse myself).
And yes: there is more to both the 8 and the X than I am writing about here, but honestly: you do not come to this blog to read tech reviews, so if you don’t know anything about these phones, don’t bother or make yourself smart elsewhere.
Back to it: just before 3 pm I was home, having both my iPhone and my new iPad Pro ready for the ordering process. Word is that you should order via the Apple Store app and as long as you see the “our store is down” message you force quit and re-launch until you get in. So this is what I was planning to do, doubling my chances with two devices.
Getting an iPhone at launch day is a challenge, because supply is always constraint for new iPhones. And the general consensus is that getting the X delivered at launch day on November 3rd is virtually impossible, because you compete with nerds and enthusiasts from 55 countries for one of the true signature devices that might even blow the craziness of the iPhone 6 launch out of the water.
Anyway, I was ready.
And so was Lamia who was still in the office, but made sure she would be undisturbed for the next 10 minutes.
And then it was 3:01 pm.
I kept launching the Apple Store app on my iPhone and the iPad, but it kept showing the message that the store is down and that I should check back later.
3:02 pm.
3:03 pm.
Still no change,
I was kind of expecting that I would be eventually successful on my iPad Pro, given it is a way faster device than my iPhone 6s.
3:05 pm.
3:07 pm.
Damn it! The store was still down. Lamia was messaging me that she had the same problem. I kept going. And kept going. And kept going.
3:08 pm.
And then, at 3:09 pm, I suddenly was in the store app on my iPhone, while my iPad was still getting the “check back later” cover page. That was a little surprising, but who really cares: I was in.
I ordered one iPhone X. And because Lamia was having the same problem I had on my iPad, I ordered a second phone right away for her, too. And then I frantically checked whether the order went really through. But with the apparent tidal wave of access requests to the Apple Store app I got only a bunch of error messages.
But then I suddenly got a text from my bank at 3:11 pm that the charge went through to my credit card for phone number one. And a 3 minutes I got that same message for the second phone.
I had done it!
And even better and more amazing: I did it fast enough that delivery of both phones is confirmed for November 3. Launch day!
Now, this won’t help me that much, of course: I am leaving to the US Sunday night and I only come back two weeks later.
Never mind, though: I’m still stunned that I won the pre-order lottery!
That phone’s better be good.
ps.
By the way, both Lamia’s phone and my iPad only had store access around 3:15 pm or so. At that time delivery times had slipped to 2-3 weeks. A little later they were at 3-5 weeks and they now stand rather solidly at 4-6 weeks.
Actually not as bad as anticipated, given that it was expected that launch volumes would be so limited that orders would slip into January very quickly.
