Apple apologizes for iPhone 4 gaffe

On Wednesday morning, Apple released a straightforward apology for Tuesday's series of iPhone 4 pre-order cock-ups. As The Reg reported Tuesday, prospective buyers in both the US and the UK — at minimum — found themselves unable to order the next must-have Jobsian device due to server overload, either in Cupertino, at the …

[Muckminded]

Plural of "snafu"

is "A(pple)T&T".

[Cliff]

SsNAFU

SsNAFU

[Chris Haynes]

It's snafuzalems!

Or something equally cutesy because it's Apple.

[Dana W]

I can't wait....

For El Reg's fast posting spin doctors to turn record breaking sales, and unbelievable popularity into "proof" that Apple isn't cool anymore.

I'm actually enjoying the show. The fear driven fud is comical.

[Pascal Monett]

Fear-driven ?

Since when has El Reg been afraid of Apple ?

Or do you consider that criticizing something is an admission of boot-quaking fear ? Rather simplistic, I'm afraid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor planning

The spin du jour is "poor planning", as if you wouldn't take advantage of the ability to sell products as you made them. What they've effectively managed to do is cut down on storage costs. If they'd started making enough iPhones to meet demand on launch, they'd have been making them for months and storing them in a warehouse somewhere. Far better to sell 'em as you make 'em, if you can get away with it.

Not to mention it futher enhances the "exclusive" myth.

Why this continues to be pushed as a bad thing just eludes me.

[Dan 37]

huh?

umm... either you need to read the article again or I do. I'm not entirely sure how apple's online ordering system shitting the bed has anything to do with stock levels.

[ThomH]

Sorry — Apple did what?

For a second there it sounded like they'd done something contrite. Obviously I misread the article. I'll give it a second go.

[Doug Glass]

Huh?

You want to pluralize the phrase "Situation Normal; All Fucked Up" ? Rule, BritanniaS. Oh sorry, Britishes humors.

[blackworx]

Re: Huh?

Everyone loves a smartarse.

No, really, they do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pick me!!!!!!!

I do I do!

[Anonymous Coward]

The real message:

We screwed up but we are so awesome that 600,000 people pre-ordered the phone and we are telling you this in order to create hype. The real reason for the screw up was also to create more hype. In the mean time, our amazing Apple servers still suck as much as any other server since the awesomeness of SJ did not prevent them from crashing under the load. If you think we will really apologise to you, think again. We are awesome and we apologise to nobody. Oh did we mention that we are awesome and we sold 600,000 phones already?

Note to marketing manager: We haven't sold shit and we had to pull the plug in oder to create hype. Just come up with a random number of sales and advertise it. Also, remember to tell AT&T to leak some customer data and get some publicity for us. No publicity is bad publicity after all.

Regards,

Skeletor aka Mum-ra aka SJ aka g0d

[Dana W]

Have you BEEN out recently?

I've been at the Apple store and the ATT&T store, and its been crammed with people trying to pre-order a Gen 4 iPhone.

So in the first paragraph you admit that they were so slammed by orders their system went down and in the second one you claim that nobody bought any and they faked everything? Which is it?

[Neil Greatorex]

@Doug Glass

You want to spell pluralise with a sodding "z", here on El Reg. ?

Irony, it's like steely but it isn't. Was going to mention "American Humour <- notice the "u" -> but can't be arsed.

Still, I suppose BP will pay.

[Tom Thomson]

pluraliz^Hs^Hc^Hze or however you want it spelt

"You want to spell pluralise with a sodding "z", here on El Reg.?"

Why not? Surely all the British reg readers are familiar with the OED spelling standard, and abhor those nasty American spellings with "s"?

Oh, my mistake - I didn't realize that you were one of the spelling nutcases who think the OED has it wrong and "z" is an Americanism.

[jake]

iSNAFU

Shirley.

[Anonymous Coward]

US vs UK order lead times

Have you noticed

Going to http://store.apple.com/us and pre-ordering an iPhone4 suggests a Ships by 14th July.

Going to http://store.apple.com/uk and pre-ordering an iPhone4 suggests a Ships by 2nd July.

As I have a high boredom threshold (and 2nd July is a way away :-) did some header watching...

Amusingly, both stores seem to be using Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0

for the stores at http://store.apple.com/us and http://store.apple.com/uk but

- the main site at http://www.apple.com/ has various Apache builds including Server: Apache/2.2.11 (Unix)

and Server: Apache/1.3.33 (Darwin)

and Server: Apache/1.3.33 (Darwin) PHP/4.4.7 mod_perl/1.29

as well as other Apache builds.

[Ed]

Netcraft

Netcraft report that store.apple.com is running Apache/1.3.33 (Darwin).

I looked through the headers and couldn't find any references to IIS?

[Anonymous Coward]

re: US vs UK....

I think you got MiTM'd when you got the IIS6 headers.

[Campbeltonian]

Ink

"Ah, Apple — it can get ink even for admitting its poor planning."

Uh, I count nine Apple, iPhone, iPad or Mac related articles on the front page of El Reg as of now.

If you don't like the amount of press Apple get around the time of a product launch, stop frigging writing about them!

[raving angry loony]

plural?

SNAFUA - Situation Normal All Fucked Up AGAIN.

(sort of like criterion-criteria and datum-data, but completely different).

Let this be my contribution to the English language. Beats the other crap I've come up with.

[Anonymous Coward]

My God!

Don't you see? If the servers became overloaded and 600,000 pre-ordered one, then I must surely need one too?

[justkyle]

To add some more fuel to the fodder

In the states,

AT&T's server most recently fessed up to running LINUX at netcraft.com

www.wireless.att.com

This is where I pre-ordered 5 on Monday.

Kyle

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

SNSFU

S N Still F U