Chaos surrounds New Zealand iPhone 4 day

Apple's iPhone 4 went on sale today in New Zealand. But Vodafone NZ's handling of the launch left much to be desired, with hundreds of customers left in the lurch. Many had queued up overnight outside Vodafone NZ stores to told by staff that "no iPhones coming in today and they didn't know when they were coming in," Jacob …

[Dale 3]

Some people never learn

Do they not have access to international news over there? Did they not see what happened everywhere else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Might be because NZ was one of the first?

You do realise that NZ was one of the first countries to hit the 30th don't you? So it would have been hard for them to read about what happened in the rest of the world without a time machine.

[Tom Cook]

What?

There are hundreds of Vodaphone customers in NZ? I didn't think they'd learnt to bang rocks together yet.

Mine's the one with the boxing kangaroo...

[Charley 1]

Hundreds of thousands

Only hundreds who are silly enough to want a Jesusphone.

Heck, Vodaphone are having a hard time getting SMS working right lately. God forbid they start messing with a phone that dies if you hold it wrong while txting.

[Bassey]

It was a nightmare

"the worse thing was there was no information."

Sorry fella but if you've just spent all night queuing to buy a freaking phone then I can assure you that you have FAR more important things to worry about than a lack of information.

[PaulK]

"100's of Fanbois disappointed.

Literally hundreds. Jobby don't care about hundreds of thousands so this is a really big deal. Not.

[Zobbo]

Expected 5 years after the rest of the world, as usual

Well their texts never turn up in time, it follows that the phones are the same. Where's Android 2.2 for my magic, ey? Late as well...

[uhuznaa]

This is getting absurd

It looks more and more as if the iPhone supply is nothing but a trickle meanwhile. It's almost impossible to buy an iPhone anywhere. And it's not only a "more demand than supply" thing, there's hardly any supply at all.

[Seanmon]

Really?

People still want to buy these? I'd have thought at least wait for an official fix. (no, a free cover does not count as a "fix")

[vegister]

baa

"People still want to buy these?"

- sheep don't ask questions.

[Winkypop]

In other local news.....

....local shepherds said that the sheep enjoyed the night off.

[fred #257]

yeah but...

Vodafone's network is pretty limited in rural areas (where the sheep mostly live, at least the woolly sort). So I'd expect the market for a phone with dodgy reception (YES the news of the iphone's troubles has permeated down here) would be distinctly limited among the sheep-bothering fraternity.

New Zealand: Where Men are Men and sheep are nervous.

Mines the one with a very old Panasonic A200 in the pocket... no camera, not 'smart', all it does is phone calls and lasts forever on a battery charge...

[Platelet]

Q: How many fanbois does it take to change a light bulb?

A: 3

One to hold it right

One to fit the free lampshade

And one to claim all lightbulbs are dark

[I am the Walrus]

Quit Ya Bitchin' people.

F**K off with your panning of this release. There's a corporate conflict between with Apple and Vodafone NZ at the moment (something to do with %'s and what not) and this is the result so don't worry about it. It will all be resolved asap as Apple can't do with out Vodafones income in the NZ market (Yes it's small globally but every cent counts (watch the pennies and the pounds will take care of theme selves I think mum said?)) ) and everyone will have there shiny new devices soon enough so calm down. For my two sense worth, I'm happy to wait until November when my contract runs out as I'm interested in upgrading my (Unlocked)3G, I am thinking of a 4 but we'll see how android dose by then?

[Code Monkey]

Jacob Creech

The sort of name to get me checking it's not 1st April

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Jacob Creech

"The sort of name to get me checking it's not 1st April"...

Or 19th century Dickensian London!

[pctechxp]

Over exaggeration

"it was a nightmare"

No! coming home to find a hole in your roof with water pouring in (as I did a couple of years ago) is a nightmare.

This, my misguided Kiwi friend is a small inconvenience and there are better phones out there anyway.

Beer, because he needs to sit down, enjoy one and reassess his priorities.

[Anonymous Coward]

So?

Vodafone UK's launch was pretty much as pants - they started online buying an hour or two early then pretty much disregarded a lot of the orders & couldn't tell you if you were getting your iPhone4 even after it had already arrived.

Just comes down to lack of supply.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aussie gets a party, NZ gets silence....

Amazing how Aussie Vodafail and NZ Vodafail are the same company yet Aussies got to collect theirs at midnight complete with a launch party whereas NZ had no information and a late stunted launch. Could that be down to VF being the only carrier in NZ????

If anyone visits NZ I'd suggest avoiding Vodafail like the plague especially if you are a fan of customer service and decent coverage.

[Dave Ingram]

Vodafone not the only party in NZ now

Geez, where have you been? Telecom NZ now run a UMTS 850MHz network (well it is up and down like a bride's nightie), 2 Degrees have GSM and are about to start UMTS (2100MHz I think).

The irony of the iPhone3 & 3GS is that vodafone was the official dealer, but they worked better rurally with Telecom because of the 850MHz support (which was for AT&T). At least the ipwn 4 has 900MHz UMTS support so rural Voda coverage will be better (and same with VodaOz and Optus over the ditch).

I ditched my NZ Voda prepaid and am now using 2 Degrees. I don't care about data and the prices are half that of Voda. Shame about the coverage, but I think it is getting better.

[David McMahon]

Oh no!

What are they going to do? Don't they realise that people need food, shelter and iPhones to exist?

Is there a charity that we can contribute to?

I would like to hear the stores of the brave Chinese who are making millions of cases so that people are not disconnected!

[Just call me ^God]

.......Sigh!

another stellar example of New Zealand Big(cough cough) Business getting it soooo wrong...

-for those bagging Vodafone NZ, - Telecom 'aint any better....

[Just call me ^God]

Duty Free Shopping

I have it on very good authority that several Apple NZ employees were dispatched to Australia on an urgent mission to buy as many units as they could.... what a c*ck up lol!

[Dr Patrick J R Harkin]

"...they didn't know when they were coming in..."

Apparently they tried ringing, but couldn't get any reception....