“More than a month after the Apple iPhone 4S went on sale, the three largest U.S. wireless carriers are still struggling to keep up with customer demand for it,” Greg Bensinger reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“Verizon Wireless customers may have to wait more than three weeks for the device, according to the carrier’s website,” Bensinger reports. “That compares with as much as 21 days at AT&T and up to 14 days at Sprint Nextel… The carriers point to unexpectedly strong demand for the handset. ‘We are having some supply issues in the sense that demand’s huge,’ AT&T’s president of emerging devices, Glenn Lurie, said Wednesday. ‘We have had just record-breaking sales on it.'”
Bensinger reports, “U.S. retail sales rose 0.5% in October, beating expectations, and many economists said the fifth consecutive monthly increase for the indicator was due in part to the Oct. 14 introduction of the iPhone 4S model. The introduction helped spur a 3.7% increase in electronics sales. Apple may sell as many as 27 million iPhones globally in its fiscal first quarter, estimates Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Okay, who else is glad they pre-ordered on Day One?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JES42” for the heads up.]
That’s false, I ordered on Monday afternoon an will have it in the morn…
It also depends on WHO you order it from…
When I ordered mine, AT&T, I had a 2-3 week wait. (still waiting)
IF I wanted Verizon… up to a week wait.
Sprint? Available NOW…
“Okay, who else is glad they pre-ordered on Day One?”
Most of us iPhone 4 owners couldn’t upgrade yet at the launch of the 4S unless we paid full price for the iPhone. Not everyone wanted to do that.
If you signed a 2 year on Day 1 for the iPhone 4, I did, Nov 24th was the FIRST day you could upgrade at the subsidized price. which most people buy at..
AT&T allowed it’s long term users to upgrade “Early” up to 30 days Early than the typical 18 months.
$300 vs $800. same phone, same monthly bill… hmmm.
And like my Brother in Law, BlackBerry sufferer… Was told he could “upgrade” his Work phone last month and get an iPhone!
He got all the paperwork done and was just told 2 days ago… He will be able to get the 4S!
but he has to wait until maybe mid December or even January before he actually gets it. at least a 3 month wait for his… but he gets his free.
Or he can go out and buy one himself and have the company reimburse him after he fills out more paperwork… Yeah, he’s waiting.
oh and also it can depend on size..
Mine’s 64GB.
I could have grabbed a 16GB model from Verizon or Sprint in store.. but I wanted 64GB and AT&T.
the times I list above are for the 64GB version.
the 32GB versions were 2-3 weeks for AT&T also and I think Sprint had in stock. I’m not sure about Verizon, didn’t ask/care.
Only reason I knew the Sprint models was cause they were joking about nobody wanted Sprint iPhone 4S…
Maybe I could go buy a few and sell them online…
I’ve had mine still sitting in the box for three weeks. I’m waiting for the jailbreak to come along.
It’s funny you should say that.
In the UK I could have reserved a 32 or 64 for collection next day from an apple store, but 16’s where not available. So i had to order from the apple.com and wait a week for my 16 to be delivered.
Also if you wanted a contract phone, you could have one same day from an apple store.
Walked into the Apple store on (any given) Sunday and Bam, 16Gb on Orange. Took maybe 20 minutes from walking in to walking out. That was 2 weeks ago. Loving it so far apart from the battery.
“Loving it so far apart from the battery”
Power supply plays such a small role! You can still do alot when it’s dead, like, well, umm.
Sorry, I guess you are screwed.
I walked into an Apple store Tuesday morning as they opened. Got the last black 16G 4S of the day!
Pro tip: Use the in-store reservation and pick up method if you’ve got an Apple Store near you. New iPhones come in (daily, I think), but you need to hope online at 9 p.m. (local time?) to reserve yours.
As you might imagine, the 9 p.m. rush absolutely crushes Apple servers. But it turns out that this problem is not as severe on the Apple Store iPhone app. So, hook up with a friend who has an iPhone, and at 9 p.m., sit there with the iPhone app and maybe a web browser or two on your Mac and keep trying.
The app worked last night for my boyfriend after about 20 minutes of trying, and he’s picking his new iPhone up now!
This is what I did last week. I wanted to get my wife a new iPhone for her birthday (this past Saturday), but the wait for both AT&T and Apple were 2-3 weeks.
I read you could reserve a phone for the next day after 9:00 PM. So that’s what I did. Reserved it about 10:00 PM and picked it up the next day.
Yup, it worked like a charm for me. I got mine last Thursday. I found a store on the website, put in my reservation, and picked it up Friday morning at around 11. I was outta there in 15 minutes, even with a few people ahead of me.
I plugged it into my iMac and restored from my iP4’s backup, and walla, activated and ready to go no prob!
Siri f’ing rocks! So does the new camera, and the added, ahem, snappiness.
I ordered mine str8 from apple…I’m on AT&T, but read they were messing orders up a lot. Got the white 64gb…:)
Oh, please. If Foxconn turned out more than 100,000 iPhone 4Ses a month, Apple retailers wouldn’t be having these backlog problems and over-exciting Apple shareholders hoping to gain back the money they lost from the previous quarter.
Oh! I forget to mention, Apple shares down another $7 today and the hits just keep on coming. Bad habits are hard to stop. Forgive me if I’ve upset anyone. Good luck with those supposedly monstrous iPhone sales. I might even pick up a couple of Apple shares when it hits $360. I’m feeling lucky.
Yeah with your net worth being as low as your IQ a couple is out of your price range…Dumba@@!
I totally Agree with you WiseInvestor, apple sucks.
I’ve been telling everyone not to buy Apple stock when Android came out about 4 years ago when Appl was around $70.
I’m so happy I’ve not lost a single dollar on aapl as I didn’t buy any.
It’s hard to be upset at such sheer, moronic idiocy… Trolling to piss people off…4 million in a weekend isn’t monstrous.. It’s a bloodbath.. By quarter end it will hit well over 20 million..
I’ll bet money on this moron owning an android phone..
Weird.. I just waltzed into an Apple Store and had a 4GS in my hands in 15 minutes….
4GS?
He time warped!
i walked into an AT&T store and day 2 and walked out with a 32 gig white iPhone. Guess that luck comes from clean living or something. Two days later I went to the Genius bar complaining of poor battery life, and they gave me a new phone. No problems since. 😉
I tried to order one 2 days ago for pickup in San Francisco or the North Bay, every store is sold out of the 64GB AT&T version (most were sold out of all AT&T versions). Online ordering said a 1-2 week wait. So, anyone pretending the 4S is not being well-received is full of .
…. full of…
“nonsense”
Shite?
irregardless of what model… Apple needs to get in front of the demand…
We all know that the iPhone 5 (whenever it comes out) will be even more hyped than the 4S (screen size, camera, true 4g… whatever reason)
So all this stuff about marketshare is just a reflection of Apple not being able to meet demand…
One way Apple can in fact kill Android… and MSFT mobile, et al: license that OS with strict standards as to hardware. I wouldnt know the ramifications regarding profit or future Monopoly lawsuits – but that would truly drive Apple’s iCloud. Speaking of which… they better get on building 2 more of those data centers…
Don’t hold your breath for that.
I have a family plan and have been with AT&T since day one with iPhone 1st gen and was only four months into a new contract when AT&T sent me an email saying there were giving me “1 ” early upgrade for iPhone 4s what a gift they give and I personally love AT&T service has always been spot on and they don’t even thottle me despite me using 30 gb month of data (: I stream 24 7 !! And love every min of it !!
30GB of data a month?…. holy crap.
I don’t think i’ve ever been over 2GB, but I have the unlimited plan. I have WiFi 75% of the time though. (trusted WiFi locations)
Walked into an apple store 2 weeks ago and bought mine straight up.
I love it!! No issues whatsoever. It is an amazing device.
ATT has a 1 day shipping time on the 16s and 32s, white or black. Since nobody orders 64s, I’ve no idea how long the wait is for those. Last week the backorder was 2 weeks. The pipeline is filling. This is just more carrier hate.
i ordered a 64gb… and still waiting.
Easy to get a 4S here in New Zealand – was available Friday 11th, went to the Telecom Store near my house 30 mins before store opened, was 2nd in line out of 4 people… 🙂 loving it btw.