You have to hand it to Apple. Few have touched or seen the iPhone 4 in real life, but we surely flooded Apple’s pre-ordering system and forced it down to its knees. Apple said that more than 600,000 orders were received yesterday and the first batch of the iPhone 4, due for delivery on June 24, has sold out. If you are ordering a phone now, you can expect it to arrive on July 2.

There was anticipation, excitement and frustration yesterday. It was iPhone 4 day, the day you could pre-order Apple’s new smartphone. It appeared that for many of us the entire day was on hold when Apple’s pre-ordering system virtually collapsed. I can’t quite remember so many Facebook status messages in one day, from people announcing that had their order completed, some who informed me the entire day that they keep trying and a few who even said they were willing to risk their joib just to get an iPhone 4 pre-order in. Insanity? Perhaps.

Apple’s official statement of yesterday’s events reads like this:

“Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions. Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.”

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I am sure they will return. According to MacRumors and Silicon Alley Insider, some carriers around the world reported sales traffic to be about 10 times higher than during previous iPhoen launches. Here in the U.S. AT&T issued the following statement yesterday:

“iPhone 4 pre-order sales yesterday were 10-times higher than the first day of pre-ordering for the iPhone 3G S last year. Consumers are clearly excited about iPhone 4, AT&T’s more affordable data plans and our early upgrade pricing. Given this unprecedented demand and our current expectations for our iPhone 4 inventory levels when the device is available June 24, we’re suspending pre-ordering today in order to fulfill the orders we’ve already received. The availability of additional inventory will determine if we can resume taking pre-orders In addition to unprecedented pre-order sales, yesterday there were more than 13 million visits to AT&T’s website where customers can check to see if they are eligible to upgrade to a new phone; that number is about 3-times higher than the previous record for eligibility upgrade checks in one day.”

If you are jumping into the pre-ordering frenzy now, your choices are limited, as the white phone is listed as not available at this time. The black iPhone 4 will ship for new pre-orders on July2, but there is no information when the white version will become available again.

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