IPhone 4 sales hit a snag on AT&T website
AT&T has dropped the apple. Again.
Eager Apple fans aching to be the first to order the company’s new iPhone 4 when it went on sale Tuesday morning got hung up by problems with AT&T’s online ordering system. Attempts to purchase an iPhone through AT&T’s website returned a message saying there was a “system error that prevents us from completing your request.”
Bloggers reported that lines were forming at AT&T retail stores but that, with the ordering system down, clerks were taking orders by hand.
The ordering problems are the latest in a saga of technical difficulties that has dogged the relationship between Apple and AT&T, the blockbuster iPhone’s exclusive telecommunications carrier. IPhone users have long complained of spotty service, slow data rates and dropped calls — especially in big cities packed with iPhone users.
Then last week, AT&T admitted that a security vulnerability in its website had allowed a group of hackers to obtain the e-mail addresses of as many as 114,000 iPad users.
Apple and AT&T also have a record of glitches when it comes to launching the iPhone. When the iPhone 3GS shipped last year, users had to wait hours to activate their handsets. A similar bottleneck occurred during the launch of the previous 3G phone in 2008.
AT&T declined to comment on the situation. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
A clerk at the Apple store at the Grove in Los Angeles said the store was experiencing difficulty placing orders. She recommended prospective buyers try the free Apple Store app that was released Tuesday morning to make ordering Apple products easier for consumers.
But attempts to order the phone by way of the new app were also unsuccessful.
