Edible Apple

AT&T’s servers yesterday buckled under the pressure of immense iPhone pre-orders that far exceeded any one’s expectations. By early afternoon, AT&T had already exhausted its supply of pre-order iPhones, and subsequently pushed back the shipping date for iPhone pre-orders to July 2.

Now, AT&T is going one step further and suspending iPhone 4 pre-orders altogether. In a statement issued today, AT&T explained that iPhone 4 pre-orders were 10 times higher than pre-orders sales of the iPhone 3GS. In short, AT&T is putting the kibosh on pre-orders to ensure it can meet the orders it already processed.

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.

We are working hard to bring iPhone 4 to as many of our customers as soon as possible.