iPhone delivery anxiety

Apple works very hard to try and manage the massive preorder demand for day-one iPhone deliveries every year.¹ Apple originally allowed members of the iPhone Upgrade Program customers to set their orders up in advance, but eventually allowed everyone to pre-configure their phones before the official order time, leaving only the matter of the financial transaction to that Friday. Pre-approvals from financial institutions were started earlier than the Friday to try and prevent the rejections that happen when servers start melting down.

And yet, there’s still always some drama.

Some people live for that adrenaline rush of not knowing what will go wrong. Whether or not their orders for themselves, and family members, will all make it across that finish line. Oh, the stories they can tell about how they had the perfect Apple Store app force-quit workflow! Those people are living on the chamfered edge.

There are also people who were never in that group, or phased out of that group.…