Customers rush in to pre-order Apple’s new iPhone X

Pre-order stock for Apple’s highly-anticipated iPhone X has sold out within minutes after eager customers flooded the Apple website and telco sites to reserve their device ahead of the next week’s launch.

Customers were able to pre-order from 6.01pm online and within minutes the estimated delivery time was already moving out to 4-5 weeks.

But some customers were angered when sites crashed under the weight of pre-orders while the Apple Store and Apple Store app weren’t available until seven minutes after the 6.01pm pre-order time.

The most popular version of the iPhone X initially was the 256GB model and it wasn’t long before the 64GB version caught up to the 4-5 week delivery estimate.

It was the same story at the Telstra, Optus, Vodafone and Virgin Mobile sites.

SEE TECH GUIDE’S HANDS-ON LOOK AT THE iPHONE X

Within 25 minutes the Telstra and Optus sites said the iPhone X was only available only on backorder.

Virgin Mobile’s delivery estimates had blown out to early December within 20 minutes.

We had reports of the Vodafone iPhone X ordering page crashed under weight of customers.

We were able to log in at about 6.30pm to find estimated delivery times between 1-3 weeks after order approval.

A Tech Guide reader who didn’t want to be named missed out because of the crash – and he wasn’t happy.

“Shopping cart for iPhone X order.  Blank white screen. I don’t know if I’ve ordered it,” the Vodafone customer said.

Our reader’s screen showed the page was down for maintenance work.

“Good time to do some maintenance. I’m f***ed now. Won’t get it for weeks.”

“Got through and the shopping cart was a blank screen. That’s no excuse. They are a billion-dollar business and can’t handle traffic.”

Tech Guide readers reported the Apple iPhone X ordering page and Apple Store app weren’t able to be accessed until 6.08pm – seven minutes after the pre-orders were scheduled to kick off.

One reader, Jarrod Gardiner, went to great lengths to ensure he was one of the first customers online to order his silver 256GB iPhone X the second pre-orders began.

“I was sitting here in middle of the Sydney CBD with good a 4G connection with my iPad set up and also using my iPhone to load/refresh the Apple store app constantly from about 5:50pm every second.” Gardiner said.

But despite his preparations, Gardiner says the Apple app didn’t work for him. By time he eventually ordered his iPhone X on the Apple Store on the Safari browser on his iPhone, the shipping time had moved out to 4-5 weeks.

“The app wouldn’t load until 18:08 – and then when I managed to get my order in the bag I kept getting errors with processing payment,” he said.

“I put in my security code 10 times. Whilst I was doing that – I noticed the shipping times were increasing.

“At first, I was getting it on launch, then one week, then two weeks….

“The Apple Store app on both my devices actually didn’t work in the end I had to use Safari on my iPhone for the payment to go through (finally).

“That was a very stressful 45 minutes or so from a technology or Apple fan point of view.”

The iPhone X goes on sale on November 3.