Pre-Ordered iPhone 13 Pro
Apple is doing something interesting with the iPhone 13 orders this year. In the past, they used to open up ordering at midnight, Pacific Time. This meant that it was 2:00 am local time for me, and I get up early to run, so it wasn't horrible - and given that the new iPhones sell out in a matter of a few hours, it was the only way to get one of the first batch.
Then in the last few cycles, they moved the starting time to 5:00 am Pacific Time, so that meant a 7:00 am start time for me - not bad at all. But there was still the load on the Carrier's APIs, and there would be issues with that, and all manner of other things, so this year they have again, changed things up.
After the Apple Event the Apple web site allowed for a sort of Pre-order, Pre-Order... You can go through all the steps of buying the new iPhone - selecting the size, color, capacity, communicating with the carrier, payment method - everything right up to the point of actually buying it. And then you wait for 5:00 am PT on Launch Day, and you simply finish the order. The iPhone is in your "Bag", and you just need to pay for it.
This gets around a lot of the surge of orders because no one can buy one until Launch Day, and it's the same starting time, but all the communication with the Carrier, etc. is now much more spread out in the days leading up to Launch Day. They haven't started shipping anything, and I don't believe they have even reserved units for sale - but they have done all the work needed to verify that you are who you say you are, and all your selections, so on Launch Day, there is much less to do.
Clever. 🙂 I like it a lot. I've got my phone on pre-order, pre-order, and on Launch Day, tomorrow, I just need to login and click once, and it's in the Pre-Order queue. Nice.