Sold out despite massive systems fowl-up that sent customers to the stores and backlogged orders for another week

Apple 4 sold-out illustration from Engadget

If you wanted and iPhone 4 yesterday and got yours pre-ordered, good news. For thousands of other would-be iPhone fans it was a day of frustration with clogged phone lines, down computers and Apple sending people to the retail stores.

Some people reported being able to pre-order after midnight. As day light dawned, the system crashed. The rumour is AT&T was at fault. Since Apple needed to verify your AT&T account to accept the order, things ground to a halt.  Some customers who logged onto AT&T computers where shown other people’s accounts. That’s another security breach for AT&T who last week were hacked on iPad accounts.

Somehow, Apple muddled through the day with thousands of frustrated customers.

The response was still so overwhelming  Apple sold out their initial US allocation of iPhone 4s. All new orders will wait another week until July 2nd for delivery. White colored iPhone 4s have no official release date but September is the expected shipping date.

The best way to get an iPhone on June 24th, 2010 when they are released is head over to Radio Shack, Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Each store will receive a pre-allocated number of phones so first come first served. Line-ups are expected since Mac fanboys want their toys.

Despite the problems, Apple will be laughing all the way to the bank. Apparently customers can’t get enough Apple i products to satisfy their desires.