Technology Smartphones

iPhone 15 Preorders Open With Frustration As Apple Store Struggles

Tim Cook with the iPhone 15 Pro in his hands. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
By Rahul Srinivas/

It's only been a couple of days since Apple announced the latest generation of iPhones and watches. These devices were set to open up for preorders starting on September 15 at 5 a.m. PDT. However, things don't seem to be going exactly as planned, as several people are taking to social media to complain about the Apple Store crashing, and orders not going through.

Interestingly, the Apple Store outage isn't just limited to the U.S. Store. Apple customers in several other countries have indicated that they are facing issues preordering the freshly launched iPhone 15 models.

The first sign of trouble began early in the morning as people noted that the Apple Store was still down after the promised preorder time of 5 a.m. PDT. It was a similar story in other parts of the globe too, where people thronging to the Apple Store were greeted by a message asking them to wait a bit longer since Apple was still applying "finishing touches" to the Store before preorders opened up. As thousands of people collectively hit their refresh buttons, the Apple Store struggled to respond, throwing up error messages and failed transactions.

The crashing of the Apple Store has led to a virtual meme fest on social media, with many of them criticizing the trillion-dollar company for being unable to handle an anticipated surge in traffic from early-bird Apple fans.

Apple Store App Affected Too

iPhone 15 showcased at the Apple laucnch event. Bloomberg/Getty Images

While many people were hooked to the Apple Store website to place their preorders, some others decided to try out the official Apple Store app. However, it was a similar experience on the app as well, with it throwing constant errors, as one user confirmed. He also went on to add that this was the most problematic iPhone preorder he has experienced in over a decade.

According to one user, the Apple Store did eventually open up for him at 5 a.m., but it continued to throw multiple errors at every stage. Once he did somehow end up preordering the phone and hit the checkout button, he was logged out of the system with a message stating that his session timed out.

While some people did eventually manage to place and confirm their orders, the overall experience left a sour taste in many mouths. Given the fact that Apple wasn't particularly in the dark about the possibility of millions of people trying to book the latest iPhones, there is a consensus among Apple fans that Apple ought to have handled this better.

Apple has yet to make an official statement on today's developments, and it remains to be seen if these store troubles haunt them for the rest of the day. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that these initial hiccups will have any major impact on the preorder figures for the iPhone 15 lineup.

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