iPhone 4S Pre-orders Crush Apple and AT&T Servers

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Like many of you, I stayed up until launch time to try and snag the iPhone 4S, only to spend a half hour refreshing and getting nowhere. The Apple store remained stubbornly un-open, AT&T completely crashed under the weight of interest, and while Sprint and Verizon initially were both allowing pre-orders, these also suffered later. Waking up two hours later, I managed to slip an order in through Apple, but were then faced with the reality that we couldn’t chose a shipping location, we were forced into billing address (not currently there) and haven’t been able to change it since.

Attempts to call the Apple Store have been fruitless.

Now Apple has switched from its normal order system, instead href="http://www.cultofmac.com/121767/apple-store-buckles-under-iphone-4s-order-pressure-but-this-time-apple-is-prepared/">holding reservations for people, allowing them to come back later and complete the order.

As of right now, the Apple Store website is down due to traffic, though it occasionally resurfaces.

This happens every year, even with a lackluster product like the iPhone 4s. Why haven’t these companies learned to account for it yet?