This was theeeee absolute most difficult pre-ordering experience I’ve had…and I upgrade every year. The TL;DR is that I still managed to get what I wanted, a Dark Purple 128gb 14 Pro with release day pickup. The too long version is that it took forever, and I currently have 2 orders for it. I did the pre-pre order through the app so I could speed through my worst-case scenario order if needed, and it turns out I did. I had 1) military discount, which you can’t get through the app (nor can you use it with Apple Card financing, but I’ll come back to that), and 2) a $354 Apple Account balance that I wanted to use. Well, my first attempts were through the website, which I couldn’t even access until ~8:15EST. While waiting for that, I tried several times to complete the “Get Ready” I’d done through the app. Kept getting to payment and it failed authorization…for all 3 methods I attempted. One I could understand (my Discover tends to err on the side of caution and send a text asking if I attempted a transaction), but the other 2 should have had no problems. One was my Apple Card that has a zero balance (but is still active)! Apple Pay wouldn’t work. Credit cards wouldn’t work. When I finally got in through the app…same thing. Finally about 8:50 I was able to get it through in the app; not ideal as it was the monthly financing which I didn’t want to do because I couldn’t get the $100 mil disc nor use my Apple Account balance. But I’d rather do that than nothing. Even after placing that order, I tried several more times to place an order through the military storefront and that FINALLY went through about 10:50. And still for Sept 16 pickup. That was my ideal situation as I was able to get the $899 price and use my $354 balance. The other piece is that we will be traveling; we check out of our hotel in Orlando that day to head to TN. The earliest I was able to get for pickup by that point was 2:45pm but I did order a watch yesterday with an 11:00 time slot so hopefully they’ll take pity on me and give me both then or my husband is gonna be PISSED that we’re not at least 3 hours down the road by then 😂