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BenjipNZ

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 9, 2007
36
43
Just starting the thread for those of us in Australia and (in my case) New Zealand.

How did everyone go with the pre-order this year? I got mine in through One NZ (FKA Vodafone) and received a confirmation email, so that's a good start 😎

The Apple NZ website/online store was having a shocker though, I was keeping an eye on that and nothing was online until well after 12:20am Auckland time.
 
Yeah, same boat, refresh did nothing. Switched to the app at 12:05 and got my orders in for September 22 delivery.

Wife changed her mind late about colors, now she's getting it hers end of October 🤣
 
I was refreshing the store on my Mac and doing a force-quit/launch cycle every few seconds on my iPhone from 12–12:04am. Finally at just before 12:05 the store came up on the app.

The configuration I had pre-saved on announcement day was gone, so I had to go through the whole process again.

Got my order set up, delivery date of 22 September, paid via Apple Pay. Took less than a minute to get the order through once the store was up.

Got confirmation email… with a delivery date of 25 September. For some reason. And because I live way out in the wops of the Wairarapa, it’s probably gonna be more like 26 or 27 September in reality.

Although last year when I ordered the Apple Watch Ultra I got a shipping estimate of 27 September, and it actually showed up three days earlier. We’ll see.
 
I reckon they probably factored in the RD address (if you are rural delivery) when giving you the 25 September date.
 
I gave up on reloading the apple store app and the web because it kept on saying "We're just adding a few more things" and that I needed to wait and by then it was 12:08am so the app finally changed and let me configure until it crashed whenever I pressed the 128GB button. So I just ordered on Noel Leeming instead 💀
 
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I see Noel Leeming still has preorders available for the blue iPhone 15 Pro, but not any other colour.

Seems to be the same for the Apple online store.

Is blue really that unpopular?!
 
I see Noel Leeming still has preorders available for the blue iPhone 15 Pro, but not any other colour.

Seems to be the same for the Apple online store.

Is blue really that unpopular?!
(this is an edit) I saw that you were talking about the pro just after I replied with a response about the standard iphone 15 blue 💀 (whoops) but for the pro I'm actually surprised that the blue is still available, as it's the only "stand out" and "different" colour in the selection (as the rest is white, grey and black) overall though I have no idea
 
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Placed the order(pro, 128, natural titanium)20 past 12 on 16/09. It’s in “preparing to ship” status. Now, spark’s offering a $400 off on interest free plans. We are with spark already so, I might have to cancel the order with Apple:(
 
Do I pre-order and hope that I can get say $1200NZD for my 14 Pro, or just wait until I'm next in AU and trade-in at an Apple store?
 
Do I pre-order and hope that I can get say $1200NZD for my 14 Pro, or just wait until I'm next in AU and trade-in at an Apple store?
You're looking at mid October to mid November for almost all configurations at this point. The blue titanium Pro (not Pro Max) has better availability than anything else - some configs of that model still have an arrival date of 22 September.

If you're going to be in Aussie sooner than that, you may have better luck with a trade-in at an Apple Store. You'll almost definitely get more money for your 14 Pro if you chuck it up on TradeMe, regardless of what condition it's in, but I wouldn't do that until you get a confirmed delivery date for its replacement.
 
You're looking at mid October to mid November for almost all configurations at this point. The blue titanium Pro (not Pro Max) has better availability than anything else - some configs of that model still have an arrival date of 22 September.

If you're going to be in Aussie sooner than that, you may have better luck with a trade-in at an Apple Store. You'll almost definitely get more money for your 14 Pro if you chuck it up on TradeMe, regardless of what condition it's in, but I wouldn't do that until you get a confirmed delivery date for its replacement.

I did not think about availablity.. you're right. We'll see come November :) kinda sucks being at the bottom of the world and a low demand market so not much stock comes our way.
 
My partner and I put in an order through the Apple Store but it took us till 10:20PMish to even get in. She got a 15 pro max in white for launch day and mine which was the same in natural is coming 27th-3rd October.

This was in Australia btw
 
The Apple store was unavailable for so long. I comitted to Spark, and then spent 3 hours trying to order via their webstore (constant crashing). Got up in the morning (Saturday) and got an order through at 7am. Have a confirmation email... but nothing since.
 
Yeah Spark had a shocker. I’m glad I didn’t go with them this year. At least everyone was probably in the same boat, so it’s not like you’ll be at the back of a giant order queue 😎
 
Yeah Spark had a shocker. I’m glad I didn’t go with them this year. At least everyone was probably in the same boat, so it’s not like you’ll be at the back of a giant order queue 😎
When I tried to get any form of clarity around where I am in that queue they wouldn’t tell me. As a new customer I don’t yet have enough account information to prove my identify, so I go in circles.

Someone in their chat did say to me “our system is showing the 15 Pro in stock”, so maybe I’m good.

I don’t really know what the drill is with preorders from telcos. Am I expecting them to ship it out on Thursday?
 
I don’t really know what the drill is with preorders from telcos. Am I expecting them to ship it out on Thursday?

I'm a veteran when it comes to NZ telco orders haha. Over the years I've done both 2degrees and Spark, and they've always arrived on launch day.

I think the process is that one of the two big tech/telco logistics companies (Brightpoint, or Ingram Micro) will already have thousands of iPhones in their local warehouses, or they'll be getting them today/tomorrow. They then split them out into 2degrees/Spark/One batches and add all the stuff for each telco (brochures, invoices/receipts, maybe SIM cards?).

Then on Thursday they'll box each phone up and print out a courier label with your info on it. Once that gets scanned into the courier network on Thursday afternoon, you'll get an email from your telco saying it's on its way, with the tracking info.

This all happens because Apple doesn't have any warehousing or logistics capability in NZ (and I guess the telcos just outsource it too), hence why every time we order something from the Apple online store it gets sent overnight from Sydney (even if it's just one cable or polishing cloth).

I imagine all three major telcos have some insight into how many phones they've been allocated, hence being able to tell you the 15 Pro is still in stock. One year I didn't order my phone from Spark until the Saturday (as in the day after the Friday physical release date) and it was still in stock even then, for delivery on the next working day. I think it was the Sierra Blue year, so iPhone 13 Pro.
 
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I'm a veteran when it comes to NZ telco orders haha. Over the years I've done both 2degrees and Spark, and they've always arrived on launch day.
Be thankful you missed out on the bad old days with Vodafone. The iPhone 4 launch was an absolute debacle. Vodafone dropped the ball on that one so badly that I switched to Telecom in 2011 for the iPhone 4S and never looked back.

In late July 2010, Vodafone scrubbed all info about the iPhone 4 launch from their website on the day of the launch, refused to answer questions about availability, deleted all criticism from their website's message boards, turned people away from their stores when they opened at 9am, then waited until midday to message people that the iPhone 4 was available after all. And this was back when there were literally only two ways to get the iPhone: the online Apple Store, or from Vodafone.

In November 2011, I walked into the Telecom store late afternoon on launch day for the iPhone 4S and asked offhandedly if they had the new iPhone in stock. They did, and I walked away with the iPhone 4S with zero dramas. Night and day difference.

It's been 13 years, but I've never forgotten how epically Vodafone mishandled that launch, and I'll never do business with them again.
 
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Be thankful you missed out on the bad old days with Vodafone. The iPhone 4 launch was an absolute debacle. Vodafone dropped the ball on that one so badly that I switched to Telecom in 2011 for the iPhone 4S and never looked back.

Not only did I not miss out on that launch, I was one of the many driving from store-to-store (starting at around 7am at MagnumMac on Broadway in Newmarket) trying to figure out what was going on 🤣

I finally got my iPhone 4 at a Vodafone store at around 1pm.

I don't even think we had an official Apple online store back then? It was all still done through Renaissance if my memory serves me correctly.

All the telcos have had their iPhone issues over the years, remember the disaster that was the Telecom XT network rollout? It ended with the CEO having to record a TVC apologising to customers… Or more recently, the Spark online store being offline for hours during the pre-order on Friday night 🫢
 
I'm a veteran when it comes to NZ telco orders haha. Over the years I've done both 2degrees and Spark, and they've always arrived on launch day.
Thank you for your insight, I appreciate the detail. I really wish Spark did a better job of articulating the process themselves. They're quite poor on the communication side of things.

It sounds like, odds are I will receive the iPhone 15 on Friday though. Fingers crossed!
 
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In November 2011, I walked into the Telecom store late afternoon on launch day for the iPhone 4S and asked offhandedly if they had the new iPhone in stock. They did, and I walked away with the iPhone 4S with zero dramas. Night and day difference.
The Telecom launch wasn't flawless either though: I'd preordered from the Telecom website, and one or two days before launch my existing phone stopped working. They'd moved my number onto the new phone even though it was still sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Then, when it turned up, there was a card in the box saying "ring [number] from your old phone to transfer your number across". Obviously I didn't need to do that!
 
Amen to that. I remember when 3G was the future. Now it probably can't even stream Spotify or Apple Music 🤣
 
I have an iPhone 12 on Skinny. Annecdotally, I have never had a good experience with 5G. I can have full bars on 5G and if I browse the web it either doesn't load or loads excrutiatingly slowly. I've never pinned down what the problem is, because it's difficult to debug. Speedtests seem sensible, but the "feel" is definitely off (below 4G). And yeah, 3G is as good as "no signal" for me.

I don't know if the 15 has upgraded modems or not, but here is hoping the experience is a little more seamless...
 
I just wanted to ask though, was ordering from Noel Leeming a good choice as I've ordered a iphone 15 128GB and is yet to receive a tracking or one of those emails telling me that it's on the way (because it's a click and collect thing). I'm probably just worried because I kind of want to have it on launch day at least but the expected pickup date is 25th of September. I asked one of those chat things in the website if there was any possibilities of it coming early and they said that it would probably come at around launch day but I'm just worried that Noel Leeming has delay or such for some reason. I'm probably just paranoid from my other experiences with ordering stuff online
 
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