you won't get it at your door on sunday that's 100% sure. 
step away from the computer and enjoy your weekend
step away from the computer and enjoy your weekend 
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The "I just bought/ordered/got/shipped my new/refurb MBA" thread, [Merged]
- Thread starter kfscoll
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When it's good and ready ;-) ... if you're prepared to work you'll leave for work when you're ready... lol
That or it was scanned for departure, but missed the departure cutoff waiting for a truck to the airport? Mine as many others has been in transit from China since early Friday. I went to the Apple store to see it the first time in person... I was way impressed. I've owned the MBA version A and C... This is a huge improvement IMHO. This is a great companion to my 15"MBP.
The problem is nobody here has a real answer. Your order is being handled by a third party company which isn't consistent when doing CTO's after new launches. They rush them as quick as they can. If you'd read other forums with the exact same subject, you'd see that the general consensus is that they build them, then several times a day (it's now 7 am Sunday there) 7 days a week fedex picks up. Remember FedEx Asia and FedEx USA are different companies, so the tracking info won't always be as reliable nor will there always be the number of scans as with a US to US shipment.
I ship back and forth to asia a lot, and if I were a betting man I'd peg that your laptop is already in Fedex's custody, and you'll probably see tracking info in the next 12 hours.
The problem is nobody here has a real answer. Your order is being handled by a third party company which isn't consistent when doing CTO's after new launches. They rush them as quick as they can. If you'd read other forums with the exact same subject, you'd see that the general consensus is that they build them, then several times a day (it's now 7 am Sunday there) 7 days a week fedex picks up. Remember FedEx Asia and FedEx USA are different companies, so the tracking info won't always be as reliable nor will there always be the number of scans as with a US to US shipment.
I ship back and forth to asia a lot, and if I were a betting man I'd peg that your laptop is already in Fedex's custody, and you'll probably see tracking info in the next 12 hours.
that is exactly the response i desired regardless if it is right or wrong, i have no knowledge on fedex or their activities so i appreciate you shedding some light on my predicament thanks.!
You're way ahead of the game either way. Mins still says "Not Yet Shipped" since I ordered it late thursday night. The cool thing about Asia shipments is they can arrive before they ship. I live in San Francisco, and when they put the Apple products on the China>Oakland flight, it leaves Guangzhou, China at 7 AM and then gets into Oakland at 4 AM, and since I'm right across the bay it generally gets delivered the same day. It really looks funny to see "Picked up in China at 7AM and delivered in San Francisco at 10 am"... gotta love the date line.
Doesn't look like I'll be so lucky with this one since everyone's seems to be coming from PVG :-( It's torture... waiting for my FeatherBookAir
you won't get it at your door on sunday that's 100% sure.
So are you telling me I shouldn't spend my weekend traveling to Anchorage to intercept that thing?
Seriously, I didn't know that Oakland was also an incoming airport for Apple shipments. Can anybody confirm this?
It never leaves the plane. It sits on the plane at the airport on the tarmac just like all of the cargo planes. Anchorage is a refuel and customs clearance point to the US. Normally it'll sit there for less than 12 hours and customs will electronically clear it. However if you're unlucky to have something on the same plane going to Juan Escobar in Miami, there's a chance they'll delay the bin for 1 day and put it on the next day's flight. I've had tons of stuff come through Anchorage en route from Asia, and have only had an issue with mine being in customs-delays a couple times. Don't worry, if it has departed china you'll get it Monday or Tuesday
Mine finally shipped on October 23rd. Estimated arrival by FedEX on October 28th by 4:30pm. I did not used expedited delivery.
Ordered on October 20th at 12:23pm.
Product / Part No. Qty
MBAIR 13.3/2.13/4/256FLASH
Z0JH 1
Custom configuration| Show Hide
2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
256GB Flash Storage
USB Ethernet Adapter
iWork Preinstalled
Keyboard/User's Guide
COUNTRY KIT
Recycling Fee
Ships: 1 - 3 business days
Delivers: Oct 22 - Oct 28
Ordered on October 20th at 12:23pm.
Product / Part No. Qty
MBAIR 13.3/2.13/4/256FLASH
Z0JH 1
Custom configuration| Show Hide
2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
256GB Flash Storage
USB Ethernet Adapter
iWork Preinstalled
Keyboard/User's Guide
COUNTRY KIT
Recycling Fee
Ships: 1 - 3 business days
Delivers: Oct 22 - Oct 28
Usually they ship the computers (in containers) to a location in Europe, then hand them to DHL/UPS to deliver to us. Maybe they already left China but because it is weekend, no one in Europe update the website?
My BTO Mac Pro (bought in Sept.) just turned to be with UPS in Tamworth, UK, after four days of "prepared for shipment", was then delivered to me the next day.
Hopefully everyone understands that "built to order" is just an excuse to get away with being able to say "available today" but there's certainly nothing custom about this one. It's like a car dealership. If there's only 2 cars and both of them have 3 option packages, they're not "built to order" that's just a marketing gimmick... they mass produce all the combinations and sell them. I can't believe it's taking this long, I ordered mine Thursday and it's still NOT YET SHIPPED... in 10 years I've bought probably 25 MAC computers, and this is only the third time I've ordered from Apple. Their fulfillment model is a joke.... even when you order a system that's in stock in a warehouse it takes them 3 days to ship then they ship 2-3 day, so it takes 5-6 days to arrive. If amazon pulled that crap they'd be out of business. If i order from Amazon by 430pm and chose expedited, it's at my door by noon the next day. This is really tiring... guess the real reason they don't offer 4GB in retail and third party is so they can have more control of the profits. Annoying as hell.
Clearly you've never been to China. There's no such thing as a "weekend" in China. Manufacturers work 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and even FedEx operates 7 days a week. Weekends are irrelevant and have been in every past discussion of this kind
Mine has been "Not Yet Shipped" since Thursday... I'm going to fly over there myself and tell them to whip the workers to work harder if it's not shipped by tonight,lol
Enlighten me on this marketing gimmick? How is telling people that a system above and beyond the stock system is built to order when it really isn't is a marketing tactic?
There's no "stock system" ... it's just the one that's been sent to retail. You've fallen for their marketing already.
With the 11 inch, there's literally:
2GB\64GB
2GB\128GB
4GB\128GB
Do you really think they're "custom building for you" this model? No, they're manufacturing them, and you'll get one when it's in stock. It'll be shipped from the warehouse, but go ahead and think there's one rolling down the assembly line with your name on it.
With a mac pro where there's 15 components and literally hundreds of config options sure, it may be assembled for you. Certainly not with MB Air.
Again, you fail to explain the 'marketing' gimmick. Marketing is intended to sell product. How does your theory sell more product? If your 'theory' hold true and they do this to sell more product, why not have all of these combos in the Apple retail stores?
They probably buy big containers to go to regional hubs. It's a LOT cheaper to ship a container with 400 MBPs on KLM to the netherlands than it is to ship 400 individual packages. Even with their ridiculous FedEx discounts.
Because they couldn't have them in Apple stores until THIS week. Clearly nobody has gotten a higher-spec'd MBP yet from their order. So they hadn't ramped production to have them available for stores last week. They had to put their cards into one model per size to be able to say "available today"... if they'd had the ability to have all models produced they would have. But this way they said "Available today" so you can order it thinking they're making it when in fact the nature of product manufacturing is it takes a week to ramp up manufacturing and distribute a product like this. They're not going to give up on a week's worth of sales this time of year.
While I agree with you, you are slightly simplifying it.
With the 11" there is:
2GB/64GB/1.4ghz
4GB/64GB/1.4ghz
2GB/128GB/1.4ghz
2GB/128GB/1.6ghz
4GB/128GB/1.4ghz
4GB/128GB/1.6ghz
And it there's even more combinations with the 13".
So while no, I doubt extremely they are "custom" building a computer as they ordered, there production lines produce significantly less of the non-retail machines because there is significantly less demand for them. So as orders come in for the 4GB/128GB/1.6ghz 11" machine, they take them out of their production supply.
But I'd wager that prior to wednesday nearly all the machines being produced were the standard configurations so that they could fully stock all the retail stores, and accommodate as many as possible of the standard orders (and say the "shipping today" phrase).
So while yes... it is a marketing gimmick to say "buy to order", it's just arguing vocabulary. Whether or not they call it "buy to order" it doesn't change the reality that they are producing less of the non-standard configurations, and it will take longer to fulfill those orders.