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| Photo: iPhone 15 Pro Max |
On Friday, preorders began for four iPhone 15 models in over 40 countries after they were introduced at an event Tuesday. The top-of-the-line Pro Max, starting at $1,199, soon saw its promised delivery date slide from as early as Sept. 22 to well into November in the US.
Delivery dates for the Pro Max in blue and black delayed to as late as Oct. 16, while the model’s cosmic grey and white colors ships Nov. 13. The delays impact every iPhone 15 Pro Max storage tier, the version that includes an upgraded camera and bigger screen. The orders started at 5 a.m. in California.
The length of time its takes Apple’s hardware to arrive is something that the company’s analysts, investors and fans have long used as a barometer to judge how popular a new model might be. It’s an imprecise science: Supply chain hiccups, inventory and logistical problems can impact lead-times as much as demand. But Friday’s delays indicate Apple is seeing healthy demand for the phones — including in China, a market where some worried about backlash.
That’s important for Apple, because the iPhone makes up roughly 50% of its sales -- and the company is banking on this model to turn around three quarters of declining revenue growth.
Canada has six- to seven-week wait times for the iPhone 15 Pro Max (they had up to eight weeks on natural titanium). This will only increase the lags as more and more pre-orders are done.
Customers of the base iPhone 15 Pro with a reduced screen experienced shipping issues too, impacting some storage capacities on all finishes. Wait times on those phones, which begin at $999, stretch out to as late as Oct. 23 in the US as of Friday afternoon. To date, the only base iPhone 15 models facing delays were the pink Plus and standard iPhones in pink and green.
Slower deliveries delay the damage, and store shopping may be useful. Some of Apple’s approximately 270 US retail stores still offered earlier in-store pick-up times. iPhone 15 Pro Max seems to be the best seller until now, with limited availability at stores and online.
The 15 Pro Max is $100 more this year — and the clamoring for preorders
shows Apple’s pricing strategy isn’t alienating customers.
When preorders went live, several users noted that they couldn’t get
transactions to go through for minutes at a time and the Apple Store
mobile app crashed at launch or during ordering. The problems primarily impacted customers trying to trade in an old iPhone or use Apple's iPhone Upgrade Program. That would also imply good initial demand.
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